Science Gnus Almanac Home

1. 

1715 – King Louis XIV kaput. The “Sun King” died after a reign of 72 years—the longest of any major European monarch. He had succeeded his father, the aptly named Louis XXX in 1643.  He did not assume actual personal control of the government until the death of his prime minister, Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661. Famous for saying “L’etat c’est moi” - I am the State, Louis’ legacy is his magnificent palace at Versailles.

1804 -  Juno, one of the largest main belt asteroids, was discovered by German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding. One of the largest asteroids, at a size of 150 miles across, Juno essentially is a leftover building block of the solar system.

1807 – Sleazy former U.S. vice president, and killer of Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr was acquitted of plotting to annex parts of Louisiana and Spanish territory in Mexico to be used toward the establishment of an independent republic. He was acquitted on the grounds that, though he had conspired against the United States, he was not guilty of treason because he had not engaged in an "overt act," a requirement of the law governing treason.

1819 -  Plowing ahead with the development of the plow - Jethro Wood, a blacksmith of Scipio, New York, received a patent for his removable parts plow. His plow was of cast iron, but in three parts, so that a broken part might be renewed without purchasing an entire plow. This principle of standardization marked a great advance.

1826 - Happy Birthday, Alfred E. Beach ( brother of Myrtle Beach, Malibu Beach, Jones Beach and sometimes  referred to as a Son of a Beach), American inventor and publisher, whose magazine, Scientific American helped stimulate 19th-century technological innovations and became one of the world's most prestigious science magazines. In 1856 he won First Prize and a gold medal at New York's Crystal Palace Exhibition. Beach had invented a typewriter for the blind. It resembled the modern typewriter in the arrangement of its keys and typebars, but embossed its letters on a narrow paper strip instead of a sheet.  Beach's most famous invention was New York City's first subway, the Beach Pneumatic Transit.  According to the history of the NYC Subways,  http://www.nycsubway.org/articles/beach.html, he thought the pneumatic (air-driven) system viable for transit operation in underground tunnels. He applied for a permit from the Tammany Hall (Boss Tweed) city government, and after being denied, decided to build the line in secrecy, in an attempt to show that subterranean transit was practical. (He actually did receive a permit to built a pneumatic package delivery system, originally of two small tunnels from Warren St. to Cedar St., later amended to be one large tunnel, to "simplify construction" of what he really intended to build.) The Beach tunnel was constructed in only 58 days, starting under Warren Street and Broadway, directly across from City Hall. The station was under the south sidewalk of Warren Street just west of the Broadway corner. The single track tunnel ran east into Broadway, curved south, and ran down the middle of Broadway to Murray Street, a distance of one block, about 300 feet in all. The subway opened to the public on February 26, 1870. Operated as a demonstration from 1870 to 1873, the short tunnel had only the one station and train car.

          1837- Samuel Morse, (brother of Re Morse), filed a patent on his telegraph machine. In 1830, an American, Joseph Henry  demonstrated the potential of William Sturgeon's electromagnet for long distance communication by sending an electronic current over one mile of wire to activate an electromagnet which caused a bell to strike…and two boxers started round 1 of the fight…no,no,no Professor Sy Yentz has his pugilistic sense of humor. Later, in 1837, British physicists, William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patented the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph using the same principle of electromagnetism. However, it was Morse who successfully exploited the electromagnet and bettered Joseph Henry's invention. Morse made sketches of a "magnetized magnet" based on Henry's work. Morse invented a telegraph system that was a practical and commercial success.  Morse used pulses of current to deflect an electromagnet, which moved a marker to produce written codes on a strip of paper - the invention of Morse Code.

           1854- Happy Birthday, Anna Comstock, biologist, artist and nature study pioneer. When she carried all of her work at once, it was called the Comstock Load.

           1864 – Rhett Butler, Scarlet O’Hara take note; Confederate General John Bell Hood evacuates Atlanta, Georgia, at the climax of a four-month campaign by Sherman to capture the vital Rebel supply center.

             1865- Joseph Lister performed the first antiseptic surgery. He used carbolic acid - the common o name for phenol a caustic poison obtained by distillation of coal tar or produced synthetically-.   Lister based his work on the work of Louis Pasteur, who demonstrated in wine fermentation that  germs entered from the outside air. Lister believed that if infection arose spontaneously within a wound, it would be virtually impossible to eliminate it. However, if germs entering from the air outside the wound caused infection (in the same way that the wine became contaminated), then those germs could be killed and infection prevented. He learned that carbolic acid was being used as an effective disinfectant in sewers and could safely be used on human flesh. Beginning in 1865, Lister used carbolic acid to wash his hands, his instruments, and the bandages used in the operation. Lister also sprayed the air with carbolic acid to kill airborne germs.       

          1887- Emile Berliner filed for a patent for his invention of the lateral-cut, flat-disk gramophone on this day. It is now called the record player.  Emile got the patent, but Thomas Edison got the fame because he was the one that made it work and make music with his American invention. Berliner's legacy still lives on in his trademark (later adopted by RCA): a picture of a dog listening to "his master's voice" issuing from a gramophone. 

