August 1

Today is National Night Out. 1774: Oxygen was isolated from air successfully by chemist Carl Scheele and scientist Joseph Priestly. 1793: The first definition was made for the metre: 1/10,000,000 of the northern quadrant of the Paris meridian (5,132,430 toises of Paris, from the north pole to the equator). 1818: Maria Mitchell, the first professional female astronomer in the U.S., was born. 1831: The New London Bridge opened to traffic. 1907: The U.S. Army established an aeronautical division that later became the U.S. Air Force. 1941: The Willys Jeep (ala M.A.S.H.) was introduced, the one described by Times magazine as "...the Army's most intriguing new gadget." 1943: A PT-109 under the command of Lt. John F. Kennedy was rammed and cut in half by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri. 1943: Ground was broken for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, TN, nuclear facility. 1946: The Atomic Energy Commission was established. 1956: The first commercial building heated by sun, the Bridgers and Paxton Office Building, opened in Albuquerque, NM. 1995: Westinghouse Electric Corporation struck a deal to buy CBS for $5.4 billion. 1999: A killer heat wave that had gripped the U.S. since mid-July finally broke. 2000: A man in Israel become the first recipient of the Jarvik 2000, the first total artificial heart that can maintain blood flow in addition to generating a pulse.