#OTD in 1924.
The New York Times published evidence from Edwin Hubble stating that the Andromeda Nebula, previously believed to be part of the Milky Way, is in fact another galaxy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Hubble
#OTD in 1924.
The New York Times published evidence from Edwin Hubble stating that the Andromeda Nebula, previously believed to be part of the Milky Way, is in fact another galaxy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Hubble
#OTD in 1878.
Henry Irving's production of Hamlet, with himself in the title rôle playing opposite Ellen Terry as Ophelia, opens at the Lyceum Theatre, London (of which they have taken over the management). The tendency of actor-managers to emphasise the importance of their own central character did not always meet with the critics' approval.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet
Hamlet at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/1524
#OTD in 1891.
Maurice Maeterlinck's play The Blind (written in 1890) is premièred. Les Aveugles is, along with L'Intruse, one of Maurice Maeterlinck's first two plays.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blind_(play)
Les Aveugles is available at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48368
"Intelligent men are cruel. Stupid men are monstrously cruel."
Jack London died #OTD in 1916.
A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction.
#OnThisDay, 24 Nov 2015, mathematician Katherine Johnson receives the US Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work on the space programme.
Her story was told in 'Hidden Figures'.
#OTD in 1899.
William Gillette's play Sherlock Holmes, based (with authorisation) on the writings of Arthur Conan Doyle, opens in New York City with himself in the title rôle.
Danish author Marie Bregendahl was born #OTD in 1867.
Her first novel Hendrik i Bakken was published in 1904. She went on to gain fame with En Dødsnat in 1912, based on the death of her mother when she was only 12.
#OTD in 1859
Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, an early example of mystery fiction, begins serialisation in All the Year Round.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woman_in_White_(novel)#
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Year_Round
#OnThisDay, 28 Nov 1967, Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovers the existence of pulsars.
Not included in the 1974 Nobel prize for the discovery, Bell received a £3m prize for her work in 2018. She's used it to set up a foundation to improve the diversity in STEM.
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomenInSTEM #Histodons
"The moment of discovery" does not always exist: the scientist's work is too tenuous, too divided, for the certainty of success to crackle out suddenly in the midst of his laborious toil like a stroke of lightening, dazzling him by its fire.
Marie Curie was born #OTD in 1867.
"The educator must above all understand how to wait; to reckon all effects in the light of the future, not of the present."
Swedish writer Ellen Key was born #OTD in 1849.
She on many subjects in the fields of family life, ethics and education and was an important figure in the Modern Breakthrough movement. She was an early advocate of a child-centered approach to education and parenting, and was also a suffragist.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Key
Ellen Key at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/502
#OTD in 1922.
At Toronto General Hospital, 14-year old Leonard Thompson became the first human to receive an injection of insulin as a treatment for diabetes, administered by Dr. James Collip. Thompson developed an allergic reaction to the injection. Additional work was done to refine the treatment and a second dose given on January 23.
More about insulin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin
"Thine emulous fond flowers are dead, too,
And the daft sun-assaulter, he
That frightened thee so oft, is fled or dead:
Save only me
...
There is none left to mourn thee in the fields."
#OTD in 1894. Robert Frost's first poem, "My Butterfly" appears in The New York Independent, which pays him $15.
"I saw you - and from that day
I see only you in the world."
Johan Henric Kellgren, born #OTD in 1751, was a Swedish poet and critic.
Kellgren began as a tutor and later worked as a journalist and editor for Stockholms Posten, where he gained a reputation as a sharp and influential critic. Notable works include "Mina Löjen", which blends satire with lyrical beauty, and "Den nya skapelsen", which highlights themes of renewal & enlightenment.
"Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies."
#OTD in 1860.
Charles Dickens's Bildungsroman Great Expectations begins serialization in All the Year Round. Although intended for weekly publication, Great Expectations was divided into nine monthly sections, with new pagination for each.
Great Expectations at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/1400
#OTD in 1892.
George Bernard Shaw's first play Widowers' Houses has its first performance, at the Royalty Theatre in London under the auspices of the Independent Theatre Society. The author is booed.
This is one of three plays Shaw published as Plays Unpleasant in 1898. The other plays in the group are The Philanderer and Mrs. Warren's Profession.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widowers%27_Houses
Books by Bernard Shaw at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/467
#OTD in 1822.
French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel, in a memoir read to the Academy of Sciences, coins the terms linear polarization, circular polarization, and elliptical polarization, and reports a direct refraction experiment verifying his theory that optical rotation is a form of birefringence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustin-Jean_Fresnel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarization_(waves)
The wave theory of light is available at @internetarchive
https://archive.org/details/wavetheoryofligh00crewrich
"It is equally a fault to believe all men or to believe none."
#OTD in 1817.
Walter Scott's historical novel Rob Roy, written from this spring, is published anonymously by Archibald Constable in Edinburgh, while a shipload of copies is carried from Leith to London for simultaneous publication there by Longman.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Roy_(novel)
Rob Roy at PG:
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/7025
#OTD in 1928.
Radclyffe Hall's novel The Well of Loneliness, published by Jonathan Cape in London, is tried and convicted on the grounds of obscenity under the Hicklin test, after a campaign against it by James Douglas in the Sunday Express.
#OTD in 1920.
D. H. Lawrence's novel Women in Love appears in a limited U.S. subscribers' edition. This first was available only to subscribers, due to the controversy caused by Lawrence's previous work, The Rainbow (1915).
Women in Love at PG
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/4240
American admiral and computer scientist, (designed COBOL) Grace Hopper was born #OTD in 1906.
She created the first compiler, the A-0 System, in 1952. She was also one of the first programmers on the Harvard Mark I computer. Hopper popularized the term "debugging" in computing after discovering an actual moth causing a malfunction in the Mark II computer.
Mária Telkes died #OTD in 1980. She was a Hungarian-American biophysicist, engineer, & inventor who worked on solar energy technologies.
During World War II, she developed a solar water distillation device, deployed at the end of the war, which saved the lives of downed airmen and torpedoed sailors. In the 1940s she and architect Eleanor Raymond created one of the first solar-heated houses, Dover Sun House, by storing energy each day.
#OTD in 1901.
The first Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded, to French poet Sully Prudhomme.
He devoted the bulk of the money he received to the creation of a poetry prize awarded by the Société des gens de lettres. He also founded, in 1902, the Société des poètes français with Jose-Maria de Heredia and Leon Dierx.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sully_Prudhomme
Books by Sully Prudhomme at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/7695
Alfred North Whitehead, who died #OTD in 1947, was an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found application to a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics, biology, economics, and psychology, among other areas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead
Alfred North Whitehead at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/8283
#OTD in 1899.
Robert Browning's book Asolando; Fancies and facts is published on the same day he dies at Ca' Rezzonico in Venice. He is buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.
His magnum opus, The Ring and the Book (1868–1869), is a 12-volume epic poem based on a real-life Italian murder trial. He is particularly celebrated for his dramatic monologues, which reveal the inner workings of his characters' minds.
Asolando
https://archive.org/details/asolandofanciesf00browiala