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Today in History :: Tuesday, 9 March 2010

Birthdays:
1451	Amerigo Vespucci, merchant, navigator, explorer. Considered by many to have discovered the continents of North and South America, as opposed to Christopher Columbus who assumed he was visiting East Asia. The North and South American continents are named after him. Born in Florence, Italy.
1758	Franz Joseph Gall, anatomist, physiologist. Pioneer in ascribing cerebral functions to various areas of the brain. He was first to recognise that the gray matter of the brain is made up of nerve cell bodies, whereas the white matter of the brain has the fibres that carry the impulses from the nerves. Born in Baden, Germany.
1824	Leland Stanford, politician. Co-founder of the Central Pacific Railroad. He became its president in 1856. In 1891 he founded Leland Stanford Junior University (now Stanford University) at Palo Alto, California, USA as a memorial to his son Leland Stanford Jr who died of typhoid two months before his 16th birthday. Born Amasa Leland Stanford in Watervliet, New York, USA.
1856	Edward Goodrich Acheson, inventor. Inventor of carborundum abrasive, the second hardest known substance (next to diamond). He also perfected a method for making graphite. He established the Carborundum Company in 1894 to produce grinding wheels, whet stones, and powdered abrasives. Born in Washington, Pennsylvania, USA.
1862	Fernand-Isidore Widal, physician, bacteriologist. Made important contributions to the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of many diseases. He developed the Widal reaction in 1896, a procedure for diagnosing typhoid fever. In 1906 he discovered, that the retention of sodium chloride was a feature found in cases of nephritis and cardiac edema, and he recommended salt deprivation as part of the treatment for both diseases. During WW I, he developed a vaccine that appreciably reduced typhoid contagion among the allied armies. Born in Dellys, Algeria.
1890	Vyacheslav Molotov (Вячесла́в Мо́лотов), Russian politician. A member of the Bolsheviks from 1906, he was a staunch supporter of Joseph Stalin, and became secretary of the Central Committee in 1921. Promoted to the Politburo in 1926, he purged the Moscow party organisation of anti-Stalinists and served as prime minister (1930 - 41). During WW II he ordered the production of the crude bottle bombs, later called 'Molotov cocktails'. He arranged the alliances with the USA and Great Britain and was the Soviet spokesman at the Allied conferences during and after the war. He was dismissed in 1956 by Nikita Khrushchev, and in 1962 he was expelled from the Communist Party. Born in Kukarka, Russia.
1900	Howard Hathaway Aiken, mathematician. Inventor of the Harvard Mark I, a forerunner of the modern electronic digital computer, completed in 1943. His machine weighed 32 tonnes, contained 800 km of cable and could compute to 23 significant figures. It was controlled by a sequence of instructions on punched paper tapes and used punched cards to enter data and give output. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA.
1902	Will Geer, actor (The Waltons). Best known as Grandpa Zebulon Walton in the television series "The Waltons". He was a self-confessed agitator and radical, and was blacklisted in Hollywood in 1951 for his fervant, active interest in left-wing politics influenced by former boyfriend Harry Hay, the Los Angeles Communist and radical who founded the USA's first large-scale gay activist organisation, the Mattachine Society. While blacklisted, he built the Will Geer Theatrical Botanicum as an acting haven for himself and other blacklisted actors. Born William Auge Gheer in Frankfort, Indiana, USA.
1923	Walter Kohn, physicist. Shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1998 for work on computations in quantum chemistry, specifically for his development of the density-functional theory which made it possible to apply the complicated mathematics of quantum mechanics to the description and analysis of the chemical bonding between atoms. Born in Vienna, Austria.
1934	Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin (Юрий Алексеевич Гагарин), Russian cosmonaut. Graduated with honours from Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy in 1967 and volunteered to become a cosmonaut, joining a group of test pilots for training. He was selected to pilot the Vostok 1 spacecraft and became the first man in space, spending 1 hour 29 minutes in orbit, at a maximum altitude of 301 km. On his return to Earth, he became a hero of the Soviet Union and worked as Deputy Director of the Cosmonaut Training Centre, but was killed after only four years in his new role when the MiG-15 jet he was piloting crashed near Moscow. Born in Gzhatsk, Russia.
1940	Raul Julia, actor (The Addams Family, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Presumed Innocent, Eyes of Laura Mars). Born Raul Rafael Carlos Julia y Arcelay in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
1942	Mark Lindsay, singer (Paul Revere and the Raiders). Born in Cambridge, Idaho, USA.
1943	Bobby Fischer, chess player. Became the youngest grandmaster in the history of chess in 1958, at the age of 15. He became world chess champion in 1972, defeating Boris Spassky in what was regarded by many as the chess match of the century. He remained world champion until 1975. He was also known for his controversial nature and alienated many in his US homeland by broadcasting anti-Semitic diatribes and expressing support for the 11 September 2001 attacks in New York City. He renounced his US citizenship and lived as an anonymous recluse in Japan for a number of years before moving to Iceland where he was granted citizenship in 2005 as a way to avoid being deported to the US. Born in Chicago, Illinois, USA.
1954	Bobby Sands, IRA-terrorist. Sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment in 1977 for possession of firearms. He began a hunger strike on 1st March 1981 as part of a series of protests organised by IRA prisoners who sought to be recognised as political prisoners and therefore not subject to full prison regulations. He died on the 66th day of his hunger strike, after having been in a coma for 48 hours before being pronounced dead by prison medical staff. Born Robert George Sands in Rathcoole, Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Deaths:
1851	Hans Christian Ørsted, Danish physicist, chemist. Discovered, in 1820, the fundamental connection between electricity and magnetism ie. that electric current in a conductor can deflect a magnetized compass needle. This phenomenon had been first discovered by Italian Gian Domenico Romagnosi in 1802, but his announcement was ignored. Ørsted later showed that immersing a conductor in a magnetic field induces a current in the conductor. His research inspired the development of electromagnetic theory and was later used to create such technologies as the electric motor, radio, television, and fiber optics. The CGS unit of is named the Oersted in his honour, defined to be the field strength in a vacuum at a distance 1 centimetre from a unit magnetic pole. He also had lasting influence on many aspects of Danish culture and society and was one of the first to appreciate and encourage writer and poet Hans Christian Andersen, best known for his fairly tales. Died in Copenhagen, Denmark, aged 73.
