| MAY 20 - BIRTHS | |
| Edward B. Lewis | |
(source) |
 Born 20
May 1918; died 21 Jul 2004.
American developmental geneticist who was awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering the functions that control early embryonic development with co-winners Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard and Eric F. Wieschaus who identified and classified 15 key genes that determine the body plan and formation of body segments of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Lewis studied the next step, the homeotic genes that govern the development of a larval segment into a specific body segment. (Homeotic means that something has been changed into the likeness of something else.) Lewis found a co-linearity in time and space between the order of the genes in the bithorax complex and their effect regions in the segments. |
| William Hewlett | |
(source) |
Born 20
May 1913; died 12 Jan 2001.
William (Redington) Hewlett was an American electrical engineer who co-founded the Hewlett-Packard Company, a leading manufacturer computers, computer printers, and analytic and measuring equipment. In 1939, he formed a partnership known as Hewlett-Packard Company with David Packard, a friend and Stanford classmate. (The order of their names was determined by a coin toss.) HP's first product was an audio oscillator based on a design developed by Hewlett when he was in graduate school. Eight were sold to Walt Disney for Fantasia. Lesser-known early products were: bowling alley foul-line indicator, automatic urinal flusher, weight-loss shock machine. The company's first "plant" was a small garage in Palo Alto, with $538 initial capital. |
| Lydia Cabrera | |
| Born 20
May 1900; died 25 Sep 1991.
Cuban ethnologist and short-story author noted for her collections of Afro-Cuban folklore. Lydia did extensive work in Matanzas, including the small towns south of the city of Matanzas itself, places such as Perico and Union de Reyes. |
|
| R.J. Mitchell | |
(source) |
Born 20
May 1895; died 11 Jun 1937.
Reginald Joseph Mitchell was a British aircraft designer, developer of the eight-gun Spitfire (1936), one of the best-known fighters in World War II. He was an engineer and designer for Supermarine Aviation Works (1916-37), chief engineer (from 1919) and was also known for design of a series of flying boats and high-speed seaplanes. In the years from 1920 to 1936, he designed no less than twenty-four different aircraft. The Spitfire was a derivative of his earlier S.6B seaplane racing aircraft. |
| Eduard Buchner | |
(source) |
Born 20
May 1860; died 13 Aug 1917.
German biochemist who was awarded the 1907 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for demonstrating that the fermentation of carbohydrates results from the action of different enzymes contained in yeast and not the yeast cell itself. He showed that an enzyme, zymase, can be extracted from yeast cells and that it causes sugar to break up. |
| Emil Berliner | |
 |
Born 20
May 1851; died 3 Aug 1929.
German-born American inventor who made important contributions to telephone technology and developed the phonograph record disk, the microphone in 1877 and the gramophone in 1887. Whereas Edison invented cylindrical records, Berliner came up with the idea of using disks. Later, he became a pioneer in helicopter design. |
| Ferdinand Zirkel | |
| Born 20
May 1838; died 12 Jun 1912.
German geologist and pioneer in microscopic petrography, the study of rock minerals by viewing thin slices of rock under a microscope and noting their optical characteristics. |
|
| George Phillips Bond | |
| Born 20
May 1825; died 17 Feb 1865.
Astronomer who made the first photograph of a double star, discovered a number of comets, and with his father discovered Hyperion, the eight moon of Saturn. |
|
| Sir William Congreve | |
(source) |
Born 20
May 1772; died 16 May 1828.
(2nd Baronet) English artillery officer who invented a rocket (about 1804) for use in warfare that improved on simple black-powder rockets. They were first used militarily against the French on 8 Oct 1806 at Boulogne and later at Copenhagen and Leipzig. By 1830, most European armies had copied them. He also invented a gun-recoil mounting, a steam engine, a triple-paper process for coloured watermarks and a "perpetual-motion" machine. He created a wheelchair for himself after losing the use of his legs. He designed a vessel propelled by a "wave-wheel" and a human-powered aircraft. His 18 patents also include making of gunpowder, gas lighting, "hydropneumatic" canal locks, a rolling-ball clock and a built-in sprinkler system.«  |
| William Thornton | |
| Born 20
May 1759; died 28 Mar 1828.
British-born American architect, inventor, and public official, best known as the creator of the original design for the Capitol at Washington, D.C. |
|
| Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente | |
| Born 20
May 1537; died 21 May 1619.
