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Oct 17, 1448
EVENT: Gutenberg Printing Press
Johannes Gutenberg, a German inventor, revolutionized printing with his creation of mechanical movable type. -
Oct 11, 1492
EVENT: Discovery of the Americas
During his first trip (of four: one in 1492, one in 1493, one in 1498, and one in 1502) across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain, explorer Christopher Columbus documented his first discovery of American soil. -
Oct 31, 1517
EVENT: Reformation of the Catholic Church
A Christian movement in Europe formed out of opposition to perceived corruption and wrongdoing within the Roman Catholic Church in order to upheave and start afresh free of such corruption and wrongdoing. It began the year Martin Luther tacked his 95 Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Saxony, and ended on November 20, 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia. -
EVENT: Galileo Convicted of Heresy
Chief inquisitor Father Vincenzo Maculano da Firenzuola, appointed by Pope Urban VIII, began the inquisition of physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei due to the fact that Galileo had held the belief that the Earth revolves around the Sun (a notion deemed heretical by the Catholic Church). -
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SCIENTIST: Joseph Priestley (Carbon Monoxide and Nitrogen Dioxide)
The English scientist and scholar made/discovered Carbon Monoxide during his experiment with the respiration of plants by placing a shoot of a green plant in a sealed container with a lit candle that he left burning until it went out but (he later discovered) could be lit again. Priestley also made/discovered Nitrtogen Dioxide by heating ammonium nitrate in the presence of iron filings, and then passing the gas that came off nitrogen monoxide through water to remove toxic by-products. -
SCIENTIST: Joseph Priestley (Oxygen)
By heating a brick-red compound of mercury, the English scientist and scholar produced a gas whose properties of enhanced support of combustion and animal respiration led him to the discovery of an amazing new substance: dephlogisticated air (oxygen). -
EVENT: Declaration of Independence
The Congress formally adopted this formal statement written largely by Thomas Jefferson but also by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R. Livingston, and Roger Sherman. The statement was one of the colonies’ intentions on the movement for independence from Britain—an issue pressing on the Continental Congress since April 1775. -
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SCIENTIST: Antoine Lavoisier
In a special experiment, he burnt phosphorus and sulfur in air, and proved that the products weighed more than he original; yet, the weight gained was lost from the air--and thus the Law of Conservation of Mass was established. He also formulated a theory of the chemical reactivity of oxygen and co-wrote the modern system for the nomenclature of chemical substances (among many other things), and is now therefore widely credited as the "Father of Modern Chemistry." -
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SCIENTIST: Alessandro Volta
The Italian physicist invented the Voltaic Pile (the first basic battery) using his personally invented knowledge of the electric cell. -
SCIENTIST: John Dalton
He developed Dalton’s Atomic Theory, the principles of which state: 1. Elements are made of the smallest particles called atoms, 2. All atoms for a particular element are identical, 3. Atoms of different elements can be told apart by their atomic weight, 4. Atoms of different elements can combine in a chemical reaction to form chemical compounds in fixed ratios, and 5. Atoms cannot be created, destroyed, or divided as they are the smallest particles of matter. -
SCIENTIST: Michael Faraday
He discovered the induction of electric currents and constructed the first electric dynamo, but later on in 1839 he conducted several experiments to determine the fundamental nature of electricity and established that electrostatic force consists of a field of curved lines of force and conceived a specific inductive capacity. This of course then led to the development his theories on light and gravitational systems. -
EVENT: Civil War (Start)
Decades of simmering tensions between the northern and southern United States over issues including states' rights versus federal authority, westward expansion, and slavery exploded into the American Civil War. -
SCIENTIST: Louis Pasteur
The French chemist completed his first (and quite successful) test on his invention of a process through which bacteria could be removed from a substance by the boiling and then cooling of it--a process named after him: pasteurization. -
EVENT: Civil War (End)
The American Civil War ended in Confederate surrender, proving to be the costliest war ever fought on American soil, with some 620,000 (of 2.4 million) soldiers killed, millions more injured, and the population and territory of the South devastated. -
