Science on the 27th of February in history

Science

Date	Type	Text
27 Feb 1611 Sunspots	science	Sunspots (astronomy) Sunspots are observed by telescope by Frisian astronomers Johannes Fabricius and David Fabricius and Johannes publishes the results of these observations in De Maculis in Sole observatis in Wittenberg later this year. Such early discoveries are overlooked however, and the first sighting is claimed a few months later by Galileo Galilei and Christoph Scheiner.
27 Feb 1659 William Sherard	science	birth William Sherard William Sherard, English botanist (died 1728)
27 Feb 1706 John Evelyn	science	death John Evelyn Died 27 Feb 1706 at age 85 (born 31 Oct 1620). English country gentleman, diarist, author of some 30 books on the fine arts, forestry, and religious topics. A lifelong member of the Royal Society, he produced for the commissioners of the navy the book, Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest-trees, and the Propagation of Timber (1664), encouraging estate owners to plant timber for the navy. It was the first important work on conservation, published at a time when English forests were being stripped of timber to build ships for the expanding British Navy. The book gave a description of the various kinds of trees, their cultivation, uses, and advice on pruning, insect control, wound treatment, and transplanting. The study, with numerous modifications, had gone through 10 editions by 1825.
27 Feb 1735 John Arbuthnot	science	death John Arbuthnot Died 27 Feb 1735 at age 67 (baptized 29 Apr 1667). Scottish physician, mathematician and essayist who published Of the Laws of Chance (1692), the first work on probability published in English, being his translation of a work by Huygens to which he added further games of chance. In 1710, he published a paper discussing the slight excess of male births over female births since 1629; it was perhaps the first application of probability to social statistics and included the first formal test of significance. As a political satirist, he wrote a series of pamphlets featuring the character John Bull that became an iconic Englishman. Arbuthnot joined with Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, and John Gay in founding the famous Scriblerus Club. From 1705 he was physician to Queen Anne until her death in 1714.
27 Feb 1748 Anders Sparrman	science	birth Anders Sparrman Anders Sparrman, Swedish botanist (died 1820)
27 Feb 1794 Jean(-Rodolphe) Perronet	science	death Jean(-Rodolphe) Perronet Died 27 Feb 1794 at age 85 (born 8 Oct 1708). Jean-Rodolphe Perronet was a French civil engineer who was renowned for his stone-arch bridges, especially the Pont de la Concorde, Paris. During construction of a bridge at Mantes in 1763, Perronet made the discovery that the horizontal thrust of a series of elliptical arches was passed along to the abutments at the ends of the bridge. Thus he was able to build extremely flat arches that were supported during construction by timbering (falsework) and mounted on very slender piers, which widened the waterway for navigation and reduced scour from the current.
27 Feb 1812 Poet	science	Poet (technology) Poet Lord Byron gives his first address as a member of the House of Lords, in defense of Luddite violence against Industrialism in his home county of Nottinghamshire.
27 Feb 1813 Vaccination	science	Vaccination In 1813, first federal vaccination legislation enacted.
27 Feb 1856 Alfred Einhorn	science	birth Alfred Einhorn Born 27 Feb 1856; died 21 Mar 1917 at age 61. German chemist who developed procaine (1905), also known by its tradename as Novocain, while working with the research group of Adolf von Baeyer at the University of Munich. It provided an alternative to cocaine (and its addictive properties), then used as a local anaesthetic. Because Novocain sometimes caused allergic reactions, it was superceded by lidocaine, first created by Nils Löfgren, was introduced in 1943. Chemically, the generically-named procaine is the mono-hydrochloride of para-amino-benzoyldiethyl-amino-ethanol. U.S. patent No. 812,554 was issued to Einhorn on 13 Feb 1906, assigned to the manufacturer. With the outbreak of hostilities in WW I, three American companies were authorized to synthesize procaine under the patent after Congress passed the Trading with the Enemy Act.
27 Feb 1867 Dental mallet	science	Dental mallet In 1867, Dr. William G. Bonwill of Philadelphia, Penn., invented the dental mallet while watching a telegraph key sounder operate in a Philadelphia hotel.
27 Feb 1867 James Dunwoody Brownson De Bow	science	death James Dunwoody Brownson De Bow Died 27 Feb 1867 at age 46 (born 20 Jul 1820). American statistician and editor.
