Michelangelo's David | 
David After 2 Years in the U.S - Courtesy of our Fast Food Nation
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March was named
for the Roman god of war, Mars. Sadly Marsoids, there are no U.S or federal holidays in March. We'll have Red Cross
Month, Women's History Month National Nutrition Month, International Hamburger &
Pickle Month (we thought that’s
interesting considering it is Nutrition Month too), National Peanut Month (can
people be allergic to March?) and Irish Heritage Month, and
St.Patrick's Day….not to mention Professor Sy Yentz’ Birthday. The March full
moon has been give the rather romantic name of
"Worm Moon"
Contrary
to popular thinking the equinox is not equal day and night on the first day
of Spring. In the northern hemisphere, at latitude 40 degrees equal night
and day actually occur about March
17 . On the actual dates we call the equinox, the day is about 7 minutes
longer than the night.
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Science Gnus
is an almanacish compendium of News of Science, History, Mathematics and Items of Interest
as well as Professor Sy Yentz, Dr. Matt Matician, the Activity of the Month,
Factorinos, Trivia Question, Bonus Trivia Question, Extinct, Trivia Answers,
Jokes, Obscure Question, and other information that will enrich your life and fascinate your friends. |
1. 286
- Roman Emperor Diocletian (infamous for his persecution of
Christians) raised Maximian to the rank of Caesar. Follow this now because in - see below
293 - Roman Emperors
Diocletian and Maximian appointed Constantius Chlorus and Galerius as Caesares,
thus beginning the Tetrarchy. This was a four-part division of the Roman Empire. Diocletian continued to rule in the East.
He made Maximian co-emperor in the West. They were each called
"Augustus" which signified that they were emperors. Subordinate to
them were the two "Caesars": Galerius, in the east, and Constantius
in the west. An Augustus was always emperor. Sometimes the Caesars were also
referred to as emperors. The key name
here is Constantius Chlorus who was the father of Contantine the Great…….who
converted Rome
to Christianity.
1445 – Happy Birthday,
Sandro Botticelli, Italian Renaissance painter, famous for his whose Birth of
Venus (c. 1485) and Primavera (1477-78) – which can be seen at the Uffizi
Galleries in Florence.
1565 - The city of Rio de Janeiro was
founded. The first
Portuguese expedition to explore the Brazilian coast, between 1501 and 1502,
visited places in Rio, like the Guanabara Bay
and Angra dos Reis. The were unable to get satisfactory samba lessons so the
area remained in dispute with France until 1565, when the French were expelled,
and Tomé de Souza (military and governor general) founded the city of São Sebastião do Rio de
Janeiro.
1611 - Happy Birthday, John Pell, English
mathematician who introduced the division sign (obelus, ÷) into England.
The obelus was first used by Johann Rahnin 1659 in his fun-filled romp through
the world of mathematics, Teutsche Algebra. Pell worked on algebra and number theory. He
gave a table of factors of all integers up to 100000 in 1668. Interestingly, “Pell's
equation” y2 = ax2 + 1, where a is a
non-square integer, was worked out by Joseph Louis Lagrange, not Pell.
1642 – New York? Boston? Philadelphia?
Charleston?
No……Georgeana, Massachusetts
(now known as York, Maine)
became the first incorporated city in the United States on this day.
1692- The Salem Witch Hunt began. Before it was over, 19
innocent women were hanged. Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba, an Indian slave
from Barbados,
were charged with the illegal practice of witchcraft. Later that day, Tituba, probably
under coercion, confessed to the crime and encouraged the Puritan authorities to seek out more Salem witches. The
illnesses of some young girls was blamed on witchcraft. The trials that followed involved sensational
testimony with witness trying to outdo each other with tales of witchery gone
wild. A thriving industry of books,
movies and TV shows about the Salem
trials would follow a few hundred years later.
1700 – Ending up with
a February 30, and very confusing appointment
books, for fifty years, Sweden
introduced its own Swedish calendar, in an attempt to gradually merge into the
Gregorian calendar. It then reverted to the Julian calendar (eleven days off
the Gregorian) on this date in 1712, and finally went back to the Gregorian
Calendar on this date in 1753.
1781- The Continental Congress ratified the Articles of Confederation.
