10 June 2017

10 June 2017

Interesting tidbits:

1692 – Salem witch trials: Bridget Bishop is hanged at Gallows Hill near Salem, Massachusetts, for "certaine Detestable Arts called Witchcraft & Sorceries".

1720 - Mrs Clements of England markets first paste-style mustard.

1793 – The Jardin des Plantes museum opens in Paris. A year later, it becomes the first public zoo.

1809 - The first US steamboat to a make an ocean voyage leaves NYC for Philadelphia.

1846 - Robert Thomson obtains an English patent on a rubber tire.

1854 - Georg FB Reiman proposes that space is curved.

1902 - The patent for the window envelope was granted to HF Callahan.

1943 - FDR signs withholding tax bill into law.

1973 - Explorer 49 Launch into lunar orbit.

1977 – The Apple II, one of the first personal computers, goes on sale.

2002 – The first direct electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans is carried out by Kevin Warwick in the United Kingdom.

2003 – The Spirit Rover is launched, beginning NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission.

Today's birthday crew:

1819 – Gustave Courbet, French painter.

1832 – Nikolaus Otto, was the German inventor of the first internal combustion engine to efficiently burn fuel directly in a piston chamber. Though the concept of four strokes, with the vital compression of the mixture before ignition, had been invented and patented in 1861 by Alphonse Beau de Rochas Otto was the first to make it practical. Just as James Watt did not invent the steam engine but was the first person to make it a practical and powerful device, Otto too did not invent the internal combustion engine but made it a practical and powerful device.

1865 – Frederick Cook, American explorer and physician, noted for his claim of having reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908. This would have been a year before April 6, 1909, the date claimed by Robert Peary. Cook was the surgeon on Robert Peary's 1891–1892 Arctic expedition, and on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897–1899 led by Adrien de Gerlache. He contributed greatly to saving the lives of the crew when their ship (the Belgica) was ice-bound during the winter. A fellow crew-member was Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, with whom he established a friendship and lifelong relationship of mutual respect. In 1898, during this expedition, Cook visited Tierra del Fuego, where he met Thomas Bridges shortly before his death. As a result of that meeting, Cook brought back the manuscript of Bridges' Yamana dictionary, and several years later acquiesced in the attempted publication of the dictionary as his own work. In 1903 Cook led an expedition to Mount McKinley, which resulted in his circumnavigation of the Denali range. He would subsequently make a second expedition in 1906, and claim to have made the first ascent of that mountain. Cook claimed to have achieved the first summit of Mount McKinley in September 1906, reaching the top with one other member of his expedition. Other members of the team, whom he had left lower on the mountain, expressed private doubts about this immediately. His claims were not publicly challenged however until the 1909 fight with Peary over which had first reached the North Pole, at which time it was publicly alleged by Peary's supporters that Cook's ascent of Mt. McKinley was fraudulent. Ed Barrill, Cook's sole companion during the 1906 climb, signed an affidavit in 1909 denying that they had reached the top. He was paid by Peary supporters to do so, although Barrill had consistently until a month before asserted that he and Cook had reached the summit. Unlike Hudson Stuck in 1913 Cook took no photograph of the view from atop McKinley, and his photograph which he claimed to be of the summit was found to have been taken of a tiny peak 19 miles away.

1889 – Sessue Hayakawa, Japanese actor.

1895 – Hattie McDaniel, American actress (Gone With The Wind).

1922 – Judy Garland, American actress and singer (The Wizard of Oz).

1926 – Lionel Jeffries, English actor (First Men in the Moon).

1928 – Maurice Sendak, American illustrator and writer of children's books. He became widely known for his book "Where the Wild Things Are", first published in 1963. Besides "Where the Wild Things Are", Sendak also wrote works such as "In the Night Kitchen" and "Outside Over There", and illustrated "Little Bear".

1929 – E.O. Wilson, American biologist (the father of sociobiology).

1980 – Jessica DiCicco, American actress and voice actress (Flame Princess).

1988 – Kelly Vitz, American actress (Sky High).

Happy birthday guys!

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