27 Feb 1869 Henry Chandler Cowles	science	birth Henry Chandler Cowles Born 27 Feb 1869; died 12 Sep 1939 at age 70. American botanist who was a pioneer in the field of plant ecology, especially the concept of dynamic ecology, which he devised in the 1890's through a study of sand dune vegation at the southern end of Lake Michigan. He observed ecological succession, whereby starting with a bare habitat, there is a sequence of biological communities, each providing modification of the habitat to favour successors, until a climax community is established, characteristic of the climatic conditions of the region. His field work there showed that the vegetation at any one point in the system is related to the distance the point lies from the lake, the kind of soil present at the location, and the time period over which seeds and spores have had a chance to germinate.
27 Feb 1869 Alice Hamilton	science	birth Alice Hamilton Born 27 Feb 1869; died 22 Sep 1970 at age 101. American pathologist known for her research on industrial diseases. By actively publicizing the danger to workers' health of industrial toxic substances, she contributed to the passage of workmen's compensation laws and to the development of safer working conditions. In 1911, she accepted an appointment as special investigator for the U.S. Bureau of Labor. These duties led her into field investigations of mines, mills, and smelters. Concentrating at first on lead, the most widely used industrial poison, she compiled statistics dramatically documenting the high mortality and morbidity rates of workers. She later did the same for aniline dyes, picric acid, arsenic, carbon monoxide, and many other industrial poisons. Hamilton died when 101 yrs old.
27 Feb 1879 Saccharin discovered	science	Saccharin discovered In 1879, saccharin, the artificial sweetener, was discovered by Constantin Fahlberg, while he was researching coal tar compounds for Ira Remsen at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland With hands unwashed since leaving his laboratory work, during a meal, he accidentally discovered its intensely sweet taste when his fingers touched his lips. He subsequently obtained patents on its synthesis, and with his uncle, Dr. Adolf List, started a factory to produce and market it. Fahlberg became wealthy by taking the outcome of a laboratory experiment and pursuing a commercial path for it.
27 Feb 1881 L.E J. Brouwer	science	birth L.E J. Brouwer Born 27 Feb 1881; died 2 Dec 1966 at age 85. Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer was a Dutch mathematician who founded mathematical Intuitionism (a doctrine that views the nature of mathematics as mental constructions governed by self-evident laws). He founded modern topology by establishing, for example, the topological invariance of dimension and the fixpoint theorem. (Topology is the study of the most basic properties of geometric surfaces and configurations.) The Brouwer fixed point theorem is named in his honor. He proved the simplicial approximation theorem in the foundations of algebraic topology, which justifies the reduction to combinatorial terms, after sufficient subdivision of simplicial complexes, the treatment of general continuous mappings.
27 Feb 1891 David Sarnoff	science	birth David Sarnoff Born 27 Feb 1891; died 12 Dec 1971 at age 80. American inventor who was a pioneer in the development of both radio and television broadcasting. He was the first general manager of RCA and founded the television network NBC (1926). His first job was that of delivery boy, and his life continued to display a rags-to-riches element. He became a wireless operator and met Marconi in 1906. Foreseeing the multiple possibilities of radio, he became commercial manager of American Marconi in 1917, having already predicted that radio would become “a household utility in the same sense as the piano or phonograph”. RCA succeded the Marconi group (1919), and Sarnoff became its general manager (1921) then its president (1930-50). He steering it into the world of television, first black and white, then colour with NBC.
27 Feb 1892 Early electricity from wind	science	Early electricity from wind In 1892, “Electricity From Wind” was reported in the Cincinnati Enquirer, from the Philadelphia Record. Is said that “Owing to the comparative scarcity of water-power in many parts of England” to generate electricty, “attention has been given to wind power, of which the country is well supplied. A small experimental plant has been in operation at a flour-mill near London, the wind-mill supplying sufficient power to charge a storage battery, from which a number of arc and incandescent lamps were lighted nightly. Although the current obtained was small,” the experiment demonstrated the possibilities. The article suggested the use of wind-powered electricity generators at country houses on elevated ground. The article represents one example, not necessarily the first. Edison's incandescent lamp dates from 1879. Steam-powered central generating began in New York City in 1882.
27 Feb 1893 Ralph Linton	science	birth Ralph Linton Born 27 Feb 1893; died 24 Dec 1953 at age 60. American anthropologist who had a marked influence on the development of cultural anthropology. After combat in France during World War I, he received a Ph.D. from Harvard (1925). In the early 1920's he did fieldwork in Polynesia. He introduced the terms "status" and "role" to social science and influenced the development of the culture-and-personality school of anthropology. His works, such as The Study of Man (1936) and The Tree of Culture (1955), are regarded more as popularizations of anthropology than as original scholarship.