The Articles, the first
governing document for the United
States had been passed by the 2nd
Continental Congress on November 15, 1780. The Articles would later be replaced
by the United States Constitution. The Articles, written mostly by John
Dickenson (who had refused to sign the Declaration of Independence) were weakened by the Congress (sound
familiar?). Among the weaknesses were: Under the Articles there was only a
unicameral legislature so that there was no separation of powers; the central
government under the Articles was too weak since the majority of the power
rested with the states; Congress, under the Articles, did not have the power to
tax which meant that they could never put the country’s finances in order; in order to change or amend the Articles,
unanimous approval of the states was required which essentially meant that
changes to the Articles would be virtually impossible; for any major laws to pass they had to be
approved by 9 or the 13 states; under the Articles, Congress did not have the
power to regulate commerce or trade.
1790- Congress authorized the first U.S.
census under the responsibility of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson The six inquiries called for the name of the
head of the family and the number of persons in each household of the following
descriptions: Free White males of 16 years and upward (to assess the country’s
industrial and military potential), free White males under 16 years, free White
females, all other free persons (by sex and color), and slaves. The census, taken by U.S. marshals on horseback, counted
3.9 million inhabitants……or about as many people who are in front of you
waiting to get into the public bathroom, or at a toll booth, or in the “express
line” at a supermarket or claim to have seen the Loch Ness Monster just before
tourist season.
1803 - Ohio
entered the United States of
America as the 17th state. It’s called the
“buckeye state” because it has buckeyes.
A buckeye is a tree that is used today mostly as
pulp. In the past it was used for furniture, crates, pallets, caskets,
artificial human limbs. Ohio
is also the birthplace of seven Presidents.
Can you name them? – William Henry Harrison, Ulysses S. Grant,
Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, and Warren G.
Harding.
1810- Happy Birthday, Frederic Chopin, born Zelazowa Wola, Polish/French composer and pianist. Chopin, like all the other 17th
century composers, continues to decompose.
1848- Happy Birthday, US
sculptor and coin designer Augustus Saint-Gaudens (of the Gaudens of Eden),
born in Dublin Ireland. His first public commission was the statue of Civil War hero David Farragut in New York’s Madison
Square Park.
1864-
Rebecca Lee became the first American black woman to be awarded
a medical degree. Born
in Delaware in 1831, and after starting as a
nurse in 1852, in 1860, she was admitted to the New England Female
Medical College
and graduated on this day in 1864. Her A
Book of Medicinal Discourses in Two Parts was published in 1883. In the
book, based on her personal journals, she focused on instructions for women on
how to provide medical care for themselves and their children.
1867
-Nebraska, The Cornhusker State, entered the United States of America
as the 37th state. Nebraska had
been part of the Louisiana Purchase in
1803. The state is actually named after
the Platte River from the French meaning
"broad river." The Omaha Indians called the river "ibôápka"
also meaning "broad river." In 1842, explorer John C. Frémont used the word Nebraska in referencing the Platte
River and this was the name that was
given to the territory when it was created in 1854 as part of the Kansas-Nebraska Act which
created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska and opened the
area to settlement. The Homestead Act of
1862 provided free land in the West to settlers if they would agree to stay for
five years. Upon statehood, Lancaster, Nebraska was
renamed Lincoln
and became the state capital.
1872- Yellowstone National Park,
the world's first national park was established by an act of congress. President Ulysses Grant signed it into
existence The 2.2 million acres of wilderness was "set apart as a public
park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people."
Nathaniel Langford, one of the most outspoken proponents of the national park
idea, was appointed the first superintendent of the Park. Now it is overrun
with cars and tourists, and the whine of snowmobiles. Cheer up , most of the
park is the caldera of a volcano – that’s why they have “Old Faithful” and hot springs-and last major eruption at Yellowstone, some 640,000 years ago,
ejected 8,000 times the ash and lava of Mount St. Helens. It’s due for another eruption.
1872
– Same day as Yellowstone
Park was established…one
of the great scientific feuds achieved another milestone as bitter rival
paleontologists Edward D.Cope and O.C. Marsh raced for recognition of their
work on the fossilized remains of an animal with large wings from the dinosaur
era. On this day Cope read his paper to the American Philosophical
Society in Philadelphia
in which he named the creature as Ornithochirus.
However, in those days the printed word carried more weight and more
distance than the spoken word and Marsh had beat him into print in the American
Journal of Science a few days earlier, and the name he used, Pterodactylis, was established.
