On September 23, 1791, German astronomer Johann Franz Encke was born in Hamburg. He studied mathematics and astronomy. The orbits of comets held great fascination for Encke. These couldn’t be seen for many decades at a time before they returned. Because these orbital periods…
On April 11, 1924, oceanographer and marine geologist, Bruce Charles Heezen was born. He became an expert on continental drift and the undersea landslides that reshape ocean floors. A pioneer in plate tectonics, he was leader of the team from Columbia University that discovered…
On March 24, 1693, English clockmaker John Harrison was born. As England’s maritime exploits, explorations, and economy grew, the country’s mariners had run smack up against a seemingly impenetrable wall. They required convenient and accurate measure of their positions at sea, specifically their longitude,…
On March 16, 1750, astronomer Caroline Lucretia Herschel was born in Germany. She had a bad health childhood that included smallpox and Typhus that left her with a slightly scarred face and shorter than a parking meter. Her parents kept her at home as…
On February 11, 1916, Bandelier National Monument was designated in New Mexico. Its 13,355 ha ( 33,000 acres) were set aside for the cultural conservation of archaeological and anthropological sites and materials and to provide recreational trail access to mountain, canyon, and mesa scenery.…
On January 19, 2006, on a bright afternoon, NASA launched New Horizons, a sophisticated space probe to make flyby studies of the mysterious planet Pluto and its moon. Now en route to the Kuiper belt in which Pluto lives, New Horizons began its close…
On January 7, 1827, Canadian surveyor, engineer, and inventor Sir Sandford Fleming was born in Scotland. He served as the chief engineer of both the Intercolonial (Maritimes-Quebec) and Canadian Pacific Railways. In what can only be imagined as a stunning eye opener, Fleming saw…
On December 25, 1821, American teacher, nurse, and humanitarian Clara Barton was born. At 12 years of age, Barton began to care for her brother who had been injured in a fall from a barn roof and become bedridden. At 18 she had passed…
On December 10, 1827, American landscape photographer Benjamin West Kilburn was born. He was the younger brother who eventually took over the family’s business of commercial landscape photography. One of the latest entertainment crazes in Europe, the stereoscope, had arrived in North America. The…
On December 4, 1906, Doctor Robert Wallace Wilkins was born in Tennessee. He was a clinical investigator of cardiovascular function and disease. Wilkins began his career at Johns Hopkins University as a circulation research associate and instructor in medicine. He became professor, then, Chief…