This Week In #History ... February 21- 27th
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @UlaVovk
Feb 21
1804 1st locomotive, Richard Trevithick's, runs for 1st time, in Wales
1858 Edwin T. Holmes installs 1st electric burglar alarm (Boston, Massachusetts)
1878 1st telephone book issued, 50 subscribers (New Harbor, Connecticut)
1902 Dr. Harvey Cushing, 1st U.S. brain surgeon, does his 1st brain operation
1916 Battle of Verdun in WW I begins (1 million casualties)
1925 1st issue of "New Yorker" magazine published
1932 Camera exposure meter patented, W. N. Goodwin
1947 1st instant developing camera demonstrated in New York City, by E H Land
1953 Francis Crick and James Watson discover structure of DNA-molecule
1995 RAF-pilot Jo Salter is 1st woman to fly in a tornado
Happy birthday to Justus van Effen, Willem van Haren, Friedrich C von Savigny, Karl A. Varnhagen von Ense, John Henry Newman, Ernest Meissonier, Clement-Philibert-Leo Delibes, [James] Burner Matthews, Hendrik P Berlage, Sacha Guitry, Willem Banning, Felix Aylmer, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Celia Lovsky, Sydney Arnold, Madeleine Renaud, Anais Nin, W. H. Auden, Arline Judge, Ann Sheridan, Lucille Bremer, Sam Peckinpah, Hubert de Givenchy, Larry Hagman, Rue McClanahan, Mark McManus, Gary Lockwood, Richard Beymer, Tyne Daly, Alan Rickman, Christine Ebersole, Chuck Palahniuk, Christopher Atkins, Petra Kronberger, Charlotte Church.
Feb 22
1775 1st U.S. joint stock company (to make cloth) offers shares at 10 cents
1865 Tennessee adopts a new constitution abolishing slavery
1900 Hawaii became a U.S. territory
1928 1st solo England to Australia flight lands (Bert Hinkler)
1941 Nazi SS begin rounding up Jews of Amsterdam
1956 1st British soccer match at Kunstlicht: Portsmouth vs Newcastle United
1989 U.K. physicist Stephen Hawking calls Star Wars a "deliberate fraud"
2006 Apple's iTunes store sells it's 1 billionth song
2010 Germany and the European Union deny planning a 20 - 25 billion euro financial aid plan for Greece
Happy birthday to Charles VII, Peter Bornemisza, Anthony Van Dyck, George Washington, Karl Jacob Wagner, Matthijs I van Bree, Joachim Nicolas Eggert, Adolphe Quetelet, Niels Wilhelm Gade, Adolf Kuszmaul, Pierre Jules Cesar Janssen, Robert Baden-Powell, Heinrich Hertz, Johannes Bronsted, Robin G Collingwood, Jan Wils, David Dubinsky, Dwight Frye, Giorgios Seferis, Mildred Davis, Gale Gordon, Sheldon Leonard, Dan Seymour, Giulietta Masina, Andre Asriel, Gerard Hoffnung, Paul Dooley, Marni Nixon, Allison Hayes, Bobby Hendricks, Jonathan Demme, Sylvette Miou-Miou, Julie Walters, Ellen Greene, Gigi Fernandez, Jeri Ryan, Jose Solano, Drew Barrymore, David Lopez.
Feb 23
1455 Johannes Gutenberg prints 1st book, Bible (estimated date)
1822 Boston is incorporated as a city
1861 By popular referendum, Texas becomes 7th state to secede from U.S.
1886 London Times publishes world's 1st classified ad
1936 1st rocket air mail flight, Greenwood Lake, New York
1945 U.S. Marines raise flag on Iwo Jima, famous photo and statue
1967 U.S. troops begin largest offensive of Vietnam War
1980 Oil tanker explosion off Pilos, Greece, causes 37-million-gallon spill
1991 North Carolina is 1st NCAA basketball team to win 1,500 games
1997 Scientists in Scotland announced they succeeded in cloning an adult mammal, producing a lamb named "Dolly"
Happy birthday to Samuel Pepys, John Blow, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, John Walter II, Emma Willard, U.S., Herman N van der Tuuk, Norman Lindsay, Victor Fleming, Frank Cellier, Frederik M baron of Asbeck, Kathleen Harrison, Erich Kastner, Johnny Carey, Johnny Seven, Harry Boldt, Gerry Davis, Tom Wesselmann, Lee Quencey Calhoun, Diane Varsi, Majel Barrett, William Hjortsberg, Jada Rowland, Rusty Young, Colin Sanders, Patricia Richardson, Brad Whitford, Sallie L. Baliunas, Michael Wilton, Kristin Davis, Stephanie Seymour, Jason & Shane Keller, Dakota Fanning.
