TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday






Today in Science History Home

Short Stories of Science and Invention

A Collection of Radio Talks by
Charles F. Kettering

INDEX

46.   George Washington, Patriot, Statesman and Scientist

Guerrilla     Washington possessed the faculty of approaching War, even then, on a scientific basis. In fact, he was probably one of the first soldiers to recognize the value of camouflage. In order to utilize his comparatively small force of men to the best advantage, he specialized in guerrilla warfare. He was quick to realize the superior quali ties of the buckskin hunting shirts as a uniform for they blended so well with the underbrush. In contrast there were no better targets than a company of Hessian soldiers in their bright red uniforms marching along in military order.

     But camouflage was not the only modern weapon Washington used in his warfare - he even included the submarine in his experimental tactics.

     One morning in 1776, some British soldiers stationed at Governor's Island were mystified by what appeared to be a large metal object equipped with windows floating towards Admiral Howes' flagship, the "Eagle." As they got out a boat to investigate, the metal object withdrew but left floating on the tide what looked like a very large egg. Soon there was a tremendous roar - the "egg" had exploded. The large metal object was probably the first military submarine and the "egg" was a time-bomb containing 130 pounds of powder.


backnext

Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.