Italian surgeon, an outstanding Renaissance anatomist who helped found modern embryology. |
|
| MAY 20 - DEATHS | |
| Stephen Jay Gould | |
(source) |
 Died
20 May 2002 (born 10 Sep 1941)
American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and science writer who grew up in New York City. He graduated from Antioch College and received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1967. Since then he has been Professor of Geology and Zoology at Harvard University. He considers himself primarily a palaeontologist and an evolutionary biologist, though he teaches geology and the history of science as well. A frequent and popular speaker on the sciences, his published work includes both scholarly study and many prize-winning popular collections of essays. |
| Helen Brooke Taussig | |
(source) |
Died
20 May 1986 (born 24 May 1898)
American physician who founded pediatric cardiology. She pioneered using X-rays and fluoroscopy to identify heart defects in newborns. With surgeon Alfred Blalock, she developed a surgical procedure for treating blue baby syndrome. After 1944, when the first Blalock-Taussig operation was developed, many blue babies were saved from invalidism or death. The Blalock-Taussig shunt (a surgical shunt made between the pulmonary artery and the aorta as treatment for tricuspid and pulmonary atresia) is named for her. In the early 1960s, Taussig was a major person in revealing and stopping the harm caused by the sedative drug thalidamide, which when taken by pregnant woman caused terrible deformations of their to newborn children. |
| Merle Antony Tuve | |
| Died
20 May 1982 (born 27 Jun 1901)
American research physicist and geophysicist who developed the radio-wave exploration method for the ionosphere. The observations he made provided the theoretical foundation for the development of radar. |
|
| Philipp Lenard | |
(source) |
Died
20 May 1947 (born 7 Jun 1862)
Philipp Edduard Anton Lenard was a German physicist and recipient of the 1905 Nobel Prize for Physics for his research on cathode rays. He discovered they could leave a cathode ray tube, penetrate thin metal sheets, and travel a short distance in the air, which would become conducting.. In 1902, he observed that a free electron (as in a cathode ray) must have at least a certain energy to ionize a gas by knocking a bound electron out of an atom. His estimate of the required ionization energy for hydrogen was remarkably accurate. Also in 1902, he showed that the photoelectric effect produces the same electrons found in cathode rays, that the photoelectrons are not merely dislodged from the metal surface but ejected with a certain amount of energy. |
| Eduard Brückner | |
(source) |
Died
20 May 1927 (born 29 July 1862)
German pioneer climate researcher. He also studied the glaciers of the Alps and particularly the effect of the ice ages on the Earth's surface features. By analyzing direct and indirect observations of climatic fluctuations, he discovered the 35-year Brückner climatic cycle (1887) of swings between damp-cold and warm-dry conditions. He initiated scientific debate on whether climate change should be interpreted as a natural function of the Earth system, or whether it was influenced by man's activities, such as deforestation. He considered the impact of climate change on the balance of power between nations and its economic significance in agricultural productivity, emigration, river transportation and the spreading of diseases.«  Eduard
Brückner - The Sources and Consequences of Climate Change and Climate
Variability in Historical Times, editted by N. Stehr
and H. von Storch |
| William Hallowes Miller | |
(source) |
Died
20 May 1880 (born 6 Apr 1801)
Welsh minerologist known for his Millerian indices built on his system of reference axes for crystals by which the different systems of crystal forms can be designated using a a set of three integers for each crystal face. When he published this scheme in A Treatise on Crystallography (1839), he provided an alternative to the existing confusion due to the many different descriptive systems previously in use. In his early career he published successful textbooks for hydrostatics and hydrodynamics (1831) and differential calculus (1833). Miller also prepared new standards in 1843 to replace the National Standards of weight and length that had been lost in the 1834 fire that destroyed the Parliament buildings.« |
| Jacob Moleschott | |
| Died
20 May 1893 (born 9 Aug 1822)
physiologist and philosopher noted for his belief in the material basis of emotion and thought. His most important work, Kreislauf des Lebens (1852; "The Circuit of Life"), added considerable impetus to 19th-century materialism by demanding "scientific answers to scientific questions." |
|
| Charles Bonnet | |
(source) |
Died
20 May 1793 (born 13 Mar 1720)
Swiss naturalist and philosophical writer who discovered parthenogenesis (reproduction without fertilization) in female aphids. Bonnet also: demonstrated the regenerative ability of annelid worms, found that insects breathe through pores which he called stigmata, studied photosynthesis and epinasty in plants and noted the emission of bubbles by a submerged illuminated leaf. With eyesight failing in the 1750's he turned to speculation. Remembering the aphid, in 1770, Bonnet published an argument that all females carry within them all future evolutionary generations in a miniature form, able to survive even such cataclysms as the biblical Flood. He predicted, moreover, that these catastrophes thus brought about evolutionary change. |
| MAY 20 - EVENTS | |
| Space antenna | |
In 1996, a giant balloon-like antenna was inflated outside a satellite
released by the Space Shuttle.* |
|
| Hubble's first photos | |
|
In 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope sent its first photograph from space,
an image of a double star 1,260 light years away. |
|
| Soviet atom smasher | |
|
In 1967, the Soviets displayed the world's largest atom smasher, near completion.* |
|
| Atomic lighthouse | |
|
In 1964, the first U.S. atomic-powered lighthouse was put into operation
in the Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore Harbor, Md. Designed to supply a continuous
flow of electricity for ten years without refuelling, the 60-watt
nuclear generator generated heat from strontium-90 in the form of strontium
titinate, a safe radioisotope. The heat was converted to electricity by
120 pairs of lead telluride thermocouples. Complete with shielding, the
unit was only 34.5 inches high and 22 inches in diameter. It was designed
and produced by the nuclear division of Martin-Marietta Corp. |
|
| Identikit | |
|
In 1959, in Paris, France, the assassin Guy Trebert was the first person
to be arrested using an Identikit picture. |
|
| Satellite patent | |
|
In 1958, Robert Baumann obtained a patent for a satellite. (U.S. No. 2,835,548). |
|
| Airplane delivered H-bomb | |
|
In 1956, the first hydrogen fusion bomb (H-bomb) to be dropped from an
airplane exploded over Namu Atoll at the northwest edge of the Bikini Atoll.