1888	Kaiser Wilhelm I (b. Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig), King of Prussia (1861 - 88) and German Emperor (1871 - 88). Inherited the Prussian throne on the death of his older brother Frederick William IV in 1861, and in 1871, following the Franco-Prussian War, he was proclaimed emperor of Germany in Versailles, France at the palace of Louis XIV. He is remembered as a politically neutral monarch who intervened rarely in politics. Died aged 90.
1923	Johannes Diederik van der Waals, Dutch physicist. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1910 for his research on the gaseous and liquid states of matter. He developed the van der Waals equation which took into account the fact that molecules of gases have volume as well as weak electrostatic attractive forces, now called van der Waals forces in his honour. Died in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, aged 85.
1942	Robert Bosch, German engineer. Responsible for the invention of the spark plug and magneto for cars and whose firm produced a wide range of precision machines and electrical equipment. Died in Stuttgart, Germany, aged 80.
1962	Howard Engstrom, American computer designer. Co-founder of Engineering Research Associates, designing electronic digital circuit technology for the US Navy. The company delivered its first Atlas computer to the National Security Agency in 1950. He later took the initiative to make a commercial version, renamed UNIVAC, the first commercially available digital computer. Died in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, aged 59.
1974	Earl Sutherland Jr, American pharmacologist, physiologist. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1971 for isolating cyclic adenosine monophosphate and demonstrating its involvement in numerous metabolic processes that occur in animals. Died following surgery for internal bleeding in Miami, Florida, USA, aged 58.
1981	Max Delbrück, German biochemist. A pioneer in the study of molecular genetics who shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1969 for work on the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of bacteriophages, a type of virus that infects bacteria, rather than ordinary cells. Died in Pasadena, California, USA, aged 74.
1983	Ulf von Euler, Swedish physiologist. Shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1970 for his study of the mechanics of nerve impulses, more specifically, the isolation and identification of noradrenaline, the neurotransmitter for the sympathetic nervous system. Died in Stockholm, Sweden, aged 78.
1992	Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel (1977 - 83). Sent to Siberia by Soviet authorities during WW II, he was soon released to join the Polish army in exile. He escaped to Palestine where he became leader of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, a right-wing underground movement in favour of a Jewish state, in 1943. He led the opposition in the Israeli Knesset (1948 - 77) before becoming prime minister in 1977 as head of the Likud (unity) party coalition. He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat in 1978 for his role in returning much of the Sinai to Egypt and signing a peace treaty with Egypt. Died of a heart attack in Ichilov Hospital, Tel Aviv, Israel, aged 78.
1996	George Burns (b. Nathan Birnbaum), American comedian, actor. Legendary vaudeville comedian who went on to work in film, radio, and early television. He enjoyed a career in show business lasting around 80 years and is best remembered for the comedy duo he formed with his wife Gracie Allen, with her playing the scatterbrain of the team and Burns adopting the role of the straight man. The pair broke into film with the advent of sound, recreating their popular stage routines in films such as "Lamb Chops" in 1929. Following Gracie's death from cancer, he continued to work in television but retired from the big screen for many years and made a comeback in 1975 in "The Sunshine Boys", winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, and later in 1977's "Oh God!". Died in Beverly Hills, California, USA, aged 100.
2006	John Profumo, English (Conservative) politician. Elected as a member of the English parliament for Kettering (Conservative Party) at the age of 25, he is best known for his forced resignation following an affair with prostitute Christine Keeler who, at the time was also having an affair with a Russian Naval Attache and spy. He was awarded the OBE in 1944 and the CBE in 1975 for his charity work. Died Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, England, aged 91.
Events on this day:
1074	Reforming pope Gregory VII excommunicates married priests in a bid to impose strict clerical celibacy.
1497	Nicolaus Copernicus makes his first recorded astronomical observation.
1791	US surgeon George Hayward performs the first major operation with ether, the amputation of a leg, accomplished in 1¾ minutes.
1822	Charles Graham of New York City, USA patents false teeth.
1862	'Monitor' and 'Merrimack' clash in the American Civil War, the first ever battle between ironclad ships.
1864	Ulysses S. Grant is appointed commander of the Union Army.
1873	The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is founded.
1893	Professor James Dewar communicates to the meeting of the Royal Society that he had succeeded in freezing air into a clear, transparent solid.
1924	Italy annexes Rijeka (Fiume in Italian), the principal seaport and third largest city of Croatia.
1945	US bombers begin devastating 'firestorm raids' against Japan, which kill 250,000 people.
1948	The University of California at Berkeley, USA and the US Atomic Energy Commission officially announce the artificial production of using the 184 inch cyclotron at the university's radiation laboratory.
1959	The Barbie doll goes on sale for the first time.
1964	The first Ford Mustang rolls off the assembly line at the Ford Motor Company.
1967	Josef Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defects to the USA.
1975	Construction of the Alaskan oil pipeline begins.
1979	The first extraterrestrial volcano is discovered on Jupiter's moon Io.
1986	US Navy divers find the heavily-damaged crew compartment of the Space Shuttle Challenger. The bodies of all seven astronauts were still inside.
1986	Soviet space probe Vega 2 flies to within 8,000 km of Halley's Comet.