Day in Engineering History Archive February 15

February 15

1564: Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, Italy. 1797: Henry Steinway, of overstrung iron-frame grand piano fame, was born. 1826: George Stoney, who introduced the term "electron" as the fundamental unit of electric charge, was born. 1842: Adhesive postage stamps were used for the first time. 1861: Alfred Whitehead, co-author with Bertrand Russell "Principia Mathematica," was born. 1884: Alfred C. Gilbert, inventor of the Erector Set, was born. 1897: Ferdinand Braun published an article in "Annalen der Physik und Chemie" describing his "Braun Tube", which was the first cathode-ray oscilloscope. 1965: Canada's new maple leaf flag was unfurled in ceremonies in Ottawa. 1971: The British Government issued a new decimal currency to supplant the original pound, shilling and pence system (now referred to as D-Day). 1996: Microwave pioneer Ernst Weber died. 2007: Robert Alder, inventor of the TV remote control, died.

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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. Many 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.