1873 - E. Remington and Sons in Ilion, New York
started production of the first practical typewriter. The concept of a typewriter dates back
at least to 1714, when Englishman Henry Mill filed a patent for "an
artificial machine or method for the impressing or transcribing of letters
singly or progressively one after another." The first typewriter proven to have worked was
built by the Italian Pellegrino Turri in 1808. The Remington typewriter was the
successor to the first “real typewriter” the The Sholes & Glidden which had
introduced the QWERTY keyboard still in use today.
1880 – Happy
Birthday, Sir Isaac Shoenberg, Russian/British electronic engineer. Shoenberg is known as the principal inventor
of the first high-definition television system, which was used by the British
Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for the world's first public high-definition
telecast from London
in 1936. The show, Survivor Contestants Beat Up American Idol Judges, was an immediate
hit. During
the 1970s and 1980s, the modern prototype for HDTV was being developed in Japan
as a way to improve television quality and therefore sell more TVs.
Contemporary high definition television is HDTV is a digital TV broadcasting
format where the broadcast transmits widescreen pictures with more detail and
quality than found in a standard analog television
1896- Henri Becquerel
discovered radioactivity when he developed the photographic plate he left in a
desk drawer and found it had fogged with the image of the uranium compound
crystals resting on it..........So that's why the pictures Prof. Sy Yentz took
at the World's Largest Ball of Ear Wax were so blurry! Recall that on February 26, Becquerel had stored a phosphorescent
uranium compound in a closed desk drawer on top of a photographic plate
awaiting a sunnier day to test his idea that sunlight would make the
phosphorescent uranium emit rays. By accident, he created a new experiment.
When he developed the photographic plate, he found a fogged image in the shape
of the rocks. He had chosen to work with potassium uranyl
sulfate, K2UO2(SO4)2, which he
exposed to sunlight and placed on photographic plates wrapped in black paper.
When developed, the plates revealed an image of the uranium crystals. These he stored
waiting for a sunny day…..which turned out to be March 1.
1912-Capt Albert Berry performed the first parachute jump
from an airplane. The Gnus finds this impressive if the plane was in flight at
the time but not so impressive if the plane was on the ground. Previously, Andre Garnerin, of France had leapt from a balloon in
1797 . It is believed that the first
recorded parachute jump took place in 852 A.D. when Arman Firman, a Muslim holy
man, tried to fly in Cordoba,
Spain. He
jumped off of a tower wearing a huge cloak. He thought the cloak would billow
out and allow him to float gently to the earth. Instead, the cloak did nothing
to slow him down and he crashed to the ground. Fortunately, there was enough
air in the folds of the cloak to soften the landing slightly and he survived.
Thus, this became the first recorded parachute attempt. While we are sure that Berry’s jump occurred over St. Louis, we have also found it listed as
occurring on March 13. We’ll go with the
American Institute of Aeronautic which lists it as the 1st. It’s
fortunate that no one on the ground was hurt….what with all these aeronauts
jumping out of balloons and planes all the time………
1921- Magician, Harry Houdini patented a
diver's suit. While diver’s suits had been around for a long time, - probably
the first was Klingert's diving suit in1797
It consisted of
a jacket and trousers made of waterproof leather, a helmet with a porthole, and
a metal front. It was linked to a turret with an air reservoir. Houdini’s diver's suit" allowed divers, in case of danger, to
quickly divest themselves of the suit while submerged and to safely escape and
reach the surface of the water.
1922-
Happy Birthday William M. Gaines, American publisher of Mad magazine. “Humor in a jugular vein”. Mad, as it did with many young folks, entertained, and contributed
immeasurably to Professor Sy Yentz sense (or attempts at) humor.
1924 – Happy
Birthday, Donald “Deke” Slayton, American astronaut. Slayton was the only one
of the seven original Mercury
astronauts not to fly in space. He was originally scheduled to pilot the
Mercury-Atlas 7 mission but was
relieved of this assignment due to a heart condition discovered in August 1959.
He did make his first space flight, however, as Apollo docking module pilot of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) mission, July 15-24, 1975—a joint
space flight culminating in the first historical meeting in space between
American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts.
1932- Charles Lindbergh III, the 20 month old baby of aviators Charles and
Anne Lindbergh was kidnapped from their home in New Jersey. The baby’s body was found on the
grounds of the estate about a month later.
Bruno Hauptman, a German immigrant was later convicted of the crime and
executed.
