23 June 2017
Interesting tidbits:
1565 – Turgut Reis (Dragut), commander of the Ottoman navy, dies during the Siege of Malta.
1611 – The mutinous crew of Henry Hudson's fourth voyage sets Henry, his son and seven loyal crew members adrift in an open boat in what is now Hudson Bay; they are never heard from again.
1683 - William Penn signs friendship treaty with Lenni Lenape indians in Pennsylvania; only treaty "not sworn to, nor broken".
1784 - The first US balloon flight was made by 13 year old Edward Warren. Peter Carnes, a lawyer and tavern keeper from Bladensburg, Maryland, read reports of the Montgolfier’s experiments with hot-air flight and decided to recreate the experiment himself in front of a paying audience. On the designated day, a crowd gathered at the Walnut Street Prison yard (chosen to keep the non-payers out) to watch Carnes take off in a balloon. But Carnes, a large man, was too heavy for the balloon. The experiment was almost a failure, if not for a brave young volunteer. 13-year-old Edward Warren went up instead in what was to become the first successful manned balloon launch in the United States.
1868 – Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for an invention he called the "Type-Writer." Sholes invented the first practical typewriter and the QWERTY keyboard still in use today. Typewriters had been invented as early as 1714 by Henry Mill and reinvented in various forms throughout the 1800s. It was to be Sholes, however, who invented the first one to be commercially successful.
1931 - Wiley Post & Harold Catty took off for their flight around world.
1961 – Cold War: the Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent, comes into force after the opening date for signature set for the December 1, 1959.
Today's birthday crew:
1896 - Paul Orban, Hungarian-American book and pulp artist known for his covers for Doc Savage, Astounding, Unknown, Marooned on Mars, and Valult of Ages, Science Fiction Digest Magazine, The Avenger, Detective Novels, Horror Stories, Popular Detective, Thrilling Mystery, Thrilling Adventures, and H. Beam Piper’s 1952 science fiction pulp Ullr Uprising, among others. Largely uncelebrated, the late Paul Orban’s highly crosshatched and contrasted science fiction, fantasy and horror illustrations are impossible to take your eyes off of in person. The attention to detail and design is incredibly absorbing - and what’s more is that the pieces themselves are actually quite small, and appear to be drawn nearly to-size.
1912 – Alan Turing, English mathematician whose work helped pave the way for modern computers.
1928 – Michael Shaara, American author of science fiction, sports fiction, and historical fiction. His novel about the Battle of Gettysburg, The Killer Angels, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975. Shaara died of a heart attack in 1988.
1937 – Niki Sullivan, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (The Crickets).
1943 – Vint Cerf, American computer scientist (one of the fathers of the internet).
1964 - Joseph Hill "Joss" Whedon, American screenwriter, director, producer, author, and composer.
1980 – Becky Cloonan, American author, illustrator, and comic book creator, known for work published by Tokyopop and Vertigo. In 2012 she became the first female artist to draw the main Batman title for DC Comics.
Happy birthday!