Day in Engineering History Archive - March 30
March 30
239 B.C.: The first recorded passage of
Halley's Comet was noted by Chinese astronomers. 1791: The French
Académie des sciences finally decided that a
metre would be a 1/10 000 000 of the distance between the north
pole and the equator. 1811:
Robert Bunsen, of laboratory burner fame, was born. 1842: Dr.
Crawford Long first used
ether as anesthetic during minor operation. 1858: The first
U.S. patent was issued for a combination
lead pencil and eraser. 1879: German astronomer
Bernhard Schmidt, who invented the type of reflecting telescope
named after him (Schmidt
telescope,
Schmidt-Cassegrain, etc.), was born. 1891: Arthur Herrington,
designer of the famous
Jeep, was born. 1914:
John Poynting, who introduced a theorem that assigns a value
to the rate of flow of electromagnetic energy known as the Poynting
vector, died. 1981:
President Reagan was shot and wounded by John Hinkley. 1993:
Charlie Brown of the Peanuts comic strip (my favorite), hit
his first home run. 2006:
Marcos César Pontes became the first Brazilian in space.
239 B.C.: The first recorded passage of
Halley's Comet was noted by Chinese astronomers. 1791: The French
Académie des sciences finally decided that a
metre would be a 1/10 000 000 of the distance between the north
pole and the equator. 1811:
Robert Bunsen, of laboratory burner fame, was born. 1842: Dr.
Crawford Long first used
ether as anesthetic during minor operation. 1858: The first
U.S. patent was issued for a combination
lead pencil and eraser. 1879: German astronomer
Bernhard Schmidt, who invented the type of reflecting telescope
named after him (Schmidt
telescope,
Schmidt-Cassegrain, etc.), was born. 1891: Arthur Herrington,
designer of the famous
Jeep, was born. 1914:
John Poynting, who introduced a theorem that assigns a value
to the rate of flow of electromagnetic energy known as the Poynting
vector, died. 1981:
President Reagan was shot and wounded by John Hinkley. 1993:
Charlie Brown of the Peanuts comic strip (my favorite), hit
his first home run. 2006:
Marcos César Pontes became the first Brazilian in space.| 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.