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SCIENTIST: Alfred Nobel
The Swedish inventor and industrialist mixed nitroglycerin, a very unstable high explosive, with silica powder, forming a stable paste that he called “dynamite.” Dynamite (which could be shaped into cylindrical charges that were safely detonated by a blasting cap) replaced black gunpowder, which had less than half of dynamite’s blasting power. -
EVENT: First U.S. Transcontinental Railroad
A 7-year process (assigned according to the Pacific Railroad Act to the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad Companies) of building the United States’ first transcontinental railroad from east to west is completed. -
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SCIENTIST: Eugen Goldstein
The German physicist discovered the existence of protons in the nuclei of atoms throughout his experimentation with atoms, as well as canal rays when he experimented by perforating the anode and observed glowing yellow streamers emanating from the perforations. -
SCIENTIST: Henri Becquerel
While experimenting with the properties of the fluorescent minerals in a uranium compound, he accidentally discovered radioactivity, which is the spontaneous emission of a stream of particles or electromagnetic rays during nuclear decay. -
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SCIENTIST: J.J. Thomson
The English physicist discovered the electron using a cathode ray tube experimentation process. He calculated the electron's mass to charge ratio and proposed the plum pudding model of the atom. -
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SCIENTIST: Marie Curie
Having done radioactivity research (out of sheer curiosity about Henri Becquerel's own research) with her husband Pierre, the Polish physicist and chemist announced her (and her husband's) brilliant isolation of polonium, for which she became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize. -
SCIENTIST: Max Planck
The German theoretical physicist published his groundbreaking Quantum Theory of modern physics; a theory based on the concept of the subdivision of radiant energy into finite quanta and applied to numerous processes involving transference or transformation of energy in an atomic or molecular scale. -
SCIENTIST: Alfred Nobel
His will provided for the establishment of five international prizes to be awarded each year for outstanding accomplishments in physics, chemistry, physiology (or medicine), literature, and peace. Therefore, it was on this day that the first Nobel Prize Awards ceremony took place. -
SCIENTIST: Guglielmo Marconi
Marconi (an Italian inventor and engineer) developed, demonstrated and marketed the first successful long-distance wireless telegraph and broadcast the first transatlantic radio signal. -
SCIENTIST: Albert Einstein
He conducted the Special Theory of Relativity, which dealt with the nature of radiation and matter. The theory was invented to explain the observed behavior of electric and magnetic fields, and went on to further (although Einstein might not have desired for it to) built the theoretical background for the invention of the atomic bomb. It was in 1915 that Einstein introduced his General Theory of Relativity, which dealt with simpler matters. -
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SCIENTIST: Robert Millikan
The American physicist determined the charge of the electron through his Oil Drop Experiment. By measuring electrical charges on tiny oil drops, he determined that the electron is the fundamental unit of electricity. -
SCIENTIST: Ernest Rutherford
The New Zealand-born British chemist and physicist discovered the nucleus of the atom during experiments with radioactive elements, and in the process he deduced the true, divisible nature of the atom. -
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SCIENTIST: Henry Moseley
The British chemist published the results of his measurements of the wavelengths of the X-ray spectral lines of a number of elements which showed that the ordering of the wavelengths of the X-ray emissions of the elements coincided with the ordering of the elements by atomic number. In other words, the results of his measurements also resulted in a much-needed reordering of the periodic table. -
SCIENTIST: Niels Bohr
He proposed the first successful Quantum Mechanical Model of the atom; a model which was then named after him as the “Bohr Model." -
EVENT: Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand
A Bosnian Serb nationalist shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie to death during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. These killings sparked a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I by August, 1914. -
EVENT: Bolshevik Revolution
