May 2

1519: Leonardo Da Vinci died. 1800: English chemist William Nicholson discovered electrolysis when he took wires from the poles of a battery he had built and dipped them in water, and found bubbles of gas were released due to the effect of current flow through water. 1892: German air ace Manfred von Richtofen, "The Red Baron," was born. 1912: BF Goodrich was incorporated. 1919: The first U.S. air passenger service was started. 1952: De Havilland ushered in the commercial jet age its Comet airliner. 1965: The "Early Bird" satellite was used to transmit television pictures across the Atlantic. 1997: Tony Blair became, at age 44, Britain's youngest prime minister in 185 years. 2000: The "Selective Availability" feature of GPS was discontinued, making the full system precision available to all users.