     1905 -Alberta and Saskatchewan become the eighth and ninth provinces.  Alberta, the westernmost of Canada's three prairie provinces, shares many physical features with its neighbors to the east, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The Rocky Mountains form the southern portion of Alberta's western boundary with British Columbia.  In case you were wondering, there are ten Canadian provinces and three territories. The provinces are Alberta, Manitoba, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan. The territories are the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and the Yukon Territory. The main difference between a Canadian territory and a province is that a Canadian province derives its powers directly from the Crown (UK), according to the Constitution Act of 1867. Territories get their powers from the Canadian federal government.

1914- The last passenger pigeon, Martha, died at the Cincinnati Zoo. The passenger pigeon was hunted to extinction; the fact that it traveled and nested in large flocks made it easy to slaughter. The adult male passenger pigeon had grey upper parts, the tips of the wings and the tail were black; its throat was a dark rust, while its breast was a lighter rust; its eyes were red. The adult female was of a duller color, with brownish upper parts and a lighter, brownish throat and breast; its eyes were black . See our Extinct-Kaput page http://www.sciencegnus.com/Extinct%20Animals.html

1923 - The Great Kanto Earthquake estimated at 7.9 magnitude destroyed one third of Tokyo and most of Yokohama, leaving 2.5 million people homeless. The quake resulted in the Great Tokyo Fire. Floods followed as the rivers Fukuro Chiyo and Takimi burst their banks. At least 143,000 people were killed, although unofficial estimates say as many as 300,000 may have died.

1939 – World War II began At 4:45 a.m.,as  1.5 million German troops invaded Poland all along its 1,750-mile border with German-controlled territory. Simultaneously, the German Luftwaffe bombed Polish airfields, and German warships and U-boats attacked Polish naval forces in the Baltic Sea. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (just like the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in 2008 while attacking Georgia) claimed the massive invasion was a defensive action……sort of like “he punched me in the fist with his nose”.

1974 -  In a hurry to get to Europe? The SR-71 Blackbird set (and holds) the record for flying from New York to London: 1 hour 54 minutes and 56.4 seconds.

1979- Pioneer 11, an unmanned spacecraft launched in April 1973, made the 1st flyby of Saturn & and returned the 1st close-up images of the planet. Pioneer 11 followed Pioneer 10 which had been the first man made spacecraft to fly by Jupiter.

1983 - Soviet jet fighters intercept a Korean Airlines passenger flight in Russian airspace and shoot the plane down, killing 269 passengers and crewmembers.

1985 – The “unsinkable” Titanic was found. The British luxury passenger liner sank on April 15 1912 en route to New York on it's maiden voyage. The vessel sank with a loss of approximately 1,500 lives. The wreck is about 640 km south of Newfoundland.  At the time of her construction she was the largest and most luxurious ship afloat. The Titanic was built to be unsinkable.  American Robert D. Ballard headed the joint U.S/French expedition, which used an experimental, unmanned submersible developed by the U.S. Navy to search for the ocean liner. The submersible, Argo traveled just above the ocean floor, sending photographs up to the research vessel Knorr. As Argo was investigating debris on the ocean floor it suddenly passed over one of the Titanic's massive boilers, lying at a depth of about 13,000 feet. It also found Leonardo DiCaprio, a ring, and several Celine Dion CDs.  The CD’s were left at the bottom.

1989- The federal government passed new car safety legislation on this day, requiring all newly manufactured cars to install an air bag on the driver's side. In 1971, Ford built an experimental airbag fleet. General Motors tested airbags on the 1973 model Chevrolet that were only sold for government use. The 1973, Oldsmobile Toronado was the first car with a passenger air bag intended for sale to the public. By 1988, Chrysler became the first company to offer air bag restraint systems as standard equipment.

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2.          

44 BC - Pharaoh Cleopatra VII of Egypt declared her son (age three) co-ruler as Ptolemy XV Caesarion. Yes, this was THAT Cleopatra and the son was her son by Julius Caesar. That lasted until 37 BC.  By then Cleopatra had taken up with Marc Antony and  Cleopatra now hoped to continue her dynasty through the children of Marc Antony, the twins Alexander Helius and Cleopatra Selene. This all came to a brutal end when….see below.

31 BC - Final war of the Roman Republic: Battle of Actium - Off the western coast of Greece, forces of Octavian defeated troops under Mark Antony and Cleopatra in a naval battle. The fighting continued throughout the day of September 2,  until, inexplicably, Cleopatra took her troops and left the sea battle (perhaps she broke a nail). Mark Antony, leaving his troops behind, followed her (perhaps he broke a nail too). The result was that Octavian’s forces, led by  Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, won the battle. Octavian would become emperor and change his name to Augustus. Cleopatra’s son, Caesarion, was killed after the suicide of his mother and the suicide of Marc Antony following her defeat by Octavian

