May 1
1825:
Johann
Balmer, of Balmer's formula for computing wavelengths [λ=hm²/(m²-n²)], was born.
1921: The first successful marine radio navigation beacons began regular operation
in the U.S. 1925: Astronaut
M. Scott Carpenter,
the second U.S. citizen to orbit the earth, was born. 1926:
Henry Ford announced an 8 hour, 5 day work week. 1931: The Empire
State Building was dedicated remotely by President Hoover from Washington, D.C.
1934:
Nelly Diener became Europe's first air stewardess. 1947: Howard
Hughes tested the first
airborne
radar aboard a TWA Constellation. 1958:
James Van
Allen reported that two radiation belts encircled Earth. 1960: The Soviet Union
shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance plane near Sverdlovsk and captured its pilot,
Francis
Gary Powers. 1964: The first BASIC program, invented by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz at Dartmouth
University, was run on a computer at about 4:00 a.m. 1999: The ''Liberty Bell 7,''
the Mercury space capsule flown by Gus Grissom, was found in the Atlantic 300 miles
southeast of Cape Canaveral, 38 years after it sank.
| 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.
|