On February 9, 1865, American photographer and pioneering weather scientist Wilson Alwyn Bentley was born. After experiencing the Vermont winter snows for almost two decades, Bentley followed his passion for capturing the beauty of snowflakes for others to share. He managed to figure out…
On February 5, 1947, American astronaut Mary L. Cleave was born. Plant and soil sciences intrigued her as she grew up. She specialized in microbial ecology then concerned herself with what might be possible if she could apply scientific and engineering principles to the…
On January 13, 1957, Wham-O began production of its “Pluto Platters”, the plastic flying dish today called a Frisbee™. Invented by Fred Morrison, the lightweight and elegant airfoil becomes a vehicle of remarkable precision in the hands of a skilled hurler. Inspired by pie…
On January 9, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt established Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota, the world’s first cave designated as a national park. It is named for the whistling, rushing noise of the wind at the mouth of the cave. The cave breathes…
On January 6, 1838, Samuel Morse gave the first public demonstration of the electric telegraph at New Jersey’s Speedwell Iron Works. The message, “a patient waiter is no loser”, tapped in code along two miles of cotton-covered wire, capped one of the most important…
On October 14, 1994, Saguaro was redesignated a National Park from a National Monument. This Arizona park covers elevation ranges from desert floor to mountain top, up to 2600 m (8600 ft). The park’s lowest elevation is a desert ecozone with chaparral and grassland…
On October 5, 1911, botanist, educator, and ecologist Pierre Mackay Dansereau, CC GOQ FRSC, was born in Montréal. A working botanist-theorist, he developed defining insights into ecology through a lifetime of field research from the Alps to the Arctic and teaching at 20 universities…
On September 25, 1890, Sequoia National Park was established to protect a forest of giant trees called sequoias. That’s what to do with the largest trees on Earth – build a national park around them! The largest tree is named the General Sherman tree…
On September 22, 1877, American zoologist Victor Ernest Shelford was born. He studied animal communities and correlations between changes in environment and the changes in animal populations. Looking at rivers, lakes, and forests in his first book, Animal Communities in Temperate America, Shelford outlined…
On September 18, 2023, the Slumgullion Earthflow continues moving downhill from Mesa Seco… a slow, thousand-year-old journey! Produced in tectonic activity, the San Juan Mountains formed tens of millions of years ago in southwest Colorado. As climate altered the volcanic residue in the Mesa…