1666- The Great Fire of London. It began began on the night of September 2, 1666, as a small fire on Pudding Lane, in the bakeshop of Thomas Farynor, who happened to be the baker for King Charles II. At this time, most London houses were constructed of wood and pitch so they were dangerously flammable, and it did not take long for the fire to expand.  The fire became one of the major events in the history of England. It gutted the medieval City of London inside the old Roman City Wall. It threatened, but did not reach, the aristocratic district of Westminster, Charles II's Palace of Whitehall, and most of the suburban slums. It destroyed13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, St. Paul's Cathedral, and most of the buildings of the City authorities. It is estimated that it destroyed the homes of 70,000 of the City's ca. 80,000 inhabitants

 1752 - This was the last day of the Julian calendar in Great Britain and the British colonies (that includes America for you history buffs out there) the Gregorian Calendar designed to correct the extra leap year day problem went into effect the next day with tomorrow becoming September 14, hence 11 days were dropped.  People celebrating birthdays or having appointments during the next 11 days must have been a bit confused.  Most other countries had made the adjustment in 1582. The delay had its origin in the Reformation. Britain, a Protestant country would not follow the lead of the Catholics (Pope Gregory) See Sept. 3 for the start of the confusion

1789 - The United States Department of the Treasury was founded during the first session of Congress. The first Secretary of the Treasury would be Alexander Hamilton of New York. The Treasury Department is the second oldest department in the federal government after the Department of State.  We note that on September 13, 1789 - The United States government took out a loan for the first time. The loan was taken from banks in New York City.

1838 –Happy Birthday, Queen Liliuokalani, the last reigning monarch of the Hawaiian islands. She felt her mission was to preserve the islands for their native residents. In 1898, Hawaii was annexed to the United States and Queen Liliuokalani was forced to give up her throne.  On July 4, 1894, the Republic of Hawaii with Sanford B. Dole – as in pineapples- as president was proclaimed. It was recognized immediately by the United States government. Hawaii was annexed to the United States through a joint resolution of the U. S. Congress in 1898 .

1850- Happy Birthday, Albert Spalding, 19^th century baseball player and promoter of baseball's interests nationally and internationally, and simultaneously further his own sporting-goods enterprises, the A.G Spalding Company.  Spalding published the first official rules guide for baseball. In it he stated that only Spalding balls could be used (previously, the quality of the balls used had been subpar.) Spalding also founded the Baseball Guide, which at the time was the most widely-read baseball publication. Spalding retired from playing baseball in 1878, although he continued as a major force as owner of the Chicago White Stockings (now the Chicago Cubs) and major influence on the National League- which he co-founded.   Spalding was inducted into the Hall of Fame by the Committee on Baseball Veterans in 1939, the year the Hall opened. Professor Sy Yentz, growing up in NYC during the 1950s and 60s fondly remembers the Spalding rubber ball, the “spaldeen” used for punch ball games because of it’s superior bounce and longevity.

 1853- Happy Birthday, (Friedrich) Wilhelm Ostwald, German chemist who almost along with Jacobus Henricus van  Hoff, and Svante Arrhenius organized physical chemistry into a nearly independent branch of chemistry. Physical chemistry is study of the properties, changes, and the relationships between energy and matter.  He won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1909 for his work on catalysis - the process in which the rate of a chemical reaction is increased by means of a chemical substance known as a catalyst, chemical equilibrium - the state in which the chemical activities or concentrations of the reactants and products have no net change, and reaction velocities- Chemical reactions proceed with different velocities. The fastest known reaction is 1040 times faster than the slowest.

1877 – “Soddy, wrong number”… Happy Birthday, Frederick Soddy, English chemist and physicist who received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1921 for his investigations of  radioactive substances.  Soddy worked with He worked under Ernest  Rutherford at McGill University in Montreal and  and with Sir William Ramsay at the University  of London. He suggested that different elements produced in different radioactive transformations were capable of occupying the same place on the Periodic Table, and on  Feb. 18  1913 he named these elements "isotopes" from Greek words meaning "same place." His scientific texts are still used.  They include The Interpretation of Radium -1909, rev. ed. 1922, Matter and Energy -1912, The Chemistry of the Radio-Elements -2 parts, 1911–14,Atomic Transmutation -1953, and Love’s Tender Passion, The Spinster’s Caribbean Vacation With Dirk.

1901 -  Vice President of the United States -days from taking over for an assassinated McKinley- Theodore Roosevelt uttered the famous phrase, "Speak softly and carry a big stick” (and you will go far) at the Minnesota State Fair. Roosevelt attributed it to a West African proverb but its origin isn't known

1935 – The Labor Day Hurricane in Florida. In the days before hurricanes were named, this storm virtually snuck up on Florida. The hurricane was the first ever Category Five Hurricane on record to hit the United States. It held the distinction of being the only Categroy  Five storm to hit the United States coastline for 34 years until Hurricane Camille in August, 1969.  After the storm had demolished the sparsely populated (in those days) Florida Keys, it then turned northward, and made a second landfall in Florida's Big Bend area. Then it spread heavy rains and wind into the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States as it killed several more people

1938 – Happy Birthday, Wilson Markle, Canadian engineer who invented the film colorization process in 1983. Colorization is the computer process by which black and white film images are converted to color. Engineer Wilson Markle was one of the high-tech wizards responsible for creating the colorization process. During the 1960s and 1970s  his company, Image Transform put color to black and white NASA space footage to add more interest to the lunar missions. Of course the process plummeted to unforeseen depths of taste when Ted Turner got his hands on the process and started colorizing classic black and white movies

