65th birthday today
Happy Birthday Robert Smith, lead guitarist of Siouxsie and the Banshees from 1982 to 1984 and continuous member of post-punk band The Cure since 1978, born on this day in 1959 in Black Pool, UK
📸 Tom Sheehan
#robertsmith #postpunk #history #otd
English electrical engineer and physicist John Ambrose Fleming died #OTD in 1945.
He is best known for his invention of the vacuum tube diode, which he patented in 1904. The vacuum tube diode, also known as the Fleming valve, was the first practical vacuum tube and allowed for the detection & amplification of electrical signals. It was a crucial component in early radio receivers and telecommunications systems, laying the foundation for the development of modern electronics.
#OTD in 1910.
Halley's comet reappears after 76 years, and Mark Twain dies at his home, Stormfield, the day after the comet's perihelion. In his autobiography, Twain wrote, "I came in with Halley's comet in 1835. It's coming again next year (1910), and I expect to go out with it. The Almighty has said no doubt, 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'"
American novelist, humorist, and critic Mark Twain died #OTD in 1910.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, often called "the Great American Novel," is particularly noted for its vivid depiction of people and places along the Mississippi River. Twain's other notable works include The Prince and the Pauper, Life on the Mississippi, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, & his autobiography, which was published posthumously.
Books by Mark Twain at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/53
German philosopher Immanuel Kant was born #OTD 300 years ago!
Kant’s most famous work, the "Critique of Pure Reason", is often considered one of the most significant works in the history of philosophy. In this book, he introduced the concept of a priori synthetic judgments, arguing that our ability to perceive & understand the world is shaped by the ways our mind structures experiences.
Books by Immanuel Kant at PG:
The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
“Our heedless and destructive acts enter the vast cycles of the earth and in time return to bring hazard to ourselves."
#OnThisDay, 27 Sept 1962, Rachel Carson's influential book 'Silent Spring' is published, documenting the environmental impact of pesticides.
Read more here: https://carvehername.org.uk/sixty-years-of-silent-spring/
#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #WomenInSTEM #Histodons
American philosopher, sociologist, and psychologist George Herbert Mead died #OTD in 1931.
He is considered one of the founders of social psychology and the school of thought known as symbolic interactionism. Mead’s most influential ideas revolve around the concept of the self, which he saw as arising from social interaction. Mead’s ideas were mostly published posthumously, with his students assembling his lectures and notes into books.
Died #OTD in 1989. Emilio Segrè was an Italian and naturalized-American physicist who discovered the elements technetium and astatine, & the antiproton, a subatomic antiparticle, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1959 along with Owen Chamberlain.
Together with Glenn T. Seaborg, he discovered technetium-99m—the first artificially produced element (1937). Tc99m is first element found to have no stable isotopes, filling a missing spot on the periodic table.
#OtD 22 Apr 1891 anarchist Nicola Sacco was born in Italy. Moving to the US, he was later framed with Bartolomeo Vanzetti for murder, sparking an international campaign for their release, but they were both executed https://t.co/c756DyWGP1 https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9442/nicola-sacco-born?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon
Norwegian writer Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson died #OTD in 1910.
His novel "Synnøve Solbakken" helped inaugurate the genre of the "bonde-fortelling" or peasant tale in Norwegian literature, focusing on rural Norway with a realistic portrayal of everyday life. As a dramatist, Bjørnson wrote several important plays. "The Bankrupt", "The Editor" and "A Gauntlet". He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1903.
Books by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1772
#OtD 22 Apr 1944 200 Black people, mostly @HowardU students, held a sit-in at a segregated restaurant in Washington DC. The disruption forced HQ to order the branch to start serving Black customers. A key organiser was LGBT+ Pauli Murray (pictured) https://t.co/UJnXZGJ4rl https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/9444/thompson's-cafeteria-sit-in?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon
Swedish astronomer, physicist, and mathematician Anders Celsius died #OTD in 1744.
In 1742, Celsius introduced the temperature scale that bears his name. His original scale was actually the reverse of what we use today: it set the boiling point of water at 0 degrees & the freezing point at 100 degrees. However, shortly after his death, the scale was reversed by Carl Linnaeus, resulting in the 0 degrees for freezing & 100 degrees for boiling that we are familiar with.
Italian inventor and electrical engineer Guglielmo Marconi was born #OTD in 1874.
He is best known for his pioneering work on long-distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi's law and a radio telegraph system. He is often credited as the inventor of radio, and he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun for their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy.
Books about Guglielmo Marconi at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Guglielmo+Marconi&submit_search=Go%21
English poet William Cowper died #OTD in 1800.
His first volume of poetry, "Poems by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq." was published in 1782. This volume included some of his most famous poems, such as "Table Talk" and other shorter pieces that reflected his views on nature, spirituality, and humanity. His most famous work is "The Task" (1785), a six-book poem in blank verse, which was inspired by a friend who challenged him to write a poem about a sofa.
Swedish feminist writer Ellen Key died #OTD in 1926.
