Learn about the history of science by reading about the significant scientific events that took place on this day in history.
As an educator, he was one of the first to recognize the need for scientific thinking and attitudes in industry and created a chemical engineering degree at Imperial College in London.
Senebier was a Swiss botanist who was the first to identify that plants consume carbon dioxide and release oxygen in the presence of light. This was the first step to understanding photosynthesis.
1937 - Hindenburg disaster
The dirigible Hindenburg burst into flame at the naval air station at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Nearly 7 million cubic feet of hydrogen burned crashing the zeppelin in only 32 seconds. The human toll was 36 dead of the 61 crew and 36 passengers. The cause of the crash is still debated. The crash heralded the end of the large passenger airship industry.1926 - Paul Christian Lauterbur was born.
Lauterbur was an American chemist who shares the 2003 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Peter Mansfield for the development of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). The MRI uses nuclear magnetic resonance to image the interior of a body. Lauterbur built the first MRI machine and Mansfield streamlined the process.
1871 - Victor Grignard was born.
Grignard was a French chemist who was awarded half the 1912 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of the Grignard reagent that advanced organic chemistry of the time. Grignard reagents are alkyl- or aryl-magnesium halides used in organometallic chemical reactions (Grignard reactions). Grignard reactions are useful for preparing organic compounds from smaller precursor molecules.
1848 - Henry Edward Armstrong was born.
Armstrong was an English chemist and educator who made great contributions to the synthetic dye industry though his work with naphthalene and its derivatives. Much of his scientific research was done on the subject of terpenes such as camphor and came close to recognizing the centric structure of benzene.As an educator, he was one of the first to recognize the need for scientific thinking and attitudes in industry and created a chemical engineering degree at Imperial College in London.
1806 - Chapin Aaron Harris was born.
Harris was a physician and dentist who pioneered modern dentistry. He was a co-founder of the first dental college, Baltimore College of Dental Surgery and co-founder of the first journal of dentistry, The American Journal of Dental Science and was a founder of the American Society of Dental Surgery.
1742 - Jean Senebier was born.
Senebier was a Swiss botanist who was the first to identify that plants consume carbon dioxide and release oxygen in the presence of light. This was the first step to understanding photosynthesis.