1945 – Three and a half months after it ended in Europe, combat in World War II ended in the Pacific Theater: The final official surrender of Japan was accepted by General Douglas MacArthur aboard the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

1948 - Birthday of Christa MacAuliffe, astronaut, first teacher in space, who died on the Challenger Space Shuttle when 73 seconds into its 10th launch, Challenger (STS-51L) exploded in midair, killing its crew of seven. Space shuttle flights were suspended until 1988. An independent U.S. commission blamed the disaster on unusually cold temperatures that morning and the failure of the O-rings, a set of gaskets in the rocket boosters…..and the geniuses that went ahead with the launch despite all the warnings.

 1952- The first human heart operation was performed by using the deep- freezing method. Professor Sy Yentz refers to this the ventricle as popsicle procedure.

1969 - The first automatic teller machine in the United States was installed in Rockville Center, New York.  In 1939, Luther George Simjian patented an early and not very successful prototype of an ATM. John D White is often credited with inventing the first free-standing ATM design. In 1967, John Shepherd-Barron invented and installed an ATM in a Barclays Bank in London.  Don Wetzel wasa co-patentee and chief conceptualist of the automated teller machine, an idea he thought of while waiting in line at a Dallas bank .The first one wasn't in a lobby, it was actually in the wall of the bank, out on the street. They put a canopy over it to protect it from the rain and the weather of all sorts. Unfortunately they put the canopy too high and the rain came under it. They ended up with wet money (could this be money laundering?)

1969 – On the same day that the ATM made its debut, Star Trek went kaput as the science-fiction television series Star Trek aired its last episode on this day. Although Star Trek ran for only three years (starting in 1966) and never placed better than No. 52 in the ratings, the show, starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, became a cult classic and spawned four television series; the original, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space 9 Star Trek: Voyager  and nine movies. Leonard Nimoy was the only actor to appear in every episode of the series, including "The Cage", the original pilot episode starring Jeffrey Hunter as the Captain. In this last episode, The Enterprise is in danger (surprise!) when Janice Lester, one of Kirk's former lovers, steals his body. Why was it aired in August? The episode was originally scheduled to air on 28-Mar-1969 but was postponed to June 3rd due to the death of the 34th President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, on 28-Mar-1969

1970 - Due to budgetary constraints, NASA announced the cancellation of two Apollo missions to the Moon, Apollo 15 (the designation was re-used by a later mission), and Apollo 19. The remaining missions were then renumbered 15 through 17.

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3.          

301 - San Marino, one of the smallest nations in the world and the world's oldest republic still in existence, was founded by Saint Marinus. So where is San Marino? In the Apennine Mountains. It is a landlocked enclave, completely surrounded by Italy.  As for St. Marinus?  Tradition is that he was a blacksmith by trade who came from the island of Rab on the other side of the Adriatic.

1189 - Richard I of England (a.k.a. Richard "the Lionheart") was crowned at Westminster. Richard, the son of Henry II, spent most of his reign in France.  That is when he wasn’t leading the 3^rd Crusade or being taken prisoner by Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI.  In all, Richard spent about 6 months of his ten year reign in England until his senseless death during a petty siege in 1199.

1658- Oliver Cromwell kaput.  Cromwell, the Lord Protector of England had led the Parliamentary forces against King Charles I in the English Civil War.  He later ravaged Ireland setting the stage for hundreds of years of religious tension and conflict.

 1752 -Remember the change to the Gregorian Calendar on Sept.2? Well the day of 3rd of September never happened - nor did the next 10. England and the American Colonies dropped the Roman era Julian Calendar, which had become 10 days out of synchrony with the solar cycle, and adopted the Gregorian Calendar. People rioted in the streets thinking the government stole 11 days of their lives. Instituted by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, the calendar has 365 days with an extra day every four years (the leap year) except in years divisible by 100 but not divisible by 400. Thus, the calendar year has an average length of 365.2422 days. It moved the day's date up from September 3rd to September 14th. Some other countries, including Russia, did not change until the twentieth century. Got it?

1783 - The American Revolution officially came to an end when representatives of the United States (John Adams, John Jay, and Benjamin Franklin), Great Britain, Spain and France signed the Treaty of Paris on this day in 1783. The signing signified America's status as a free nation, as Britain formally recognized the independence of its 13 former American colonies, and the boundaries of the new republic were agreed upon: Florida north to the Great Lakes and the Atlantic coast west to the Mississippi River. In case you noted that throughout history there have been a lot of Treaties of Paris, here are a few

Treaty of Paris (1229)—ended the Albigensian Crusade

Treaty of Paris (1259)—between Henry III of England and Louis IX of France

Treaty of Paris (1623)—between France, Savoy, and Venice against Spanish forces in Valtelline

Treaty of Paris (1763)—ended the Seven Years' War (French and Indian War in the U.S)