One of her most influential works is "The Century of the Child," first published in 1900. In this book, she projected her ideas about education and the rights of children into the 20th century, which she termed the "Century of the Child." She was also a proponent of women's rights: she believed in the importance of motherhood in society and argued that women should have more choices regarding marriage and children.
#OTD in 1920.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" appears in the Saturday Evening Post and on the magazine's cover, illustrated by artist Norman Rockwell. It was Fitzgerald's first short story to achieve national prominence. The original publication featured interior illustrations by May Wilson Preston. The work later appeared in the September 1920 short story collection Flappers and Philosophers published by Charles Scribner's Sons.
German mathematician and mathematics educator Felix Klein was born #OTD in 1849.
He is best known for his substantial contributions to group theory, complex analysis, non-Euclidean geometry, and for connecting mathematics with other disciplines, notably physics. His notable achievements are the Erlangen Program, Complex Analysis and Algebraic Geometry, Klein Bottle, and Klein's Quartic Curve.
Books by Felix Klein at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/9227
English playwright, poet, and actor William Shakespeare was born (baptized in 26 April) #OTD in 1564 and died #OTD in 1616.
Some of his most famous tragedies include "Hamlet," "Othello," "King Lear," and "Macbeth". His most known comedies, such as "A Midsummer Night’s Dream," "As You Like It," and "Twelfth Night." Shakespeare's histories—such as "Richard III," "Henry V," and "Julius Caesar"—dive into the lives of historical figures and the political machinations of his time.
American author, Howard R. Garis, best known for a series of books that featured the character of Uncle Wiggily Longears, was born #OTD in 1873.
Besides the Uncle Wiggily series, Howard R. Garis also wrote for several other children's series, including Tom Swift under the pseudonym Victor Appleton, The Bobbsey Twins under the pseudonym Laura Lee Hope, and books in the Baseball Joe series as Lester Chadwick.
Books by Howard R. Garis at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/808
French novelist, poet, short story writer, and literary critic Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly died #OTD in 1889.
His work depicts the ravages of passion, whether carnal (Une vieille maîtresse, 1851), filial (Un prêtre marié, 1865), political (Le Chevalier des Touches, 1864) or mystical (L'Ensorcelée, 1855). In particular, Les Diaboliques in which the unusual and the transgressive plunge the reader into an ambiguous universe, earned the author accusations of immoralism.
German physicist Max Planck was born #OTD in 1858.
Planck made many substantial contributions to theoretical physics, specially as the originator of quantum theory, which revolutionized understanding of atomic and subatomic processes. He is known for Planck's constant, which is of foundational importance for quantum physics, and which he used to derive a set of units (Planck units) expressed only in terms of fundamental physical constants.
English poet Rupert Brooke died #OTD in 1915.
He is known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially "The Soldier". Rupert Brooke’s promising literary career was cut short when he died in April 1915 from sepsis resulting from an infected mosquito bite while he was part of the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force.
Books by Rupert Brooke at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/148
American mathematical physicist J. Willard Gibbs died #OTD in 1903.
Gibbs' most celebrated contributions were in the field of thermodynamics, particularly concerning the phase rule, chemical potential, and Gibbs free energy—a concept named after him. The Gibbs free energy is particularly critical in predicting the direction of chemical reactions and phase changes. His book, "Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanics," laid the foundation for modern statistical mechanics.
"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."
Essays: First Series
American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson died #OTD in 1882. He led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century, such as in "Nature". He is best known for his essays, which were initially delivered as lectures. "Self-Reliance" and "The American Scholar" are among his most influential.
Books by Ralph Waldo Emerson at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1071
Austrian Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was born #OTD in 1899.
In Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, he attempted to delineate the limits of language. The book is structured around a series of numbered propositions and sub-propositions, which build on each other to create a dense, almost mathematical argument. In Philosophical Investigations, he introduced the concept of how words take their meanings from their function in various forms of life and activities.
!["Observationer om twänne beständiga grader på en thermometer" [Observations about two stable degrees on a thermometer]. Kungliga Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens Handlingar (Proceedings of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences) (in Swedish). 3: 171–180. 1742.](/proxy/post_attachment/179709/c3d14ab7b1.jpg "\"Observationer om twänne beständiga grader på en thermometer\" [Observations about two stable degrees on a thermometer]. Kungliga Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens Handlingar (Proceedings of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences) (in Swedish). 3: 171–180. 1742.")
![Publicity photograph of author Howard R. Garis. Original caption: "Howard M.[sic] Garis, Author and Originator of the Uncle Wiggily Stories"
Howard R. Garis in a dark suit and tie is sitting at a desk, writing on a piece of paper with a fountain pen.](/proxy/post_attachment/179917/309d538746.jpg "Publicity photograph of author Howard R. Garis. Original caption: \"Howard M.[sic] Garis, Author and Originator of the Uncle Wiggily Stories\"
Howard R. Garis in a dark suit and tie is sitting at a desk, writing on a piece of paper with a fountain pen.")
