Day in Engineering History Archive February 13
February 13
1633: Italian astronomer
Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for trial before the Inquisition
for his belief that the earth revolves around the sun. 1884:
Albert Gilbert, inventor of the
Erector Set, was born. 1910:
William Shockley, winner of the Nobel Prize for work on transistors
(transfer/resistor) with colleagues
John Bardeen and
Walter Brattain, was born. 1912:
Robert Millikan began collecting data from his famous oil drop
experiment for determining the fundamental unit of charge. 1946:
The world's first programmable electronic digital computer,
ENIAC (the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) was
demonstrated at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the
University of PA. 1956:
Jan Łukasiewicz, who invented Reverse Polish Notation (RPN),
died. 1960: France detonated its first
plutonium bomb. 1990: Space probe
Voyager 1, at the edge of the solar system, photographed the
sun and six planets in one image, the first record of the solar
system from space. 1997: The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA)
closed above 7,000 for the first time. 2000: The last original
Peanuts comic strip (my personal favorite comic) was published,
following Charles M. Schulz's death.
1633: Italian astronomer
Galileo Galilei arrived in Rome for trial before the Inquisition
for his belief that the earth revolves around the sun. 1884:
Albert Gilbert, inventor of the
Erector Set, was born. 1910:
William Shockley, winner of the Nobel Prize for work on transistors
(transfer/resistor) with colleagues
John Bardeen and
Walter Brattain, was born. 1912:
Robert Millikan began collecting data from his famous oil drop
experiment for determining the fundamental unit of charge. 1946:
The world's first programmable electronic digital computer,
ENIAC (the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) was
demonstrated at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the
University of PA. 1956:
Jan Łukasiewicz, who invented Reverse Polish Notation (RPN),
died. 1960: France detonated its first
plutonium bomb. 1990: Space probe
Voyager 1, at the edge of the solar system, photographed the
sun and six planets in one image, the first record of the solar
system from space. 1997: The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA)
closed above 7,000 for the first time. 2000: The last original
Peanuts comic strip (my personal favorite comic) was published,
following Charles M. Schulz's death.| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
Note: These historical tidbits have been collected from various sources, mostly on the Internet. As detailed in
this article,
there is a lot of wrong information that is repeated hundreds of times because most websites do not validate with authoritative
sources. On RF Cafe, events with hyperlinks have been verified.
Please submit significant historical events and
dates for inclusion in these lists. I will be glad to include your name and birthday. Please do not submit your death
date ;-) A couple years ago, I began commemorating the birthdays of notable people and events with
special RF Cafe logos. Where available, I like to use images
from postage stamps from the country where the person or event occurred.