Treaty of Paris (1783)—ended the American Revolutionary War

Treaty of Paris (1810)—ended the war between France and Sweden

Treaty of Paris (1814)—ended the war between France and the Sixth Coalition(Treaty of Paris (1815)—followed the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo (War of 1812 in the U.S)

Treaty of Paris (1856)—ended the Crimean War

Treaty of Paris (1898)—ended the Spanish-American War

Paris Peace Conference, 1919—treaties with the defeated powers of the First World War Treaty of Paris (1920)—united Bessarabia and Romania

 Paris Peace Treaties, 1947—formally established peace between the World War II Allies and Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Romania, and Finland

 Paris Peace Accords (1973)—ended American involvement in the Vietnam War. You’ll also note that the U.S likes to end its wars with Treaties of Paris – see French & Indian War, the Revolution, The War of 1812, the Spanish American War, and Vietnam.

1875 - Happy Birthday, Ferdinand Porsche, Austrian automotive engineer who designed the popular Volkswagen car. In 1934, the order from Hitler to design and build the first "peoples car" was received. Porsche designed the Volkswagen Beetle, as well as many military vehicles used by the Nazis during WWII.  Yes, he also designed the Porsche too.

1899- Happy Birthday, Sir (Frank) Macfarlane Burnet, Australian physician, virologist, and recipient, with Sir Peter Medawar, of the 1960 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of acquired immunological tolerance to tissue transplants. Yes, they took Scotties out of the Scotties box and put them in Kleenex boxes and then put…hey! It’s nothing to sneeze at! 

         1905- Happy Birthday, Carl David Anderson, American physicist who, with Victor Francis Hess of Austria, won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1936 for his discovery of the positron, or positive electron, the first known particle of antimatter. Positrons are usually produced by nuclear decay, sort of like Dan Rather.  The positron is identical to the electron in mass, but has an opposite charge of +1 (the electron is defined to have a charge of -1)

1966- The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet aired its last episode after more than a decade on television. The sitcom focused a real life family playing a TV family based on the real life family. It starred 1940’s band leader Ozzie Nelson and wife, singer Harriet Nelson, nee Hilliard. The show premiered as a radio comedy in 1944 and ran for 10 years. Even before the radio show ended, a TV version launched in 1952. The show, featuring controversial  plots such as -Ozzie decides that he wants to go on a diet so he can fit into a pair of size 33 pants. Or, Ozzie buys Thorny a lighter for his birthday…..yes, it was a simpler time.  The teenage sons, David and Ricky were not wise cracking brats (whoops, that the post All in the Family sitcoms). Ricky became a rock star, rejuvenating the show. For a period of years, beginning in 1957, each episode would conclude with a song by Ricky Nelson and his band, led by lead guitarist James Burton.

  1970- A hailstone found in Coffeyville, Kansas, weighed in at 1.5 lbs. and was 17 inches around.

1976 - The unmanned spacecraft Viking II landed on Mars and took the first pictures of the surface of Mars. Its twin, Viking I was the first to arrive on the surface of Mars on July 20, 1976. Each lander contained instruments that examined the physical and magnetic properties of the soil; analyzed the atmosphere and weather patterns of Mars; and determined any evidence of past or present life, including Tom Cruise.

2000 – The ever growing Ozone hole as NASA data showed the hole at just under 11 million square miles - the biggest it had ever been. Record low temperatures in the stratosphere are believed to have helped the expansion of the ozone hole during the southern hemisphere’s spring season. Antarctic ozone depletion starts in July, when sunlight triggers chemical reactions in cold air trapped over the South Pole during the Antarctic winter. It intensifies during August and September before tailing off as temperatures rise in late November of early December. Depletion of the ozone layer over Antarctica and the Arctic is being monitored because ozone protects Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation. Only 10 or less of every million molecules of air are ozone. The majority of these ozone molecules resides in a layer between 10 and 40 kilometers (6 and 25 miles) above the Earth's surface in the stratosphere. The ozone hole, like Hilary Clinton’s ego, continues to expand to this day.  http://www.theozonehole.com/

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4.           

  476 - Romulus Augustus, the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was deposed by Odoacer, a German barbarian who proclaimed himself king of Italy. Odoacer was a mercenary leader in the Roman imperial army when he launched his mutiny against the young emperor, Romulus, little more than a child, acted as a figurehead for his father's rule. He reigned, if you could call it that,  only ten months, At Piacenza, he defeated Roman General Orestes, the emperor's powerful father, (who once had been an assistant to Attila the Hun)and then took Ravenna, the capital of the Western empire since 402. Although Roman rule continued in the East, the crowning of Odoacer marked the end of the original Roman Empire, which centered in Italy.

