On September 3, 1874, Norwegian mathematician and geophysicist Fredrik Carl Mülertz Størmer was born. Although he investigated several astrophysical phenomena during his lifetime such as meteor trails and solar corona, Størmer was particularly involved in the study of the polar auroras. The aurora phenomena…
On July 25, 1920, biophysicist, crystallographer, and pioneer molecular biologist Rosalind Elsie Franklin was born. She studied natural sciences at Newnham College, Cambridge. Pursuing graduate studies but wishing to contribute to a national effort, Franklin joined the British Coal Utilization Research Association, measuring and…
On July 18, 1720, English naturalist Gilbert White was born. A country cleric, White systematically recorded careful and detailed observations of all Nature in his surroundings. He experimented with different plants from flowers to potatoes to fruit trees in his garden that is still…
On June 10, 1834, naturalist Charles Darwin passed through the “East and West Furies”, the Tower Rocks, to reach the open waters of the Pacific Ocean aboard HMS Beagle. HMS Beagle was, to its time, as modern and science-packed as any space station. Its…
On May 13, 1857, Dr. Ronald Ross was born into an age when many suspected that putrid air was the culprit that killed hundreds of thousands of people and who called this killer disease malaria from the Italian mal’aria [“bad air”]. Toward the end…
On January 4, 1809, inventor and educator Louis Braille was born near Paris. He played and “helped’ his father who made harnesses and other leather goods in his workshop. On one fateful day, playing with an awl, a sharp, pointed tool for piercing leather,…
On December 30, 1863, American physician and bacteriologist William Hallock Park was born. He specialized in nose and throat diseases in New York City and soon became interested in the new science of bacteriology. In NYC, a lengthy epidemic of diphtheria had become the…
On December 26, 1791, English mathematician and pioneer computer scientist Charles Babbage was born. He spent much of his life trying to plan and build a machine that would make as many calculations as possible. Error free, of course. He had read about the…
On November 13, 1981, after eight years in the planning and construction, the Canadarm first flew aboard STS-2. Officially known as the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System, the RMS was Canada’s contribution to the Space Shuttle Program. Intended to assist moving materials around from and…
On September 30, 1905, bird photographer Alfred Donald Trounson, OAM, was born. He spent most of his life as a British diplomat on government assignments in Italy and New York. At his last posting in Australia, the song of a backyard bird launched Trounson’s…