Day in Engineering History Archive - October 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.
Today is Thanksgiving Day in Canada (2007). 1823: The Erie Canal was inaugurated. 1860: A telegraph line between Los Angeles and San Francisco was placed in operation. 1871: The Great Fire of Chicago broke out destroying about 17,450 buildings, killing 250 people and leaving 90,000 homeless. 1873: Danish astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung, who co-developed the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram relating star temperatures with brightness, was born. 1904: Clemens Winkler (no relation to The Fonz), discoverer of the element germanium, died. 1913: Robert Gilruth, developer of the Bell X-1 supersonic airplane, was born. 1958: Dr. Ake Senning implanted the first internal heart pacemaker. 1973: Britain's first independent radio station, London Broadcasting Company (LBC) began broadcasting today on VHF and medium wave. 2001: Two Russian cosmonauts made the first spacewalk to be conducted outside of the International Space Station (ISS) without a shuttle present.
Webmaster: Kirt Blattenberger, BSEE, UVM 1989