1781 – La La Land invented.  In  1771 Father Junipero Serra and a group of Spaniards founded the San Gabriel Mission as the center of the first "community" in an area inhabited by small bands of Gabrielino Indians.Twelve years after Portola's trek, which began in San Diego and ended in Monterey, a company of settlers called "Los Pobladores" were recruited in the states of Sonora and Sinaloa in Mexico. Their mission, under authority of Governor Felipe de Neve, was to establish pueblos in the name of the king of Spain. On September 4, 1781, the Pobladores, a group of 12 families - 46 men, women and children led by Captain Rivera y Moncada - established a community in the area discovered by Portola, and named it El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reyna de Los Angeles de Porciuncula, after the nearby river. Unable to fit El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reyna de Los Angeles de Porciuncula Dodgers on a uniform, they had to shorten the name. Over time, the area became known as the Ciudad de Los Angeles, "City of Angels," and on April 4, 1850 became the City of Los Angeles

1801 - Happy Birthday, Cullen Whipple, American inventor and machinist of Providence, RI, who patented the first practical screw machine, a method of mass-producing pointed screws for making pointed screws. Prior to this invention, screws had blunt ends, and it was necessary to drill a starter hole. So yes, many people were screwed.  For most historians, Archimedes of Syracuse is the grandfather of the screw. The Greek scientist and mathematician popularized its mechanical principles when he concocted his helix-shaped water-lifting device in the 3rd century B.C., known as the "Archimedes' screw".

 1833 – “Hey getcha papers here….read all about it….” Newspaper Carrier Day on Sept. 4 marks the anniversary of the hiring of the first paperboy in the United States. In 1833, The New York Sun ran the following ad: "To the Unemployed - - A number of steady men can find employment by vending this paper. A liberal discount is allowed to those who buy to sell again." Ten-year-old Barney Flaherty, although not a man, was the first to answer the ad and got the job and a cultural icon was born.

1848- Happy Birthday, Louis Latimer, Black inventor who received a patent for an improved process for manufacturing the carbon filaments in light bulbs. These improvements allowed for a reduction in time to produce and an increase in quality. During his life time he had worked with and for Alexander Bell, Hiram Maxim and Thomas Edison. Latimer was the only black member of an exclusive social group, the Edison Pioneers.  He also supervised the installation of electric lights in New York, Philadelphia, Canada, and London. Other Latimer patents included a ‘Water Closet for Railroad Cars’ 1874, ‘Apparatus for Cooling and Disinfecting’ 1886, and ‘Locking Rack for Hats, Coats, and Umbrellas’ 1896.

            1866- Happy Birthday, Simon Lake, U.S. inventor whose submarine, the Argonaut, was the first to make extensive open-sea operations and to salvage cargo from sunken vessels.  Lake, a  Quaker American mechanical engineer and naval architect who obtained over two hundred patents for advances in naval design and competed with John Philip Holland to build the first submarines for the United States Navy. Ironically, Lakes submarines operated in rivers and bays but not lakes.

1882- On the birthday of  Lewis Latimer –see 1848 above- ,  the first central electric station to supply light and power was the Edison Electric Illuminating Company at 257 Pearl Street in New York City. It was shocking! Electrifying!  Edison had always wanted to grow up and “join the circuits”. The station's "Jumbo No.1" generator was a direct-current steam-powered dynamo. The armature (an armature is one of the principal electrical components of an electromechanical machine--a motor or generator) alone was 6 tons of its total 27 ton weight, and used air cooling. It was built at the Edison Machine Works in 1881, and had its first test on  July 5,  1882. It could power about 700 sixteen candlepower lamps. Within 14 months, Edison's first power station served 508 subscribers.

1886- Apache chief Geronimo surrendered to U.S. government troops. He had battled the U.S forces for over 30 years. However, by 1886 the Apaches were exhausted and hopelessly outnumbered. General Nelson Miles accepted Geronimo's surrender, making him the last Indian warrior to formally give in to U.S. forces and signaling the end of the Indian Wars in the Southwest .  At the end, his group consisted of only 16 warriors, 12 women, and 6 children. Upon their surrender, Geronimo and over 300 of his fellow Chiricahuas were shipped to Fort Marion, Florida. One year later many of them were relocated to the Mt. Vernon barracks in Alabama, where about one quarter died from tuberculosis and other diseases. Geronimo died on Feb. 17, 1909, a prisoner of war, unable to return to his homeland. He was buried in the Apache cemetery at: Fort Sill, Oklahoma

 1888- George Eastman patented the first roll-film camera and registered the name Kodak. "You press the button, we do the rest" promised George Eastman in 1888 with this advertising slogan for his Kodak camera.  Eastman’s key break through was with cellulose. It produced a cleaner image than paper and was easily spooled onto a film roller, making it compact. It proved to be the birth of modern camera film.            

1951- President Harry S. Truman’s opening speech before a conference in San Francisco is broadcast across the nation, marking the first time a television program was broadcast from coast to coast. The speech focused on Truman’s acceptance of a treaty that officially ended America’s post-World War II occupation of Japan. Later, Truman sang some of his favorite vaudeville songs, did a little magic act, hosted a dance contest, showed how to cook a soufflé, and knocked out Richard Nixon in a three round boxing match.  

