Interesting tidbits: 1770 – James Cook formally claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales. 1821 – Jarvis Island is discovered by the crew of the ship, Eliza Frances. Today Jarvis is an uninhabited 1.75 square mile / 4.5 sq kilometer coral island located in the South Pacific Ocean about halfway between Hawaii and the Cook Islands to the south. It is an unincorporated, unorganized territory of the United States, administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States Department of the Interior as part of the National Wildlife Refuge system. Unlike most coral atolls, the lagoon on Jarvis is wholly dry. 1888 – The first successful adding machine in the United States is patented by William Seward Burroughs. An adding machine was a class of mechanical calculator, usually specialized for bookkeeping calculations. In the United States, the earliest adding machines were usually built to read in dollars and cents. Blaise Pascal invented the mechanical calculator in 1642, an adding machine that could perform additions and subtractions directly and multiplication and divisions by repetitions. He was followed by Thomas de Colmar who launched the mechanical calculator industry in 1851 when he released his simplified arithmometer (it took him thirty years to turn his complex multiplying machine, patented in 1820, into a simpler and more reliable adding machine). However, they didnt gain widespread use until Dorr E. Felt started manufacturing his comptometer (1887) and Burroughs started the commercialization of his adding machine (1892). 1945 – Physicist Harry K. Daghlian, Jr. is fatally irradiated in a criticality accident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Daghlian was irradiated as a result of a criticality accident that occurred when he accidentally dropped a tungsten carbide brick onto a plutonium bomb core. This core, available at the close of World War II and later nicknamed the Demon core. Daghlian reacted immediately after dropping the brick and attempted to knock off the brick without success. He was forced to partially disassemble the tungsten-carbide pile to halt the reaction. Despite intensive medical care, he soon developed symptoms of severe radiation poisoning and died 25 days later after falling into a coma. Scientist to the last, Daghlian kept describing his symptoms and providing useful medical information until he fell into the coma. Daghlians accident was the subject of an episode of Dark Matters. Todays birthday crew: 1754 – William Murdoch, Scottish engineer and inventor, created gas lighting. Murdoch was employed by the firm of Boulton and Watt and worked for them in Cornwall, as a steam engine erector for ten years, spending most of the rest of his life in Birmingham, England. Murdoch was the inventor of the oscillating cylinder steam engine, and gas lighting is attributed to him in the early 1790s, also the term gasometer. However, Archibald Cochrane, ninth Earl of Dundonald, had already used gas for lighting his family estate in 1789. Murdoch also made other innovations to the steam engine, including the sun and planet gear and D slide valve. He invented the steam gun and the pneumatic tube message system, and worked on one of the first British paddle steamers to cross the English Channel. Murdoch built a prototype steam locomotive in 1784 and made a number of discoveries in chemistry. Murdoch remained an employee and later a partner of Boulton & Watt until the 1830s, and his reputation as an inventor has been obscured by the reputations of Boulton and Watt and the firm they founded. Murdoch is yet another of the great minds from the Age of Steam that Tidbits would like to see get the recognition he deserves. 1872 – Aubrey Beardsley, English illustrator and author. His drawings in black ink, influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James McNeill Whistler. Beardsleys contribution to the development of the Art Nouveau and poster styles was significant, despite the brevity of his career before his early death from tuberculosis. In 1892, Beardsley travelled to Paris, where he discovered the poster art of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and the Parisian fashion for Japanese prints, both of which would be major influences on his own style. Beardsleys first commission was Le Morte dArthur by Thomas Malory (1893), which he illustrated for the publishing house J. M. Dent and Company. Beardsley was the most controversial artist of the Art Nouveau era, renowned for his dark and perverse images and grotesque erotica, which were the main themes of his later work. His illustrations were in black and white, against a white background. Some of his drawings featured enormous genitalia. His most famous erotic illustrations concerned themes of history and mythology; these include his illustrations for a privately printed edition of Aristophanes Lysistrata, and his drawings for Oscar Wildes play Salome, which eventually premiered in Paris in 1896. Other major illustration projects included an 1896 edition of The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope, and the collection A Book of Fifty Drawings by Aubrey Beardsley (1897). Beardsleys work reflected the decadence of his era and his influence was enormous, clearly visible in the work of the French Symbolists, the Poster art Movement of the 1890s and the work of many later-period Art Nouveau artists such as Pape and Clarke. Beardsley was a public as well as private eccentric. He said, I have one aim—the grotesque. If I am not grotesque I am nothing. Wilde said he had a face like a silver hatchet, and grass green hair. Beardsley was meticulous about his attire: dove-grey suits, hats, ties; yellow gloves. He would appear at his publishers in a morning coat and patent leather pumps. 1887 – James Paul Moody, English 6th Officer of the RMS Titanic and the only junior officer of the ship to die in the disaster. Once the ship had put to sea, Moody stood the 4–5 PM watch and both 8–12 watches, which meant that he was on watch with First Officer William Murdoch and Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall when the Titanic struck an iceberg at 11.40 PM on 14 April. In the ensuing evacuation, Moody helped in the loading of Lifeboats No. 12, 14, and 16. While loading No. 14, Fifth Officer Lowe remarked that an officer should man the lifeboat. While the lower-ranked Moody would traditionally have been given this task, he deferred to Lowe. Moody went to the starboard side and gave Murdoch a hand until the water had come on the deck. It was a decision that would seal his fate. Moody was later seen by the ships lamp trimmer, Samuel Hemming, on top of the officers quarters trying to launch Collapsible A, an emergency lifeboat, just a few minutes before the final sinking. Moody was last seen alive diving into the sea from the bridge, and although his final fate is unknown, it is likely that, like most of Titanics victims, he succumbed to hypothermia in the frigid North Atlantic waters. 1905 – Friz Freleng, American animator, director, and producer sometimes credited as I. Freleng, was an American animator, cartoonist, director, and producer famous for his work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons from Warner Bros. He introduced and/or developed several of the studios biggest stars, including Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the cat, Yosemite Sam (to whom he was said to bear more than a passing resemblance) and Speedy Gonzales. The senior director at Warners Termite Terrace studio, Freleng directed more cartoons than any other director in the studio (a total of 266), and is also the most honored of the Warner directors, having won four Academy Awards. After Warners shut down the animation studio in 1963, Freleng and business partner David H. DePatie founded DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, which produced cartoons (notably The Pink Panther Show), feature film title sequences, and Saturday morning cartoons through the early 1980s. The nickname Friz came from his friend Hugh Harman, who initially nicknamed him Congressman Frizby after a fictional senator that was in articles in the Los Angeles Examiner. Over time this shortened to Friz. 1929 – Marie Severin, American comic book artist and colorist best known for her work for Marvel Comics and the 1950s EC Comics. She was inducted into the Will Eisner Comics Hall of Fame in 2001. Her brother John Severin was also an artist who has worked for EC and Marvel. 1961 – Stephen Hillenburg, American marine biologist, marine scientist, animator, writer, producer, actor, voice actor, and director best known for creating the animated series SpongeBob SquarePants. He currently owns his own production company, United Plankton Pictures and has also written for Mother Goose and Grimm and Rockos Modern Life. 1967 – Carrie-Anne Moss, Canadian actress best known for her role of Trinity in The Matrix trilogy. 1989 – Rob Knox, English actor who portrayed Marcus Belby in the Harry Potter films. Happy birthday guys!
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 10:20:16 +0000
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