01 July 2017
Interesting tidbits:
1770 – Lexell's Comet, discovered by astronomer Charles Messier, passed closer to the Earth than any other comet in recorded history. On July 1, 1770, the comet passed 0.0146 astronomical units (2,200,000 km / 1,400,000 mi) from Earth, or approximately 6 times as far as the Moon. Messier measured the coma as around four times the apparent size of the Moon. An English astronomer at the time described the nucleus as being as large as Jupiter, "surrounded with a coma of silver light, the brightest part of which was as large as the moon's orb". The comet has not been seen since 1770 and is considered a lost comet.
1831 - Admiral James C Ross reaches the magnetic North Pole.
1858 – Joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's papers on evolution to the Linnean Society.
1859 - A Balloon covers a record 809 miles over St Louis.
1872 – Louis Blériot, French aviator, inventor, and engineer who developed the first practical headlamp for cars and established a profitable business manufacturing them, using much of the money he made to finance his attempts to build a successful aircraft. In 1909 he became world famous for making the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier than air aircraft, winning the prize of £1,000 offered by the Daily Mail newspaper. Blériot was also the first to make a working, powered, piloted monoplane.
1874 – The Sholes and Glidden typewriter (also known as the Remington No. 1.), the first commercially successful typewriter, goes on sale. Principally designed by the Christopher Latham Sholes, after several short-lived attempts to manufacture the device, the machine was acquired by E. Remington and Sons in early 1873. An arms manufacturer seeking to diversify, Remington further refined the typewriter before finally placing it on the market on July 1, 1874. This original model was placed on a stand similar to the treddle stand used to hold and run sewing machines.
1881 – The world's first international telephone call is made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine, United States.
1898 - Teddy Roosevelt & his Rough Riders charge up San Juan Hill.
1908 – SOS is adopted as the international distress signal. This distress signal was first adopted by the German government in radio regulations effective April 1, 1905, and became the worldwide standard under the second International Radiotelegraphic Convention, which was signed on November 3, 1906 and became effective on July 1, 1908.
1915 – Lieutenant Kurt Wintgens achieves the first known aerial victory with a synchronized machine-gun armed fighter plane, the Fokker M.5K/MG Eindecker.
1916 - Coca-Cola brings current coke formula to the market
1943 – Tokyo City merges with Tokyo Prefecture and is dissolved. Since then, no city in Japan has had the name "Tokyo" (present-day Tokyo is not officially a city).
1957 – The International Geophysical Year begins.
1979 – Sony introduces the Walkman.
1980 – O Canada officially becomes the national anthem of Canada.
2004 – Saturn orbit insertion of Cassini-Huygens begins at 01:12 UTC and ends at 02:48 UTC.
Today's birthday crew:
1646 – Gottfried Leibniz, German mathematician who developed differential and integral calculus independently of Isaac Newton.
1804 – Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, known by her pseudonym George Sand, was a French novelist and memoirist. Sand's reputation came into question when she began sporting men's clothing in public — which she justified by the clothes being far sturdier and less expensive than the typical dress of a noblewoman at the time. In addition to being comfortable, Sand's male dress enabled her to circulate more freely in Paris than most of her female contemporaries, and gave her increased access to venues from which women were often barred — even women of her social standing. Also scandalous was Sand's smoking tobacco in public. These and other behaviors were exceptional for a woman of the early and mid-19th century, when social codes — especially in the upper classes — were of the utmost importance.
