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Yearly Archives: 2018

computer science
C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success – Dennis Ritchie

C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success – Dennis Ritchie

Harald Sack
On October 12, 2011, computer scientist Dennis Ritchie, who designed the UNIX operating system as well as the C programming language, passed away. Thanks to his contributions, computing made a huge leap forward and enabled real-time processing and multi-threading. Dennis Ritchie was born on September 9, 1941, in Bronxville, New York as son of Alistair E. Ritchie, a longtime Bell Labs scientist working on switching circuit theory. Dennis Ritchie graduated from Harvard…
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physics
The Leyden Jar Introducing the Age of Electricity

The Leyden Jar Introducing the Age of Electricity

Harald Sack
On October 11, 1745, German cleric Ewald Georg von Kleist (and independently of him Dutch scientist Pieter van Musschenbroek from the city of Leiden, Netherlands) invented a predecessor of today’s battery, the Leyden Jar. The jar worked in principle like a capacitor for the storage of electrical energy and was used to conduct many early experiments in electricity. Its discovery was of fundamental importance in the study of electricity. In the times before its invention, researchers…
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physics
Windscale – the World’s First Major Nuclear Accident

Windscale – the World’s First Major Nuclear Accident

Tabea Tietz
On October 10, 1957, the world’s first major nuclear accident took place. The Windscale fire happened in Cumbria, U.K. and was Great Britain‘s worst nuclear accident in history. Great Britain and the Bomb After World War II, the British refused to just look at how the United States and the Soviet Union raced each other in who can work with nuclear power at first and most important, who is able to launch…
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cinematography
Dialogues Are Overestimated – The Great Film Maker Jacques Tati

Dialogues Are Overestimated – The Great Film Maker Jacques Tati

Harald Sack
On October 9, 1908 Jacques Tatischeff, better known as cinematographer, actor, and comedian Jacques Tati was born as the son of Russian father Georges-Emmanuel Tatischeff,  director of Cadres Van Hoof, a prestigious picture framing company, and Dutch mother Marcelle Claire Van Hoof, in the little French village Le Pecq, Yvelines. I saw his short film “The school of postmen” when I was a kid and ever since I was fascinated by the kind of sophisticated…
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engineering
Stephenson’s Rocket winning the Rainhill Trials

Stephenson’s Rocket winning the Rainhill Trials

Harald Sack
On October 8, 1829, George Stephenson‘s steam locomotive ‘The Rocket‘ won The Rainhill Trials, an important competition in the early days of steam locomotive railways, run in Rainhill, Lancashire (now Merseyside) for the nearly completed Liverpool and Manchester Railway. “George Stephenson told me as a young man that railways will supersede almost all other methods of conveyance in this country — when mail-coaches will go by railway, and railroads will become the…
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literature
The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe

The Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe

Harald Sack
On October 7th, 1849, the great American author and poet, Edgar Allan Poe, best known for his stories of the mysterious and macabre, died under mysterious circumstances. With his short stories and poems, Edgar Allan Poe succeeded to capture the imagination and interest of readers around the world until the present day. With his creative and imaginative he even started completely new literary genres, earning him the nickname “Father of the Detective Story“.…
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architecture
The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier

The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier

Harald Sack
On October 6, 1887, Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, and writer Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known as Le Corbusier, was born. Le Corbusier was one of the pioneers of what is now called modern architecture. Dedicated to providing better living conditions for the residents of crowded cities, Le Corbusier also was influential in urban planning. “Architecture is the masterly, correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light.” — Le Corbusier, Vers une…
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art
And now for something completely different – Monty Python’s Flying Circus

And now for something completely different – Monty Python’s Flying Circus

Tabea Tietz
On October 5, 1969, BBC One premiered the very first Monty Python‘s Flying Circus. Monty Python’s Flying Circus (known during the final series as just Monty Python) is a British sketch comedy series created by the comedy group Monty Python and broadcast by the BBC from 1969 to 1974. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humor, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines. “It’s not pining, it’s passed on!…
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engineering
The Sputnik Shock and the Start of the Space Race

The Sputnik Shock and the Start of the Space Race

Harald Sack
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union shocked the western world by announcing the first successful launch of an artificial satellite orbiting the earth – Sputnik 1. Prelude – The International Geophysical Year The 1950’s were politically difficult times for the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1952, the International Council of Scientific Unions declared the time lasting from July 1, 1957 to December 31, 1958 as the International Geophysical Year…
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space
A4 – The First Human Built Vessel To Touch Outer Space

A4 – The First Human Built Vessel To Touch Outer Space

Harald Sack
On October 3, 1942, the very first vessel constructed by humans, the ‘Aggregat 4‘ (A4) touched outer space. The liquid-propellant rocket was designed to be the world‘s first long-range combat-ballistic missile, but also the first known human artifact to enter outer space. Space Pioneer Wernher von Brown Designer of the A4 was German rocket scientist and space pioneer Wernher von Braun, who was born on March 23, 1912, in Wirsitz (today Wyrzysk), Posen…
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