July 1

Today is Canada Day. 1788: Jean-Victor Poncelet, who formulated the Continuity Principle (which includes the principle of duality and the method of reciprocation), was born. 1860: Charles Goodyear, who invented vulcanization of rubber, died. 1872: Airplane designer Louis Blériot, was born. 1901: The U.S. Standards Bureau became effective, later to become the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). 1909: Thomas Edison began commercial manufacture of his new "A" type alkaline storage batteries. 1912: Harriet Quimby, the first female pilot to fly across the English Channel, died. 1934: The first X-ray photograph of the whole body taken in a one-second exposure in Rochester, N.Y. 1963: The U.S. postmaster introduced the five-digit ZIP (Zone Improvement Post) code. 1971: Nobel laureate Sir Lawrence Bragg, developer of the Bragg law of x-ray diffraction, died. 1980: "O Canada" was proclaimed the national anthem of Canada. 1983: R. Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome and after whom the Buckeyball (the Buckminster Fullerene) was named, died. 1999: Forrest Mars, inventor of M&M candies and the Milky Way bar, died. 1999: Exactly 6 months before the year 2000, Congress passed legislation to shield businesses from a potential flood of Y2K computer-related lawsuits. 2001: : Nobel Prize winning Russian physicist Nikolay Basov, who developed the maser, died.