March 21, 1877: Louis Pasteur, French chemist, began laboratory research on virulent anthrax bacteria during a devastating outbreak. “Father of Medical Microbiology” determined disease was caused by a living organism (anthrax bacillus), not by a related toxin. Pasteur was able to inoculate cattle & sheep with vaccine made from weakened strain of anthrax bacterium. He demonstrated that animals immunized by his vaccine survived, while untreated control group died. He later produced effective rabies vaccine. March 21, 2013: European Space Agency revealed new data, which indicates that the universe is 13.82 billion years old. March 21, 2007: National day of mourning began after three separate disasters occurred in Russia: 1. Methane explosion in Siberia coal mine (104 deaths). 2. Fire destroyed retirement home (62 deaths). 3. Passenger plane crash in central Russia (7 deaths). March 21, 1977: Earthquake (7.0-magnitude) struck Iran, where 167 people died. March 21, 1971: World Forest Day was established by the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization. March 21, 1970: First Earth Day proclamation was issued on the first day of Spring by Joseph Alioto, Mayor of San Francisco, California. Later, April 22nd (Lenin’s Birthday on the Old Russian Calendar) was selected as the annual date to celebrate Earth Day. March 21, 1952: Thirty-one storms & related tornadoes struck Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama & Kentucky, where 343 people died. March 21, 1942: Secret report during WWII suggested name plutonium for artificial element 94 since it followed neptunium & uranium (elements 93 & 92). Paper by Glenn Seaborg & Arthur Wahl was held secret until 1948. Since McMillan & Abelson had named neptunium after planet that lies outside of the orbit of Uranus, name for next element in periodic table was named after next planet, Pluto. March 21, 1934: Fire destroyed Hakodate, Japan; where 1,500 people died. March 21, 1932: Tornadoes struck Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, & South Carolina. Total of 359 people died from 33 recorded tornadoes that persisted through the night. March 21, 1913: Flood in Ohio, where 400 people died. March 21, 1904: Largest earthquake (5.1-magnitude) in Maine history occurred. March 21, 1857: Earthquake struck Tokyo, where 107,000 people died. March 21, 1826: Rensselaer School in Troy, New York was incorporated. Later became known as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), first non-military engineering college in USA. Note: Richard Cartwright attended RPI during his freshman year in college. March 21, 1824: Fire at Cairo ammunitions depot, where 4,000 horses died. March 21, 1788: Fire destroyed almost entire city of New Orleans, Louisiana (856 buildings). March 21, 1768: Baron Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier, French mathematician, Egyptologist & engineer, was born. He introduced an infinite mathematical series to aid in solving heat conduction equations. This analysis technique allows function of any variable to be expanded into series of multiples of the variable, which is now known as Fourier series. His Fourier Transform method of solving differential equations spawned many new areas of study in mathematics & physics, including branch of optics was named after him.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Mar 2014 16:56:01 +0000
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