27 Feb 1897 Bernard Lyot	science	birth Bernard Lyot Born 27 Feb 1897; died 2 Apr 1952 at age 55. Bernard(-Ferdinand) Lyot was a French astronomer who invented the coronagraph (1930), an instrument which allows the observation of the solar corona when the Sun is not in eclipse. Earlier, using his expertise in optics, Lyot made a very sensitive polariscope to study polarization of light reflected from planets. Observing from the Pic du Midi Observatory, he determined that the lunar surface behaves like volcanic dust, that Mars has sandstorms, and other results on the atmospheres of the other planets. Modifications to his polarimeter created the coronagraph, with which he photographed the Sun's corona and its analyzed its spectrum. He found new spectral lines in the corona, and he made (1939) the first motion pictures of solar prominences.
27 Feb 1899 Charles Best	science	birth Charles Best Born 27 Feb 1899; died 31 Mar 1978 at age 79. Charles Herbert Best was an American-Canadian physiologist who, while 22 years old, assisted Dr Frederick Banting, in Toronto, Canada, with the discovery (1921) of a pancreatic extract - the hormone insulin - that could control diabetes in the dogs they used as test subjects. This led to human diabetics being treated with insulin. Banting (with J.J.R. Macleod) received the 1923 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Best was not nominated because he did not receive his medical degree until 1925. However, Banting recognized Best's role by later voluntarily sharing the prize money with him. Best also discovered the vitamin choline and the enzyme histaminase. He was the first to introduce anticoagulants in treatment of thrombosis (blood clots). Best was born in Maine, U.S.A., but for his university studies he moved to Canada, where he remained.
27 Feb 1900 Aspirin	science	Aspirin In 1900, German chemist Felix Hoffmann was issued a U.S. patent for “Acetyl Salicylic Acid” (No. 644,077). It was assigned to the Farben-Fabriken of Elberfeld Company, of New York. Hoffmann had discovered the chemical compound on 10 Aug 1897 while a researcher at the Bayer company. It was marketed as Apirin, the familiar pain reliever, which at the time was a trademarked name. It was first sold in Germany in powder form, from 1 May 1899, and later in the more convenient tablet form, from 1 Jan 1915.
27 Feb 1904 Yuly Borisovich Khariton	science	birth Yuly Borisovich Khariton Born 27 Feb 1904; died 19 Dec 1996 at age 92. Russian physicist who played a key role in the development of the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons and nuclear physics research. Khariton began his career as a researcher in chemical physics, studying combustion and explosion effects. In 1926-28 he studied and worked in Ernest Rutherford's Laboratory in Cambridge, England. Upon his return to the Soviet Union, he directed nuclear research at the Arzamas-16 centre through the 1930's and 1940's. He oversaw the preparation, assembly and detonation of the Soviet atomic bomb, which was built using stolen blueprints of the American plutonium bomb. The first Soviet A-bomb was detonated on 29 Aug 1949 at the Semipalatinsk test range.
27 Feb 1906 Samuel Pierpont Langley	science	death Samuel Pierpont Langley Died 27 Feb 1906 at age 71 (born 22 Aug 1834). American astronomer, physicist and aeronaut who built the first heavier-than-air flying machine to achieve sustained flight. He launched his Aerodrome No.5 on 6 May 1896 using a spring-actuated catapult mounted on top of a houseboat on the Potomac River, near Quantico, Virginia. He also researched the relationship of solar phenomena to meteorology.
27 Feb 1910 Kelly Johnson	science	birth Kelly Johnson Born 27 Feb 1910; died 21 Dec 1990 at age 80. Clarence Leonard "Kelly" Johnson was an American aeronautical engineer who introduced introduced innovative designs. While managing Lockheed's secret project division, known as the “Skunk Works,” he contributed to more than 40 airplanes. His early work included the P-38 Lightning fighter (1938) and the Hudson bomber. Later, he developed the fastest supersonic and highest-flying airplanes in the world. The U-2 (1954) was the first plane designed for routine flight above 60,000 feet. The F-104 Starfighter interceptor (1954) was capable of flying at twice the speed of sound, setting world records of 1,400 mph and 103,000 ft altitude.
