Day in Engineering History Archive March 8
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.
1618: Johann Kepler formulated his Third Law of Planetary Motion. 1854: U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry made his second landing in Japan, and within a month had concluded a treaty with the Japanese. 1862: The Confederate ironclad "Merrimack" was launched. 1879: Otto Hahn, co-discoverer of nuclear fission, was born. 1917: Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, of airship fame, died. 1946: Frederick Lanchester, automobile and aeronautics pioneer who built the first British petrol automobile, died. 1965: The United States landed about 3,500 Marines in South Vietnam - the first of many. 1974: The newly renamed Charles de Gaulle International Airport began service. 1979: Volcanoes - the first active in the solar system other than Earth - on Io were discovered by Voyager 1. 1983: President Ronald Reagan made his famous "Evil Empire" speech.