1863 – William Grant Stairs, Canadian-English explorer, soldier, and adventurer who had a leading role in two of the most controversial expeditions in the history of the colonisation of Africa. Captain Stairs was appointed to the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition led by Henry Morton Stanley, at the time the most celebrated living explorer of Africa. Stairs sailed from London on 20 January 1887 and met Stanley in Suez on 6 February. Their expedition started from the mouth of the Congo River on 19 March and ended in Tanzania on 5 December 1889. During the 5000 km journey across Africa through some of its most difficult country consisting of almost impenetrable rainforest and swamps, Stairs and colleagues suffered frequently from malaria and dysentery. Stairs had endurance, toughness and perseverance. He discovered one source of the Nile, the Semliki River, and became the first non-African to ever climb in the Ruwenzoris, reaching 10,677 ft before having to turn around. He was seriously wounded in the chest by a poisonous arrow during an attack by natives, many of whom assumed they were a slave-raiding party, and the expedition killed hundreds in return. Stairs recovered from his wound to continue the journey. The expedition was lauded in Europe and North America for exploits seen as heroic. On his return to England Captain Stairs was named a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in 1890. Then details emerged of the many Africans killed by the expedition. Stanley's own accounts revealed how he shot Africans who impeded the expedition's progress. The expedition also used brutality against its own porters. Stanley spent his remaining years defending himself and the expedition from criticism made principally in Britain of excessive force and mismanagement of the expedition. In 1891 on Stanley's recommendation, Stairs was appointed by King Léopold II of Belgium to command a mission to take Katanga also known as Garanganze with or without the consent of its powerful king, Msiri. Leopold had used Stanley's services before and agreed with his use of force and understood Stairs to be in the same mould, and he had a reputation for carrying out orders completely and without hesitation. The Stairs Expedition was a military mission of 400 men under the Congo Free State flag, armed with 200 rifles modern for their time. Msiri's men had muzzle-loading muskets. Stairs ran a well-organised expedition that was smaller and lighter than his previous expedition, with only two other military officers. They were in a race against Cecil Rhodes' British South Africa Company expanding from the south, which had already sent two failed expeditions to Msiri. Stairs and Joseph Moloney, the expedition's British medical officer, were aware that they could potentially come into armed conflict with a British expedition, and agreed they would nevertheless discharge their duties to their employer, Leopold. The Stairs Expedition became notorious for the fate of Msiri. After three days of negotiations without progress, Stairs gave Msiri an ultimatum to sign the treaty the next day, 20 December 1891. When Msiri did not appear, he sent his second-in-command, Captain Bodson to arrest Msiri, who stood his ground. Bodson shot him dead, and a fight broke out. The expedition took their wounded and Msiri's body back to their camp where Stairs was waiting, and there they cut off Msiri's head and hoisted it on a pole in plain view as a 'barbaric lesson' to his people. Some of the Garanganze were massacred, and most of the rest fled into the bush. Stairs handed over Msiri's body to his two brothers and an adopted son, Makanda Bantu, whom Stairs installed as chief to replace Msiri, and who signed the treaty acknowledging Leopold as sovereign. The two brothers refused to do so until Stairs sent Moloney to threaten them with the same fate as Msiri. Stairs was frequently sick with malaria, and on a steamer on the lower Zambezi he had another attack which killed him. Katanga became part of the Congo Free State, which was annexed by Belgium in 1908 after an international outcry over the killings, brutality and slavery by Leopold's regime.
1892 – James M. Cain, American Crime author and journalist.
1903 – Amy Johnson, pioneering English aviator. Johnson achieved worldwide recognition when, in 1930, she became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia. She left Croydon, south of London, on 5 May and landed in Darwin, Northern Territory, on 24 May after flying 11,000 miles / 18,000 km. She received the Harmon Trophy as well as a CBE in recognition of this achievement, and was also honoured with the No. 1 civil pilot's licence under Australia's 1921 Air Navigation Regulations. In July 1931, Johnson and her co-pilot Jack Humphreys, became the first pilots to fly from London to Moscow in one day, completing the 1,760 miles / 2,830 km journey in approximately 21 hours. From there, they continued across Siberia and on to Tokyo, setting a record time for flying from Britain to Japan. In 1932, Johnson married Scottish pilot Jim Mollison, who had, during a flight together, proposed to her only eight hours after they had met. In July 1932, Johnson set a solo record for the flight from London to Cape Town, South Africa, breaking her husband's record. Her next flights were as a duo, flying with Mollison, she flew nonstop from Wales to the United States. However, their aircraft ran out of fuel and crash-landed in Bridgeport, Connecticut; both were injured. After recuperating, the pair received a ticker tape parade down Wall Street. The Mollisons also flew in record time from Britain to India in 1934 as part of the Britain to Australia MacRobertson Air Race. They were forced to retire from the race at Allahabad because of engine trouble. In May 1936, Johnson made her last record-breaking flight, regaining her Britain to South Africa record. In 1940, during the Second World War, Johnson joined the newly formed Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA), whose job was to transport Royal Air Force aircraft around the country – and rose to First Officer.
On 5 January 1941, while flying an Airspeed Oxford for the ATA from Blackpool to RAF Kidlington near Oxford, Johnson went off course in adverse weather conditions. Reportedly out of fuel, she bailed out as her aircraft crashed into the Thames Estuary. The crew of the HMS Haslemere spotted Johnson's parachute coming down and saw her alive in the water. Conditions were poor, however, and there was a heavy sea and a strong tide, snow was falling and it was intensely cold. Lt Cmdr Walter Fletcher, the commander of Haslemere, dived into the water in an attempt to rescue Johnson. He died in the attempt, and Johnson's body was never recovered.
1945 – Debbie Harry, American singer-songwriter and actress (Blondie and The Wind in the Willows).
1962 - Dominic Keating, English actor, known for his portrayal as Lt. Malcolm Reed on Star Trek: Enterprise.
1977 – Liv Tyler, American actress who played Elf maiden Arwen Undómiel in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Happy birthday guys!