Day in Engineering History Archive - July 18

July 18

0064: The Great Fire of Rome began, as Emperor Nero reportedly fiddled on the roof. 1635: Robert Hooke, who developed Hooke's Law for springs, was born. 1853: Hendrik Lorentz, after whom the Lorentz force in electromagnetism is named, was born. 1941: The Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter made its first flight, only with propeller power. 1955: The first electrical power generated from a nuclear station was sold commercially by the Utah Power and Light Company. 1958: Henri Farman, the airplane designer who invented ailerons, died. 1963: The first implantation of an intrathoracic left artificial ventricle in a human being was made. 1968: The Intel Corporation was incorporated by Noyce and Moore as N M Electronics. 1969: A car driven by Senator Edward Kennedy plunged off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha's Vineyard, leaving Mary Jo Kopechne to drown. 1980: India became the 6th nation to place a satellite, the Rohini-1, in orbit. 1997: Eugene Shoemaker, of Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 fame, died. 1999: The RFCafe.com domain name was registered.

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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.