Day in Engineering History Archive February 28

February 28

1854: Slavery opponents met in Ripon, WI, to call for creation of a new political group, which became the Republican Party. 1893: Carborundum was patented by Edward Acheson. 1901: Nobel Prize laureate Linus Pauling, who who applied quantum mechanics to the study of molecular structures, was born. 1911: Thomas A. Edison, Inc. was organized. 1935: Nylon was discovered by researchers at DuPont. 1939: The word "dord" was inadvertently created via a misprint in the Merriam Webster dictionary, being ascribed the definition "density." 1956: Jay Forrester awarded patent for iron core memory. 1983: The final episode of M*A*S*H aired with a record 125 million viewers. 1993: BATF agents raided the Branch Dividian church in Waco, TX, which culminated in the burning deaths of 79 people, including 25 children. 1995: Denver International Airport (DIA) opened after 16 months of delays and $3.2 billion in budget overruns. 2009: Radio announcer Paul Harvey 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.