27 Feb 1913 Adam Sedgwick	science	death Adam Sedgwick Died 27 Feb 1913 at age 58 (born 28 Sep 1854). English zoologist, a grandnephew of the geologist Adam Sedgwick, who is best known for his researches on the wormlike organism Peripatus, which he recognized as the zoologically important connecting link between the Annelida, or segmented worms, and the Arthropoda, such as crabs, spiders, and insects.
27 Feb 1924 Shaply reply to Hubble on Andromeda distance	science	Shaply reply to Hubble on Andromeda distance In 1924, Harlow Shapley wrote back in reply to the letter from Edwin Hubble which presented the measurement of 300,00 parsecs as the distance to the Andromeda nebula. That was the first proof that the nebula was far outside the Milky, in fact, a separate galaxy. When Shapley had debated Heber Curtis on 26 Apr 1920, he presented his firm, life-long conviction that all the Milky Way represented the known universe (and, for instance, the Andromeda nebula was part of the Milky Way.) On receipt of the letter, Shapley told Payne-Gaposchkin and said “Here is the letter that has destroyed my universe.” In his reply, Shapley said sarcastically that Hubble's letter was “the most entertaining piece of literature I have seen for a long time.” Hubble sent more data in a paper to the AAS meeting, read on 1 Jan 1925.
27 Feb 1926 David Hunter Hubel	science	birth David Hunter Hubel Born 27 Feb 1926. Canadian-born American neurobiologist, who was a corecipient (with Torsten Nils Wiesel and Roger Wolcott Sperry) of the 1981 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for mapping the path of nerve impulses from the eye to various centres of the brain. In 1958, Hubel joined Wiesel at Johns Hopkins University, and the two relocated to Harvard in 1959. Their work was made possible by a number of technical advances. From the early 1950s onward it became possible to use microelectrodes to monitor the activity of a single neuron. Their studies were in the area of visual perception, with particular emphasis on the nerve impulses mediating between the retina and the brain. They observed that various nerve cells were responsible for different types of visual stimuli.
27 Feb 1932 Neutron	science	Neutron In 1932, the neutron was discovered by Dr. James Chadwick.
27 Feb 1936 Ivan Petrovich Pavlov	science	death Ivan Petrovich Pavlov Died 27 Feb 1936 at age 86 (born 27 Sep 1849). Russian physiologist, who was awarded the 1904 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He pioneered the investigation what he named the “conditioned reflex.” In the experiment which made him famous, he trained a hungry dog to associate the sound of a bell with receiving food. Thereafter, the dog would salivate on hearing the bell alone. This work began as merely a study in digestion, with a series of experiments on dogs to investigate how digestive secretions are regulated. He identified three stimuli that caused dogs to begin to salivate: seeing, smelling, or tasting food. He realized, digestion is partly controlled by sensory stimuli. In 1903, Pavlov published his results on this learned— “conditioned reflex,” (as opposed to an innate reflex, like a reaction to pain). He worked actively in the lab until his death at age 87.
27 Feb 1936 Ivan Pavlov	science	death Ivan Pavlov Ivan Pavlov (born 1849), Russian physiologist.
27 Feb 1940 radioactive	science	radioactive (chemistry) The radioactive isotope carbon-14 is discovered by Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben at the University of California, Berkeley.
27 Feb 1942 nbsp;Solar radio	science	nbsp;Solar radio In 1942, J.S. Hey discovered radio emissions from the Sun.
27 Feb 1942 James Stanley Hey	science	James Stanley Hey (astronomy) James Stanley Hey, a British Army research officer, first detects radio waves emitted by the sun, helping to pioneer radio astronomy.
27 Feb 1947 Surgery on CCTV	science	Surgery on CCTV In 1947, the first closed-circuit broadcast of a surgical operation showed procedures to observers in classrooms. Dr. Alfred Blalock, at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Md., demonstrated two operations on the heart. Two more heart operations were also seen, and one on nerves of the spine.
