196 BC – Ptolemy V ascends to the throne of Egypt 1513 – Spaniard Juan Ponce de Leon discovers Florida 1625 – Charles I, King Of England, Scotland and Ireland, ascends English throne 1668 – English king Charles II gives Bombay to East India Company 1790 – The modern shoestring (string and shoe holes) invented in England. An aglet (the Latin word for “needle.”) is the small plastic or fiber tube that binds the end of a shoelace (or similar cord) to prevent fraying and to allow the lace to be passed through an eyelet or other opening. Before shoestrings, shoes were commonly fastened with buckles. 1794 – US Government establishes a permanent navy and authorizes the building of six frigates. 1841 – First US steam fireengine tested in New York City
1855 – Abraham Gesner a Canadian geologist and inventor trademarks kerosene. The process of distilling crude oil/petroleum into kerosene, as well as other hydrocarbon compounds, was first written about in the 9th century by the Muslim scholar Rāzi In his Kitab al-Asrar (Book of Secrets), he described two methods for the production of kerosene. One method used clay as an absorbent, whereas the other method used ammonium chloride. The distillation process was repeated until most of the volatile hydrocarbon fractions had been removed and the final product was perfectly clear and safe to burn. Kerosene was also produced during the same period from oil shale and bitumen by heating the rock to extract the oil, which was then distilled. During the medieval Chinese Ming Dynasty, the Chinese made use of kerosene through extracting and purifying petroleum and then converted it into lamp fuel. The Chinese made use of petroleum and kerosene for lighting lamps and heating homes as early as 1500 BC. Today, kerosene is widely used to power jet engines of aircraft and some rocket engines. 1860 – M L Byrn patents “covered gimlet screw with a ‘T’ handle” aka corkscrew 1912 – First Japanese cherry blossom trees planted in Washington DC 1931 – Charlie Chaplin receives France’s distinguished Legion of Honor 1933 – Japan leaves League of Nations 1941 – Hitler signs Directive 27 (Assault on Yugoslavia) 1945 – Iwo Jima occupied, after 22,000 Japanese and 6,000 US killed 1952 – Failed assassination attempt of German Chancellor Adenauer 1958 – Havana Hilton opens 1958 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes Soviet Premier and First Secretary of the Communist Party 1964 – Earthquake strikes Alaska, 8.4 on Richter scale, 118 die 1966 – Anti Vietnam war demonstrations in US, Europe and Australia 1973 – 45th Academy Awards – Marlon Brando turns down Oscar for best actor in support of American Indians 1977 – 583 die in aviation’s worst disaster KLM-Pan Am 747 crash on the Canary Islands Birthdays 972 – King Robert II of France (d. 1031) 1712 – Claude Bourgelat, French veterinary surgeon (d. 1779) Born in Lyon, he left the bar to devote his efforts to find a remedy of a plague that was affecting France’s cattle herds in the late 1700s. He was the founder of a veterinary school in Lyon around 1761. It was cattle plague, known by its German name, Rinderpest. 1809 – Georges Eugene Haussmann, Chosen by Napolean III he was responsible for creating the new boulevards, parks and public works in Paris 1813 – Nathaniel Currier, lithographer (Currier & Ives) 1845 – Wilhelm Rontgen, Lennep, Rhine Province, discovered X-rays for which he received the Nobel in 1901 1863 – Henry Royce, automobile founder (Rolls-Royce) 1879 – Edward Steichen, pioneer in American photography. He had a three-legged dog named Tripod. 1886 – Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe 1924 – Sarah L Vaughan, Newark NJ, jazz singer Deaths 1625 – James I Stuart, king of Scotland, dies at 58
1850 – Wilhelm Bear, German banker/astronomer (Moon Map), dies at 53 1968 – Yuri Gagarin, First man to orbit Earth dies in a test plane crash at age 34 1972 – Maurits C Escher, Dutch lithograph carver, dies at 73 1998 – Ferry Porsche, Austrian automobile manufacturer (b. 1909) Created among other masterpieces, the Porsche 356 and 911 2006 – Lyn Nofziger, political advisor to Ronald Reagan (b. 1924) 2012 – Hilton Kramer, American art critic, dies from heart failure at 84 Edited from various sources including historyorb.com, the NYTimes.com and many other Google searches |
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