1936 - Hoover Dam
(originally Boulder Dam, changed to Hoover Dam in 1930 and changed back to
Boulder Dam during the FDR administration and then changed back to Hoover Dam
during the Truman Administration……as far as we know the damn dam is still
Hoover Dam) was completed. In November, 1932, the Colorado
River was diverted around the dam site. In June 1933, the first
concrete was poured at the site. Hoover Dam required over 3,250,000 cubic yards
of concrete plus another million for the power plant, intake towers and other
support structures.
1941 – The first commercially licensed FM
radio station began operations as Nashville radio station W47NV started transmitting. The station was
the first in the country to receive a license for FM radio transmission. All
previous commercial stations transmitted via AM, which was more prone to static
and interference. On the electronic spectrum, AM AM radio ranges from 535 to
1705kHz (kilohertz, or thousands of cycles per-second of electromagnetic
energy). The FM radio band goes from 88 to 108 MHz (megahertz, or millions of
cycles per second). FM stations must be 200kHz apart at these frequencies,
which means that there's room for 200 FM stations on the FM band……and,
seemingly, most of them play either lite
music or classic rock….But, unlike AM radio stations, FM stations don't end up
being assigned frequencies with nice round numbers like 1010 WINS or 660 WFAN. Thus, an FM station may be at 88.7 on the
dial. W47NV started its FM broadcast with a commercial for Nashville's Standard Candy Company followed
by Garth Brooks whistling and yodeling a
salsa salute to Tito Puente.
1954-Four members of an extremist Puerto Rican nationalist group
– nowadays we call them terrorists -fired more than 30 shots at the floor of
the House of Representatives from a visitors' gallery, injuring five U.S.
representatives.
1961-
President John F. Kennedy issued an Executive Order, establishing the
Peace Corps as a new agency within the Department of State. The Peace Corp became THE most popular government service agency of the
1960s. By the time of Kennedy’s death in November 1963, 7,000 volunteers
were in the field, serving in 44 Third World
countries. In 1966, Peace Corps enrollment peaked, with more than 15,000
volunteers in 52 countries.
1966- The Soviet unmanned spacecraft Venera 3, launched in November 1965, touched down on Venus.
This was how they discovered surface temperatures of 900 F as the spacecraft
melted and became liquid Venera 3.
The understated report was The communications systems had failed before
planetary data could be returned.
1971 – American terrorists exploded a bomb in the a
men’s room of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., causing an estimated
$300,000 in damage and forcing many Congressmen to “hold it” until they got
home, but hurting no one. A group
calling itself the "Weather Underground", an offshoot of the
Weathermen, who were an offshoot of Students for a Democratic Society (SDC),
claimed credit for the bombing, which was done in protest of the ongoing
U.S.-supported Laos invasion.
1980-Voyager 1 probe, launched in September 1977, confirmed the existence of the Saturnian moon, Janus. The reason for the
confusion was that Janus occupies essentially the same orbit as the moon Epimetheus.
Astronomers, assumed that there was only one body in that orbit, and for
a long time struggled to figure out what was going on. As these two
satellites approach each other they exchange a little momentum and trade
orbits; the inner satellite becomes the outer and the outer moves to the inner
position. This exchange happens about once every four years. Now that they knew
there was a Janus, credit for the discovery went to Audouin Dollfus who found it in 1966 and was named after the
two faced –looking forwards and backwards-god of gates and doorways.
2002
- The Envisat environmental
satellite, launched by the European Space Agency, reached an orbit 800 kilometers
(500 miles) above the Earth carrying the
heaviest payload to date at 8500 kilograms (9.5 tons). Envisat, short for environmental satellite, has a unique
combination of 10 different instruments which collect data about the Earth’s
atmosphere, land, sea and ice – providing scientists with the most detailed
picture yet of the state of the planet.
Back to Calendar
2. Read Across America Day (Observed the week of Dr. Seuss's
birthday)
986 - Ah, the shrinking gene pool. The Carolingian dynasty that begun with
Charles Martel and his son Pepin III (the Short) and then his son Charlemagne
(the Great), (Carolus Magnus—the source of the dynasty's name), sputtered to an
end with Louis V, also called the Indolent or the Sluggard. Louis was crowned the
King of France on this date. He was the
last Carolingian monarch. The next dynasty was the Capetians who
ruled from 987 to 1328, named after the dynasty’s founder, Hugh Capet.
1316 – Happy Birthday, Robert II, King of
Scots, called "the Steward", a title that gave the name to the House
of Stewart (later spelled "Stuart"). The Stuarts became kings of England (James I) after the death of Elizabeth. They continued until the Glorious Revolution
of 1688 when James II was ousted and William and Mary of the Netherlands
imported by Parliament. Stuart “pretenders” continued to try for the throne
until the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.
