Day in Engineering History Archive March 13
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. All will eventually be either verified or removed.
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.
March 13
1773: Joseph Priestley, discoverer elemental oxygen, ammonia, hydrochloric acid gas, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and oxides of nitrogen, was born. 1781: The planet Uranus was discovered by Sir William Herschel. 1842: Henry Shrapnel, inventor of the type of mortar that bears his name, died. 1855: Percival Lowell, the American astronomer who helped discover Pluto and believed that there was life on Mars, was born. 1933: Astronomer Robert Innes, who discovered Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our sun, died. 1937: Elihu Thomson, electrical engineer and inventor whose discoveries in the field of alternating current led to the development of successful alternating current motors, died. 1886: Albert Stevens, who took the first photograph of Earth showing its curvature, was born. 1989: A series of solar flares caused a violent magnetic storm that brought power outages over large regions of Canada. 1992: The FCC ruled companies can own 30 AM and 30 FM stations. 1998: German engineer Hans von Ohain, who developed the first operational jet engine (HeS3b used in the Heinkel He 178), died.
Webmaster: Kirt Blattenberger, BSEE, UVM 1989