Day in Engineering History Archive - May 14
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.
May 14
1687: Gabriel Fahrenheit, inventor of the temperature scale bearing his name, was born. 1879: Thomas Edison incorporated the Edison Telephone Company of Europe. 1919: Henry John Heinz, founder of the J.H. Heinz Company and originator of the "57 Varieties" slogan, died. 1897: Guglielmo Marconi made the first communication by wireless telegraph. 1948: The state of Israel and its provisional government was established. 1957: Petrol rationing following the Suez crisis ended in the U.K. 1963: The first U.S. patent for a "solar airplane vehicle" was issued to Elmer Johnson. 1963: A laser light beam link carried the first laser TV signal during a network broadcast on CBS. 1973: Skylab 1 was launched into orbit around Earth as the first U.S. manned space station. 1978: William Lear, designer of the Lear Jet, died. 1998: "Seinfeld" aired its final episode after nine years on NBC.
Webmaster: Kirt Blattenberger, BSEE, UVM 1989