1459 – A good day for Popes, three born
on this day, Happy Birthday, Pope Adrian VI, (Adriaan Florenszoon Boeyens) born
in Utrecht in the Netherlands, the last non-Italian Pope until John Paul II. Then
1810 –Pope Leo XIII (Count Vincenzo
Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci) who became the oldest Pope at age 93, and then
in
1876- Happy Birthday, Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli)
1730
– On the “march” to more & more
discoveries about electricity, Stephen Gray (according to Erik Larson in Thunderstruck) clothed a boy in heavy
garments until his body was thoroughly insulated. He left the boy’s hands, feet, and head
unclothed. Using non-conductive silk strings he hung the boy in the air, then
touched an electrified glass tube to his naked foot, “thus causing a spark to
rocket from his nose”.
1769- Happy Birthday, DeWitt Clinton,
Governor of New York, and the moving force behind the building of the Erie
Canal, through upstate New York to connect the
east with the Midwest. He also narrowly lost the presidential
election of 1812 to James Madison.
1784 - Jean Pierre François Blanchard was a pioneering French aeronaut who
worked on designing heavier-than-air flying machines, including one based on a
theory of rowing in the air currents with oars and a tiller…..really! He was best known for his many pioneering
balloon flights. He took up ballooning following the Montgolfier brothers' 1783
demonstrations of hot-air-balloon flying in Annonay, France.
Blanchard made his first successful ascent in a balloon he built himself on
this day in 1784.
1793- Happy Birthday, Sam Houston,
born in Virginia. He was the only man to serve as
congressman, senator, and governor of two states, Texas
and Tennessee, and is credited with winning Texas's independence from Mexico.
1807-Congress abolished the African slave trade. Signed into law
by Thomas Jefferson on this day, the Bill "prohibits the importation of slaves into any port or
place within the jurisdiction of the United States...from any foreign
kingdom, place, or country."
1836 – On Sam Houston’s birthday and just four days before the fall of the Alamo on March
6, Texas proclaimed its independence from Mexico. Independence
was secured with Sam Houston’s victory over Santa Anna ….and capture of the
hapless general at the Battle of San Jacinto in April. This is now Texas Independence Day, a state holiday.
1863-Congress
authorized a track width of 4-ft 8-1/2 in. as the standard for the Union
Pacific Railroad. This width became the accepted gauge for most of the world. U.S.
track gauge based on UK
track gauge. True. While most U.S.
railroads were designed by U.S.
engineers, not British expatriates, a number of early lines were built to fit
standard-gauge locomotives manufactured by English railroad pioneer George
Stephenson
1855 - Alexander II became Czar of Russia. Alexander was the
eldest son of Czar Nicholas I. In
backwards Russia,
he implemented important reforms, notably the abolition of serfdom, as well as
changes in national, military and municipal organization. He also rethought
foreign policy: Russia
now refrained from overseas expansion and concentrated on strengthening its
borders. In 1867, he sold Alaska and the
Aleutian Islands to the United
States. On March 1, 1881, in St. Petersburg, he was
mortally wounded by a bomb thrown by a student, a member of the revolutionary
organization "The National Will.''
1861 – “Serfs Up”. Czar
Alexander II (see 1855 above) signed the emancipation reform into law, abolishing
Russian serfdom.A serf was
a peasant who did not enjoy the rights of a free person, but was not a slave.
While the slave was an object of the law, the serf
was still a subject of the law – a person…..but barely. It was a miserable
life.
1877- Ending yet another sleazy chapter in the story of Presidential
politics, Congress accepted an electoral
commission's decision that Republican Rutherford B. Hayes had won the disputed
presidential election of the previous November over New York Governor, Samuel
Tilden. Tilden had won the popular vote
but presidential elections are based on the electoral college (number of votes
per state based on members of congress which is based on population). 185 votes
were required to win, Tilden was ahead 18 4electoral votes to 165 for
Hayes. Four states were in dispute; Florida (AGAIN!!!!!, Louisiana,
South Carolina, and Oregon.
The votes and hence the electoral votes for these states were decided by
this Electoral Commission. Hayes got all 20 votes. Do the math. Three days later, Hayes was
inaugurated as the 19th U.S.
president.