Feb 24
1888 Louisville, Kentucky becomes 1st government in U.S. to adopt Australian ballot
1895 Cuban war for independence begins
1938 Du Pont begins commercial production of nylon toothbrush bristles
1949 V-2/WAC-Corporal 1st rocket to outer space, White Sands, NM, 400 km
1976 Cuba adopts its constitution
1986 Voyager 2, 1st Uranus flyby
1988 Matti Nykanen becomes winter olympics 1st triple gold medalist
2008 Fidel Castro resigns as President of Cuba, his brother Raul Castro is unanimously elected
Happy birthday to Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Bernard S Albinus, Wilhelm Karl Grimm, Albert Schaffle, Winslow Homer, George A. Moore, Juliusz Kaden-Bandrowski, Bert Lytell, Marjorie Main, Max Black, Zachary Scott, Frank Rogers, Douglass Watson, Abe Vigoda, Lionel Dakers, Paul B Elvstrom, Michael Harrington, Al Lettieri, Barbara Lawrence, John Vernon, Linda Cristal, Phil Knight, James Farentino, David K Williamson, Sheila Larkin, Rubert Holmes, Helen Shaver, Steve Jobs, Judith Butler, Michelle Shocked, Mitch Hedberg, Jonathan Ward, Manon Rheaume, Alexis Jose Grullon.
Feb 25
1836 Samuel Colt patents 1st revolving barrel multishot firearm
1837 1st U.S. electric printing press patented by Thomas Davenport
1908 1st tunnel under Hudson River (railway tunnel) opens
1930 Check photographing device patented
1932 Immigrant Adolf Hitler gets German citizenship
1956 Khrushchev denounces Stalin at 20th Soviet Party Conference
1977 Soyuz 24 returns to Earth
1989 1st independent blue-collar labor union in Communist Hungary forms
2010 After being delayed by the Supreme Administrative Court of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovych is sworn in as the 4th President of Ukraine
Happy birthday to Simon Stijl, Taras Shevchenko, Otto Liebmann, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Menso Kamerlingh Onnes, Leonard Carey, Howard Wendell, William Thomas Astbury, [Herbert] Zeppo Marx, Warren Hymer, Shimen Rushkin, Richard Wattis, Jim Backus, Gert Froebe, Ian Wallace, Anthony Burgess, Henry Norwood Ewell, Hayes Gordon, Bert Remsen, Jane Nigh, Dick Jones, Larry Gelbart, Tommy Newsom, Tom Courtenay, Marisa Mell, Jud Taylor, Susan Browning, Karen Grassle, Elkie Brooks, Lee Edward Evans, G B Warren, Neil Jordan, Davie Cooper, Nancy O'Dell, Stacey Cortez, Sean Astin.
Feb 26
1870 1st New York City subway line opens (pneumatic powered)
1881 SS Ceylon begins 1st round-the-world cruise from Liverpool
1930 1st red and green traffic lights installed (Manhattan, New York City)
1935 RADAR-Radio Detection and Ranging 1st demonstrated (Robert Watson-Watt)
1968 Clandestine Radio Voice of Iraqi People (Communist) final transmission
1977 1st flight of Space Shuttle (atop a Boeing 747)
1984 Pak Awang (84) marries 80th spouse
1993 2nd tallest building in world, New York City World Trade Center bombed, 7 die
2009 Former Serbian President Milan Mulutinovic is acquitted of war crimes during the Kosovo War
Happy birthday to Christopher Marlowe, Victor Hugo, Carlos Calvo, Richard Andree, Herbert Henry Dow, Nadezjda K Krupskaja, Erich R Jaensch, William Frawley, Madeleine Carroll, Tex Avery, Jon Hall, Robert Alda, Mason Adams, Beppie Nooij, Tony Randall, Betty Hutton, Margaret Leighton, Cynthia Stone, Godfrey Cambridge, Manmohan Desai, Jack Knight, Joop van den Ende, Paul Cotton, Bill Duke, Marta Kristen, Phyllis Eisenstein, Sandi Shaw, Priscilla Lopez, Jonathan Cain, Keena Rothhammer, Connie Carpenter-Phinney, Alison Armitage, Meeno Peluce, Katie O'Neill, Erykah Badu.
Feb 27
1700 Pacific Island of New Britain discovered
1827 1st Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans
1883 Oscar Hammerstein patents 1st cigar-rolling machine
1912 Lord Kitchener opens Khartoum-El Obeid (Nyala) railway
1942 J. S. Hey discovers radio emissions from Sun
1967 Pink Floyd release their 1st single "Arnold Layne"
1974 "People" magazine begins sales
1992 Tiger Woods, 16, becomes youngest PGA golfer in 35 years
1998 Apple discontinues developing Newton computer
Happy birthday to Constantine I, Elias Annes Borger, Richard Garnett, Ellen Terry, Charles Hubert H Parry, Rudolph Steiner, George Herbert Mead, Irving Fisher, Alice Hamilton, Luitzen Brouwers, David Sarnoff, William Demarest, Edward Brophy, Bernard F. Lyot, Ian Keith, John Steinbeck, Ethelda Bleibtrey, Renaat Verheijen, James Thomas Farrell, Franchot Tone, Gerhard Alexander, Joan Bennett, Irwin Shaw, Dexter Gordon, Guy Mitchell, Elizabeth Taylor, [Navarre] Scott Momaday, Van Williams, Virginia Maskell, Kenzo Takada, Mary Frann, Daniel Olbrychski, Franco Moschino, Garry Christian, Adam Baldwin, Michael Vartan, Christina Nigra, Josh Groban.