Day in Engineering History Archive - October 24

October 24

1601: Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe died. 1804: German physicist Wilhelm Weber, after whom the unit of magnetic flux is named, was born. 1861: The first transcontinental telegraph message was sent as Justice Stephen Field of California transmitted a telegram to President Lincoln. 1836: Alonzo Phillips received the U.S. patent #68 for the phosphorous friction safety match. 1901: Annie Edson Taylor made the first barrel ride over the Niagara Falls. 1910: Blanche Scott became the first woman to make a solo, public airplane flight, reaching an altitude of 12 feet at a park in Fort Wayne, IN. 1938: The Fair Labor Standards Act established the first minimum wage of 33 cents per hour. 1940: The 40-hour work week went into effect under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. 1940: French physicist Pierre-Ernest Weiss, who determined the Weiss magneton unit of magnetic moment, died. 1941: William Noyes, who was the first chemist hired by the U.S. Bureau of Standards, died. 2003: The Concord SST made its final landing at Heathrow airport.

| 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. Many 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. Images used in the logos are often from open source websites like Wikipedia, and are specifically credited with a hyperlink back to the source where possible. Fair Use laws permit small samples of copyrighted content.