1887- Happy Birthday,
Harry E. Soref, locksmith, inventor of the laminated steel padlock, and founder
of Master Lock Company in1921. Plenty of
locks but no bagels, tsk, tsk. And what, you ask, is a laminated padlock? The plates punched punched from sheet metal
were stacked and assembled. Holes that were formed in the middle of the plates
made room to accommodate the locking mechanism….the u-shaped top. The entire stack of plates, loaded with the
lock parts in it, was then riveted together. Take a look at your Master Lock
and see the layers.
1902 – Happy Birthday, Edward U. Condon, American
physicist born in New Mexico.
The eponymous, Franck–Condon principle (James Franck was a German-American
Nobel winner in physics) was named for him.
We looked it up and there is no way to explain it unless you’re really
really smart and know what is a rule in spectroscopy
and quantum chemistry that explains the intensity
of vibronic transitions is. Condon also applied quantum mechanics to
an understanding of the atom and its nucleus.
1904 –Horton
Hears a Who.
And that’s what is
new.
There nothing that’s loose.
So
Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss.
You’re
here in the Gnus.
Happy
Birthday, Theodore Geisel, author of The
Cat in the Hat, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas,
Green Eggs and Ham among other books
in rhyme……except for Bartholomew and the
Oobleck which doesn’t rhyme.
Maybe it was an off day.
1917 – The grandson of
Czar Alexander II – crowned on this day 1855 (see 1855 above), Nicholas II of Russia
abdicated the throne in favor of his brother Michael II of Russia who refused to accept.
1917 –
Lucy! I’m home….” Happy Birthday, Desiderio Alberto Arnaz ye de Acha the Third,
you know him as Desi Arnaz, Cuban bandleader, singer and actor. He married
actress Lucille Ball and created the classic TV comedy, I Love Lucy in 1952.
1925 – With more and more cars being manufactured and
sold, more and more drivers were getting lost.
The federal highway numbering system was implemented by a commission of
state highway administrators. They even
added the shield shape to the signs. Today as we all know (don’t we?) signs
have different colors and east/west highways have even numbers and north/souths
have odd numbers……………….and we still get lost…..try following the signs in New
Jersey after you cross the George Washington Bridge.
1933-”It was beauty that killed the
beast” – King Kong had its world premiere in New York. Since then we
have had, Son of Kong, King Kong Meets Godzilla, another King Kong, a big budget King Kong and we await, Rocky Meets King Kong, Saw Kong,
American Idol King Kong, and King Kong Goes to Rehab. .
1939 – For those who think
Massachusetts is a weird state (not that there’s anything wrong with
that…..being weird or thinking it’s weird), the Massachusetts legislature voted
to ratify the Bill of Rights, 147 years after the first 10 amendments to the
U.S. Constitution had gone into effect.
1944- Over 500 people were
suffocated when a train stopped in a tunnel
near Salerno, Italy. The train sat idling in the
tunnel for more than 30 minutes. The train’s locomotives were burning low-grade
coal substitutes because high-grade coal was hard to obtain during WWII and the
coal substitutes produced an excess of odorless and toxic carbon monoxide. The colorless, odorless, tasteless gas killed
everyone.
1944 –
Same day as the train disaster in Italy, a disaster of another kind.
Yes, the Academy Awards were televised for the first time. No one really cared so they were broadcast on
two local Los Angeles
stations. If the ratings drop continues,
they may end up the same way. At this gala affair, held at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, Jack Benny served as master of
ceremonies and winners included Best Film Going
My Way, whose male lead, Bing Crosby, won Best Actor. Ingrid Bergman won
Best Actress for her performance in Gaslight.
Who knew that decades later the awards ceremony would turn into tasteless buffet
of “red carpet” opportunities for talentless actresses, actors, has been actors
and actresses, wanna be celebrities and foo foo designers who achieve the
difficult task of making silly people
look sillier.
1947 -Happy
Birthday, Professor Sy Yentz, American, born in New York City, teacher,
student, traveler, teacher of teachers, almanackist, historian,
music aficionado, inveterate reader, pseudo dry red wine oenophile, and semi-wit.
1949 - The first
automatic streetlight system in which the streetlights turned themselves on at
dark was installed in New Milford,
Connecticut, by the Connecticut
Light and Power Company. Each
streetlight contained an electronic device that contained a photoelectric cell
capable of measuring outside light.