1966 – A world already reeling from the kaputing  of Ozzie and Harriet just a year and a day earlier, was stunned as Gilligan’s Island went kaput. Gilligan's Island, a seminal intellectual, political satire that paved the way for West Wing and….no, no, no  Professor Sy Yentz has his video politically correct sense of humor…. It was comedy about seven people stranded with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of supplies, on a deserted island during a “three hour tour” and aired its last episode on this day in 1967. Featuring Bob Denver as the moronic yet innocently endearing, Gilligan, first mate of the ill-fated SS Minnow, the show also starred Alan Hale as the Skipper, Jim Backus (voice of Mr. Magoo) as millionaire Thurston Howell III, and Tina Louise as the glamorous starlet Ginger. Although the show ran for only three years, it aired in reruns for decades. The characters were resurrected in three TV movies. While they would be rescued from the island in future specials, the last episode featured King Killiwani and two other natives coming  to the island looking for a 'White Goddess.'  This turned out to be Gilligan.

2006- A vaccine for a type of meningitis was offered for the first time in Great Britain for all babies at two, four and 13 months as part of the national childhood immunization program. The vaccine is designed for protection against pneumococcal disease which causes meningitis and septicaemia, a very serious infection, with a death rate of 20 per cent. Meningitis is an infection of the fluid of a person's spinal cord and the fluid that surrounds the brain. People sometimes refer to it as spinal meningitis. Since 2006 they program has been used successfully world wide, particularly in Africa.

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5.    1698 – A close shave!  In an effort to move his people away from archaic customs, Tsar Peter I of Russia imposed a tax on beards. Furthermore, Peter ordered his noblemen to wear fashionable Western clothes instead of their archaic long costumes. To add insult to injury, Peter personally cut off the beards of his noblemen. All men except the peasants and priests had to pay Peter's yearly beard tax and wear a medal proclaiming, "Beards are a ridiculous ornament." According to Diane Stanley in her book, Peter the Great

              1774 -The first session of the Continental Congress convened at Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia. Fifty-six delegates from all of the colonies except Georgia drafted a declaration of rights and grievances and elected Virginian Peyton Randolph as the first president of Congress. Patrick Henry, George Washington, John Adams and John Jay were among the delegates. The Congress was a response to the British Parliament's enactment of the Coercive Acts, called the "Intolerable Acts" by colonists, in 1774. The Coercive Acts closed Boston to merchant shipping, established formal British military rule in Massachusetts, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America required colonists to quarter British troops, forced the colonists to buy Spice Girls CDs, compelled the boiling of all food when cooking, and required daily viewing of the show Upstairs, Downstairs.

              1847 – Happy Birthday, Jesse James, famous American outlaw.  With his brother Frank James and several other ex-Confederates, including Cole Younger and his brothers, the James gang robbed their way across the Western frontier targeting banks, trains, stagecoaches, and stores from Iowa to Texas. James is believed to have carried out the first daylight bank robbery in peacetime, stealing $60,000 from a bank in Liberty, Missouri. On July 21, 1873 the James-Younger gang pulled off the first successful train robbery in the American West by taking US $3,000 from the Rock Island Express in Adair, Iowa. Actors who have played Jesse James on film and TV include; Brad Pitt. Colin Farrell, Tyrone Power, James Keach, James Coburn, Roy Rogers, Rob Lowe, Clement Moore (aka TV’s Lone Ranger), Robert Wagner, Kris Kristofferson, Wendell Corey (twice), Audie Murphy,  and Robert Duvall. Henry Fonda played Frank James twice.

            1850- Happy Birthday, Eugene Goldstein, German physicist.  He was an early researcher in X-rays who discovered and named canal rays.  Canal Rays have nothing to do with the Suez Canal but emerge through holes in the anodes of low-pressure electrical discharge tubes,later shown to be positively charged particles.  He used a tube filled with hydrogen gas. The positive particle had a charge equal and opposite to the electron. It also had a mass of 1.66E-24 grams or one atomic mass unit. The positive particle would eventually be named the proton.  In 1976 he coined the term "cathode ray" (he had no success with “protestant rays”) emitted from a cathode. He was the first to see that they could cast a shadow, and were emitted at right angles to the surface

            1862- At Wolverhampton, England, Meteorologist James Glaisher and pilot Henry Tracey Coxwell attained the greatest height that had been reached by a balloon carrying passengers. The object of this flight, and others was to carry out observations on the temperature, humidity, &c., of the atmosphere at high elevations. As no automatically recording instruments were available, and Glaisher was unable to read the barometer at the highest point, mainly because he passed out, the precise altitude can never be known, but it is estimated at about 7 m. from the earth

            1877- Victor over George Custer and th 7^th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, in June of 1876, Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse (Tashunca-uitco)was  fatally bayoneted by a U.S. soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. Crazy Horse had been pursued by the forces of General Nelson Miles. He surrendered in May of 1877.  When he left the reservation without authorization, to take his sick wife to her parents, General George Crook ordered him arrested, fearing that he was plotting a return to battle. Crazy Horse did not resist arrest at first, but when he realized that he was being led to a guardhouse, he began to struggle, and while his arms were held by one of the arresting officers, a soldier ran him through with a bayonet.

