April 4
1821:
Linus Yale,
inventor and manufacturer of locks, including the cylinder or pin-tumbler lock known
by his name, was born. 1826:
Zénobe-Théophile
Gramme, inventor of the Gramme dynamo, was born. 1850: The city of
Los Angeles
was incorporated. 1876: Alfred Nobel obtained a patent for his
dynamite coupound.1883: American inventor
Peter Cooper,
who invented the first steam locomotive, named "Tom Thumb," died. 1919:
Sir William
Crookes, who showed that cathode rays were fast-moving electrons, died. 1929:
German mechanical engineer
Karl Benz,
who designed built the world's first practical auto powered by an internal-combustion
engine, died. 1930: The
American
Interplanetary Society was founded. 1931:
André Michelin,
founder of the Michelin Tyre Company, was born. 1945: U.S. forces liberated
the Nazi death camp
Ohrdruf in Germany. 1968: Nobel laureate
Martin Luther King Jr., 39, was shot to death in Memphis, TN.
1975: Microsoft
Corporation was formed by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, originally to sell
BASIC interpreters
for the Altair
8800. 1976: Harry Nyquist,
of Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem fame, died. 1983: The space shuttle
Challenger made its maiden voyage. 1984: George Orwell's novel,
1984, begins on this date. 1994:
Netscape
Communications (Mosaic Communications) was founded.
| Jan
| Feb | Mar |
Apr | May |
Jun | Jul |
Aug | Sep |
Oct | Nov |
Dec |
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. Many 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. Images used in the logos are often from open source
websites like Wikipedia, and are specifically credited with a hyperlink back to
the source where possible.
Fair Use laws permit
small samples of copyrighted content.
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