The finalizing event (of many that all summarized the Russian Revolution) occurred; it was a rebellion led by Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin and followed by leftist revolutionaries, ending with the overthrowing of Russia's apparently ineffective Provisional Government and making Bolshevik Russia (later renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the USSR) the world's first Marxist state. -
EVENT: Treaty of Versailles
A contract was signed in the Versailles Palace outside Paris between the Allied and Associated Powers on the one hand and Germany on the other, brought World War I to an end. -
SCIENTIST: Sir Frederick Banting
After much experimentation, he and Dr. Charles Best gave their insulin serum for the first time to a 14-year-old human Leonard Thompson, who experienced an almost immediate recovery. -
SCIENTIST: Louis de Broglie
He introduced (to the Journal de Physique) his Theory of Wave-Particle Duality, which states that light can behave as both a particle and a wave depending on the manner in which it is observed. -
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SCIENTIST: Erwin Schrodinger
Austrian physicist produced the papers that gave the foundations of quantum wave mechanics. In these papers he described his partial differential equation that is the basic equation of quantum mechanics. -
SCIENTIST: Werner Heisenberg
A paper on the German theoretical physicist's uncertainty principle (named after him as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) first appeared to the public in The New York Times. This principle states that it is impossible to determine with perfect accuracy both the position and momentum of a particle at any given point in time. -
SCIENNTIST: Philo Farnsworth
A aelf-taught physicist and inventor having been working on the project for quite some time in a San Fransisco laboratory, he made the first electronic transmission of television, using a carbon arc projector to send a single smoky line to a receiver in the next room of his apartment. His first public demonstration of television was in Philadelphia on August 25 1934, broadcasting an image of the moon. -
SCIENTIST: Wallace Carothers (Neoprene)
He and the Du Point Research Company announced that its chemists had prepared a new substance resembling natural rubber in composition and structure (while having some unique properties such as resistance to degradation by oil and gasoline): neoprene. -
SCIENTIST: James Chadwick
He discovered the existence of neutrons in the nuclei of atoms while experimenting on a tomic disintegration with Ernest Rutherford. This was a discovery for which Chadwick won the Nobel Prize in 1935. -
SCIENTIST: Wallace Carothers (Nylon)
At a rather climactic point in his research at the Du Pont Research Company, he found a strong polyamide fiber that stood up well to both heat and solvents and ended up evaluating more than 100 different polyamides before choosing one (nylon) for development. -
SCIENTIST: Leo Szilard (Nuclear Chain Reactions)
After much callaboration (with Walter Zinn at Columbia University) about his previous formulated ideas on the subject, the Hungarian American nuclear physicist expanded his ideas into the "A-55 Report" (for the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago), which was submitted and accepted for publication by the Physical Review. -
EVENT: Bombing of Pearl Harbor
The U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor was attacked at 7:55 a.m. Hawaii time by 360 Japanese dive bombers—an assault that struck a critical blow against the U.S. Pacific fleet and drew the U.S. into World War II. -
SCIENTIST: Leo Szilard (Atomic Bomb)
The Hungarian American nuclear physicist and 69 co-signers at the Manhattan Project "Metallurgical Laboratory" in Chicago petitioned the President of the United States. The Manhattan Project produced the first official atomic bombs (the first of which was tested in midsummer 1945), which were used to end World War II. -
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EVENT: Initial Concept for World Wide Web
J. C. R. Licklider (a computer scientist often referred to as the Father of the Internet) first conceptualized an “Intergalactic Network” or a system by which people could access information from anywhere in the world (the internet) in a series of memos he wrote. -
EVENT: First Cellular Phone
The first public telephone call placed on a portable cellular phone was made by Martin Cooper while he was the general manager of Motorola's Communications Systems Division. -
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SCIENTIST: Kary Mullis
After his epiphanous conception of the polymerase chain reaction while driving on a California highway, Mullis (along with his colleagues at Cetus Corporation) successfully developed this powerful new technique for the rapid manufacture of massive amounts of DNA from small samples--a technique that led to valuable applications in medicine, genetics, criminology, archaeology, and other fields.