            1882 – The first Labor Day. The holiday was born in New York and was intended to be a tribute to the toil and achievements of the nation's workers. It grew out of a celebration and parade in honor of the working class by the Knights of Labor. In 1884, the Knights held a large parade in New York City. The holiday was also a testament to the strength of the burgeoning labor movement, which helped push the event onto the national stage. Thanks to the efforts of various union leaders, Labor Day became an official holiday in 1894. The day had its origins in April 15, 1872 as the Toronto Trades Assembly (TTA) organized the first North American "workingman's demonstration". Some 10,000 Torontonians turned out to watch a parade and to listen to speeches calling for abolition of the law which decreed that "trade unions were criminal conspiracies in restraint of trade

            1885- The first gasoline pump was bought by Jake Gumper of Ft. Wayne, Indiana. It was manufactured by Sylvanus Bowser, also of Fort Wayne. The gasoline pump tank had marble valves and wooden plungers that would be used to push kerosene up through a pipe. It  had a capacity of one barrel. Not surprisingly, the pump was used on a barrel of kerosene in his store.

               1892- And continuing with our gas powered theme….the first gasoline automobile in the U.S. was built by Charles and Frank Duryea at Chicopee, Mass. Charles, the designer, called on his younger brother Frank, a trained machinist, to complete the prototype as he attended to his bicycle business (the Wright Brothers were also in the bicycle business) in Peoria, Illinois. The first Duryea is now in the Smithsonian Institution.Duryea Motor Wagon Company of Springfield, Massachusetts sold 13 identical gasoline-powered vehicles. The company would last only three years, however Charles and Frank  had became the first Americans to attempt to build and sell automobiles at a profit. This began the commercial period of the American automobile industry.  The first Duryea is now in the Smithsonian Institution.. It may be available during the “Fall Tent Event” with O% interest, no money down, and  three years of gasoline at $2.99 a gallon.

            1905 – Establishing the burgeoning Japanese tradition of surprise attacks on Naval bases, and following the Russian rejection of a Japanese plan to divide Manchuria and Korea into spheres of influence, Japan had  launched a surprise naval attack against Port Arthur, a Russian naval base in China. The Russian fleet was decimated. During the subsequent Russo-Japanese War, Japan won a series of decisive victories over the Russians. On this day The Russo-Japanese War came  to an end brokered by President Theodore Roosevelt (who would win the Nobel Peace Prize, as representatives of the two nations signed the Treaty of Portsmouth in New Hampshire. Russia, defeated in the war, agreed to cede to Japan the island of Sakhalin and Russian port and rail rights in Manchuria.

            1914 – World War I had begun in August. On this day the Battle of the Marne began – ust thirty miles northeast of Paris. The French 6th Army under General Michel-Joseph Maunoury attacked the right flank of German forces advancing on the French capital. By the next day, the attack was total. More than two million soldiers fought in the Battle of the Marne, and 100,000 of them were killed or wounded. On September 9, the Germans began a fighting retreat to the Aisne River. The Battle of the Marne was the first significant Allied victory of World War I. It saved Paris and thwarted Germany's plan for a quick victory over France.

            1972 – Palestinian Islamic terrorists attacked the Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany. They attacked  the Olympic Village apartment of Israeli athletes, killing two and taking nine others hostage. The terrorists, known as Black September, demanded that Israel release over 230 Muslim prisoners being held in Israeli jails as well as  two German terrorists. In an ensuing shootout at the Munich airport, the nine Israeli hostages were killed along with five terrorists and one West German policeman. The Munich operation was ordered by Yasser Arafat and carried out by Fatah, Arafat's faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)

            1975 – In another episode of the slapstick presidency of the muddled Gerald R. Ford (it featured falling down frequently in public as well as setting free Soviet satellite states while engaging in debates, the Swine Flu scare and the immortal “Whip Inflation Now” [Win] campaign), Charles Manson roboid, Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme attempted to assassinate Ford  in Sacramento, California. The attempt was  foiled when a Secret Service agent wrestled a semi-automatic .45-caliber pistol from Fromme..  Fromme was pointing the loaded gun at the president when the Secret Service agent grabbed it. Seventeen days later, Ford escaped injury in another assassination attempt when 45-year-old Sara Jane Moore fired a revolver at him. Moore, a  lunatic leftist radical who once served as an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a history of mental illness. She was arrested at the scene, convicted, and sentenced to life.

            1977 – Getting it slightly backwards, Voyager 1 was launched.  Voyager 2 had been launched on August 20. Like, “2”, Voyager 1 explored all the giant planets of our outer solar system, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune; 48 of their moons; and the their unique systems of rings and magnetic fields.  Voyager 1, is now the most distant human-made object in the cosmos, having reached 100 astronomical units from the sun in 2006. That means the spacecraft, is 100 times more distant from the sun than Earth is. In more common terms, Voyager 1 is about 15 billion kilometers (9.3 billion miles) from the sun.  And why was Voyager 2 launched before Voyage 1?  Did it “jump the line”?  Pay off mission control so it could go first?  Was it a member of the “Elite Pass” Club?  Was it on the run from the law? No. Although Voyager 1 left Earth 16 days after Voyager 2, Voyager 1’s  faster flight path allowed it to pass the slower craft and arrive at Jupiter more than four months ahead of Voyager 2.