The fireball was four miles in diameter. It was designated as "Cherokee,"
as part of "Operation Redwing." |
|
| Helicopter | |
|
In 1940, inventor Igor Sikorsky demonstrated his helicopter invention to
the public. |
|
| Transatlantic airmail | |
|
In 1939, transatlantic airmail service was inaugurated. A four-engine Pan
American airplane, the Yankee Clipper, flew from Poert Washington,
N.Y. via Horta to Lisbon, Portugal. It also represented the first scheduled
air service. |
|
| Earhart departs | |
|
In 1932, Amelia Earhart took off for Ireland from Habor Grace, Newfoundland,
to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She later
landed her plane in Ireland after a thirteen-hour, thirty-minute flight
from Canada. |
|
| Alfred Wegener | |
(source) |
In 1931, the bodies of the German Greenland Expedition that went missing
last November were discovered. Their leader was prominent explorer Dr
Alfred Lothar Wegener, the German meteorologist and geophysicist who
formulated the first complete statement of the continental drift hypothesis.
This proposed that about 250 million years ago all the present-day continents
had formed a single supercontinent, Pangaea, which had subsequently broken
away and drifted apart. He was also interested in paleoclimatology, and
took part in several expeditions to Greenland to study polar air circulation
since 1906. He died during his fourth expedition.* |
| Airplane launch from airship | |
|
In 1930, for the first time, an airplane was catapulted from a U.S.dirigible.
A Vought two-seat observation plane was catapulted from the airship Los
Angeles and then flew to the carrier Saratoga. |
|
| Lindbergh departs | |
|
In 1927, at 7:40 a.m., Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field
in Long Island, N.Y., aboard the "Spirit of St. Louis" monoplane on his
historic first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. He arrived in France
thirty-three and one-half hours later. |
|
| Radium | |
|
In 1921, Marie Curie was presented with a gram of radium worth $100,000
at the White House, Washington, D.C., USA.* |
|
| Longest submarine | |
|
In 1913. the world's longest submarine, the 243ft Gustave Zede,
was launched at Cherbourg, France.* |
|
| 3D projector | |
|
In 1901, Claude Grivolas, one of Pathe's main shareholders in Paris, France,
invented a projector that produced three-dimensional pictures.* |
|
| APS | |
|
In 1899, the American Physical Society was founded for the advancement
and diffusion of the knowledge of physics. It was formed at Columbia University
by scientists from 17 institutions. The first president was Henry Rowland,
and the first vice-president was A. A. Michelson. During the first year,
57 fellows were admitted. |
|
| Clothes dryer | |
|
In 1892, George Sampson patented the clothes dryer. |
|
| Black American invention | |
|
In 1884, L. Blue, a black American inventor, was issued a patent for a
"Hand Corn Shelling Device" (U.S. No. 298,937).
The
Inventive Spirit of African Americans: Patented Ingenuity,
by Patricia Carter Sluby. |
|
| International metric standards | |
|
In 1875, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures was established
in Sèvres, France, by the International Metric Convention. Contributions
from signatory goverments support the Bureau, which becomes the depository
for the International Prototypes of the Meter and the Kilogram, and secondary
standards. |
|
| Levi's patented | |
 |
In 1873, Jacob W Davis of Reno, Nevada, received
a U.S. patent (No.139,121) on a rivet process for strengthening the
pocket openings of canvas pants. He assigned the patent to himself and
Levi Strauss, as his business partner. Jacob Davis was in charge of manufacturing
when Levi Strauss & Co. opened its two San Francisco factories. Sometime
during 1873, the first riveted clothing was made and sold. (The exact date
is unknown; the company's historic records were lost in the 1906 San Francisco
earthquake and fire.) For nearly 20 years, Levi Strauss & Co. was the
only company making riveted clothing, until the patent expired around 1891.
Thereafter, dozens of garment manufacturers began to imitate the original
riveted clothing. |
| Printed type ticker | |
|
In 1856, the first telegraph ticker that successfuly printed type was issued
a patent for the inventor, David Edward Hughes of Louisville, Ky. (U.S.
No. 14,917). The following year, he sold the rights for $100,000 to the
Commercial Co. |
|
| Fountain pen | |
|
In 1830, D. Hyde of Reading, Pa., patented the fountain pen. However, it
was 1884 before a truly practical fountain pen was invented by Lewis Waterman.
In the first year, 200 Waterman pens were made by hand. Subsequently, Waterman
designed machinery to produce them in larger quantities. |
|
| Scurvy | |
|
In 1747, an experiment to remedy scurvy among sailors was begun by a British
ship's surgeon, James Lind, on the HMS Salisbury. He regulated the
diets of the sailors, and especially included lemons and oranges. Positive
results quickly showed that scurvy, and the huge numbers of deaths, could
be easily remedied. |
|
