Day in Engineering History Archive - May 5
May 5
1809: Mary Kies was awarded the first patent (1041X, destroyed
in 1936 fire) to go to a woman, for a technique for weaving straw
with silk and thread. 1834:
William Whewell wrote a letter to Michael Faraday suggesting
the names Anode and Cathode in describing the process of electrolysis.
1861:
Peter Hewitt, inventor of the mercury vapor lamp, was born.
1917:
Eugene Bullard becomes the first African-American aviator when
he earned his flying certificate with the French Air Service. 1945:
Holland and Denmark were liberated from Nazi control. 1945: The
only WW II deaths of civilians on the mainland of the U.S. resulted
from a Japanese bomb dropped over Gearhart Mountain, Oregon by an
unmanned balloon. 1961:
Alan Shepard became the first American in space when he made
a 15 minute suborbital flight aboard the Freedom 7 spacecraft. 2000:
A conjunction of the 5 bright planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter
and Saturn occurred. 2007:
Theodore Maiman, who invented the (ruby) laser, died.
2010: ICANN began allowing non-Latin characters for top-level domains.
1809: Mary Kies was awarded the first patent (1041X, destroyed
in 1936 fire) to go to a woman, for a technique for weaving straw
with silk and thread. 1834:
William Whewell wrote a letter to Michael Faraday suggesting
the names Anode and Cathode in describing the process of electrolysis.
1861:
Peter Hewitt, inventor of the mercury vapor lamp, was born.
1917:
Eugene Bullard becomes the first African-American aviator when
he earned his flying certificate with the French Air Service. 1945:
Holland and Denmark were liberated from Nazi control. 1945: The
only WW II deaths of civilians on the mainland of the U.S. resulted
from a Japanese bomb dropped over Gearhart Mountain, Oregon by an
unmanned balloon. 1961:
Alan Shepard became the first American in space when he made
a 15 minute suborbital flight aboard the Freedom 7 spacecraft. 2000:
A conjunction of the 5 bright planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter
and Saturn occurred. 2007:
Theodore Maiman, who invented the (ruby) laser, died. 2010: ICANN began allowing non-Latin characters for top-level domains.
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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.
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.