27 Feb 1951 Henry Louis Smith	science	death Henry Louis Smith Died 27 Feb 1951 at age 91 (born 30 Jul 1859). American physicist and administrator who is credited with making the first X-ray photograph in the U.S. on about 12 Jan 1896, while he was a professor of physics and astronomy at Davidson College, North Carolina. Shortly after Röntgen's announcement of his discovery of X-rays, Smith copied the technique. Smith made an X-ray photograph of a bullet he had shot into the hand of a cadaver, that was published in the Charlotte Observer (27 Feb 1896). Shortly thereafter, he made the first clinical use of X-rays to locate a thimble stuck in a young girl's throat, enabling its surgical removal. Smith became the college president in 1901 and oversaw adding a new science building. He established an electric light plant. Near the end of WW I, his idea to inform the German population of President Wilson's peace plans was adopted. Millions of messages carried by gas-filled balloons were released from France into the winds over Germany.
27 Feb 1963 David Keilin	science	death David Keilin Died 27 Feb 1963 at age 75 (born 21 Mar 1887). Russian-British biochemist who discovered cytochromes, as enzymes critical to the cell's use of oxygen (1923). His career began as an entomologist studying the life cycles of flies. While studying the absorption spectrum of the muscles of the horse botfly, that he noticed four absoption bands that disappeared when the cell suspension was shaken in air, but reappeared afterwards. He had found a respiratory enzyme. He named it cytochrome, and began a thorough investigation of its role in cellular respiration. Like haemoglobin, the cytochrome enzyme contains iron. Cytochrome is a pigment found in some cells, such as bacteria and yeast. He studied also catalase and peroxidase which are also iron-containing enzymes with a role involving oxygen.
27 Feb 1983 Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev	science	death Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev, Russian astronomer and astrophysicist (b. 1908)
27 Feb 1989 Konrad Lorenz	science	death Konrad Lorenz Died 27 Feb 1989 at age 85 (born 7 Nov 1903). Austrian zoologist, who founded modern ethology (the study of animal behaviour by means of comparative zoological methods). He was known affectionately by his pupils as the “father of the grey geese” which he studied. His ideas revealed how behavioral patterns may be traced to an evolutionary past, and he was also known for his work on the roots of aggression. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine for developing a unified, evolutionary theory of animal and human behaviour. He was also a vehement environmentalist, criticizing prodigality and believed that nature protection is necessary for the preservation of humanity. Even late in life, he participated in demonstrations even if in conflict with government and authorities.
27 Feb 1997 William Ross Maples	science	death William Ross Maples Died 27 Feb 1997 at age 59 (born 7 Aug 1937). American forensic anthropologist who examined and identified the skeletons of a number of historical figures, including Tsar Nicholas II and other members of the Romanov family killed in 1918 by the Bolsheviks, Vietnam MIAs, conquistador Francisco Pizarro, and in 1994 helped convict Byron De La Beckwith of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers. At the University of Florida, the C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory was created through Maples' energetic fundraising. This sophisticated, unique facility, dedicated to forensic anthropology opened its doors in 1986. Maples wrote Dead Men Do Tell Tales (1994, with Michael Browning).
27 Feb 1997 Kingsley Davis	science	death Kingsley Davis Died 27 Feb 1997 at age 88 (born 20 Aug 1908). American sociologist and demographer who was a world-renowned expert on population trends; he coined the terms population explosion and zero population growth and promoted methods of bringing the latter about. His specific studies of American society led him to work on a general science of world society, based on empirical analysis of each society in its habitat. Later, however, he came to be concerned about low birthrates in developed countries, fearing a shortage of educated leaders.
27 Feb 1998 George Herbert Hitchings	science	death George Herbert Hitchings Died 27 Feb 1998 at age 92 (born 18 Apr 1905). American pharmacologist was a medical research pioneer who was awarded a share of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1988 (with Gertrude B. Elion and Sir James W. Black) for development of drugs for several major diseases. In the 1950s, he and colleague Elion developed thioguanine and 6-mercaptopurine, that treated leukemia, and in 1957, azathioprine, used in treating severe rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune disorders. Their drug allopurinol was effective treatment for gout. Other important drugs they developed include pyrimethamine, an antimalarial agent; trimethoprim, a treatment for urinary and respiratory tract infections; and acyclovir, the first effective treatment for viral herpes.
27 Feb 1999 circumnavigate	science	circumnavigate (aeronautics) While trying to circumnavigate the world in a hot air balloon, Colin Prescot and Andy Elson set a new endurance record after being in their balloon for 233 hours and 55 minutes.
27 Feb 2001 Claude Elwood Shannon	science	death Claude Elwood Shannon Died 27 Feb 2001 at age 84 (born 30 Apr 1916). American mathematician.

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Science on the 27th of February in history

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