1949 – Same day as the automatic streetlight system, the
B-50 Superfortress, the Lucky Lady
II landed at Fort Worth, Texas, after completing the first round-the-world nonstop flight the covering
23,452-mis in 94 hrs. The plane was refueled several times in mid-flight. They
had tried to land several times but were re-routed by air traffic controllers
forty eight times and ended up flying around the world…..no, no, no Professor
Sy Yentz has his aeronautical sense of humor. In flight entertainment included Darth Vader – The Embryo and Tom Cruise Attacks Mars.
1958-
First surface crossing of the Antarctic continent was completed. The
journey of approximately 2,500miles lasted 99 fun-filled days. The British
and New Zealand
teams were members of a joint (British) Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic expedition
but set off from opposite ends of the continent. Vivian Fuchs and his team, accompanied by Sir
Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb
Mt. Everest, (both teams
used motorized vehicles) completed the first surface crossing.
1959- An experimental push-button phone was tested by the
Southern New England Telephone Company of New
Haven, Conn., to see
if customers would dial fewer wrong numbers using the new design. Guess it
worked since push button took over and we still “dial” wrong numbers. Old habits are hard to break.
1962 – 7’ 2” center Wilt ‘The Stilt’ Chamberlain scored 100
points and set an NBA record that remains to this day as the Philadelphia
Warriors (now Golden State Warriors) beat the hapless New York Knickerbockers
169-147 in Hershey Pa. (of all places!)
Chamberlain broke NBA records for the most field goal attempts (63),
most field goals made (36), most free throws made (28), most points in a half
(59), most field goal attempts in a half (37), most field goals made in a half
(22), and most field goal attempts in one quarter (21). He also mopped the floors during time-outs,
washed the towels at half-time, and sold 4,332 hot dogs at the concession
stand. Oh yes, he drove the team bus,
flew the plane and inflated the basketballs. Iona College
graduate, Richie Guerin led the Knicks with 39 points.
1972- U.S.
spacecraft Pioneer 10 was launched.
It passed close by Jupiter and Neptune before leaving the solar system. It is
now more than six billion miles from Earth..................and then it
remembered that it had forgotten to bring it's toothbrush. For those of you
keeping track, in the year 34,000, it will pass within three light years of the
star Ross 246. Just in case anyone finds it, the spacecraft has a diagram of a
man and a woman and a map showing the location of the Sun and Earth in the
Solar System.
1978 – Czech this out…. Vladimír Remek
became the first non-Russian or non-American to go into space, when he waslaunched
aboard Soyuz 28…..subject of the
Beatles son, “I Soyuz Standing There”.
Soyuz docked with
the Salyut 6 spacestation.
1998
- Data sent from the Galileo
spacecraft indicated that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a
thick crust of ice. Europa was a Phoenician princess abducted to Crete by Zeus, who had assumed the form of a white bull,
and by him the mother of Minos, King of Crete. Europa is one of the four (and second largest) Galilean
Moons of Jupiter. The others are, Io,
Callisto, and Ganymede
Back to Calendar
3. 1709 -A real
"sweetie", Happy Birthday to Andreas Marggraf, German chemist. In 1747 he
published an account of experiments undertaken attempting to obtain true sugar
from indigenous plants. He found that
the most sugar was in the beetroot and secondly, the carrot. In those plants sugar, just like that in sugarcane exists ready formed, and that it
could be extracted by boiling the dried roots in alcohol. He used a microscope for these discoveries, one of
the first recorded usages in a chemical inquiry.
1751- Happy Birthday,
Pierre Provost, Swiss philosopher and physicist who first showed that all
bodies radiate heat, no matter how hot or cold they are. This is a comforting
thought to Professor Sy Yentz when he leaves his house on a -7˚ morning in
January.
1791 - The United
States Mint was created by the U.S. Congress. The mint, a delicious dark
chocolate was……no, no, no Professor Sy Yentz has his confectionary sense of
humor.. President GeorgeWashington did not act upon these recommendations until
April of 1792. The first gold coins
authorized by the government were as follows:
Gold Eagle Value $10.00 Gold Half
Value $ 5.00, Gold Quarter Eagle Value
$ 2.50
President Washington appointed scientist, David Rittenhouse, as the first
director of the U.S. Mint. A mint building was under construction within a few
months in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, located at Seventh and Sugar
Alley (now Filbert Street). It was a three story building and bore the
now familiar sign painted on the building between the second and third floors,
“Ye Old Mint”.
1820 - Continuing the slide towards
Civil War, The U.S. Congress passed the Missouri Compromise. Maine
was to be admitted as a free state and Missouri as a slave
state.
1821- The first U.S. patent issued to a
Black-American was granted to Thomas Jennings for a "dry-scouring"
cleaning process . Jennings
used his royalties to buy his family out of slavery. He became a free tradesman and operated a dry cleaning
business in New York City.
His income went mostly to his abolitionist activities. In 1831, Thomas Jennings
became assistant secretary for the First Annual Convention of the People of
Color in Philadelphia, PA
1831- Happy Birthday, George Pullman,
American industrialist and inventor of the Pullman
sleeping car for use on railroads. Prior to Pullman’s invention of the sleeping car, cars
had to stay awake all night. Railroad
journeys tended to be overnight affairs and sleeping cars
were being used on American railroads since the 1830s, however, they were not
that comfortable. Pullman created train cars with elegant
restaurants, accordioned connectors between cars to keep out wind and noise,
and comfortable sleeper compartments with fine sheets and pillows. He was also
a master public relations man and
promoter. Pullman
made sure that when President Abraham
Lincoln died, a Pullman
car
returned his body to Illinois
1841-Happy
Birthday, John Murray, Scottish naturalist who coined the name oceanography. As a marine scientist, he took part in the Challenger Expedition, captained by
George Nares, the first major oceanographic expedition of the world. He died in
1914, killed by a car……of all things.
1845 -Florida
became the 27th state of the United
States of America. It had been discovered by
Spaniard
Juan Ponce de León in 1513 while he was looking for a beachfront condo in a gated
community. He claimed the region for Spain but was unable to establish a
colony due to Indian attacks. In 1539,
Hernando de Soto landed in the Tampa Bay. He didn’t stay long as he explored central
and northern Florida on his way to the Mississippi River. Spain lost Florida to England, then
got it back again but then lost it again as it made the mistake of allowing the
British to use it as a Naval base (Pensacola) during the War of 1812. It was attacked and captured by the Americans
(who then forced out the indigenous Seminole during ensuing Seminole Wars). Florida became a
territory in 1822 and was admitted as a slave state in 1827. Since then greedy
businessmen and corrupt politicians have tried to fill in the Okefenokee
Swamp and other wetlands, destroyed the landscape, built hideous
environmentally destructive developments and screwed up elections. Seems like a great place to live.
1845 – On the same day that Florida was admitted to the union, the U.S.
Congress passed legislation overriding a President’s veto. It was the first
time Congress had done so. This was a “lovely parting gift” – as they say on TV
quiz shows for President John Tyler, who would leave office the next
day…succeeded by James K. Polk. Tyler had vetoed a
Congressional bill that would have denied him the power to appropriate federal
funds to build revenue-cutter ships without Congress’ approval. With the two
thirds required for override, Congress mandated that the executive branch get
the legislature’s approval before commissioning any new military craft. In all,
Tyler had used the
presidential veto 10 times on a variety of legislation during his
administration; the frequency of his use of the veto was second only to that of
Andrew Jackson, who employed it 12 times during his tenure. Tyler,
however then tried another veto, he called his cousin Vito who met with
congressmen accompanied by his “associates” Guido and Anselmo and “made them an
offer they couldn’t refuse”.
1845
– On the same day as Florida was admitted
to the Union, and John Tyler was vetoed, Happy Birthday, Georg Cantor was a Russian-German mathematician who
created modern set theory and extended it to give the concept of transfinite
numbers, with cardinal and ordinal number classes. His early work was on
Fourier series, but he is best known for his study of transfinite set theory.
He began with the definition of infinite sets proposed by Dedekind in 1872: a
set is infinite when it is similar to a proper part of itself. Sets with this
property, such as the set of natural numbers are said to be 'denumerable' or
'countable'. Professor Sy Yentz has absolutely no idea what any of that means
but thanks the Today in Science History website.
1847- Happy Birthday, Alexander Graham
Bell American inventor born in Edinburgh,
Scotland. In 1876, at
the age of 29, Alexander Graham Bell invented his telephone,
just barely beating out Elisha Gray for the patent. In 1877, he formed the Bell Telephone Company. His mother, who was deaf, was a musician and a painter of portraits. Bell remained interested
in working with the deaf throughout his life.
He also continued his experiments in communication. He invented the
photophone-transmission of sound on a beam of light, which was a precursor of
fiber-optics. In all, Bell was gra