Interesting tidbits: 1841 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in the United States v. The Amistad case that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally. 1862 – The USS Monitor and CSS Virginia fight to a draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the first battle between two ironclad warships. Todays birthday crew: 1904 – Paul Wilbur Klipsch, American engineer and high fidelity audio pioneer, known for developing a high-efficiency folded horn loudspeaker. Unsatisfied with the sound quality of phonographs and early speaker systems, Klipsch used scientific principles to develop a corner horn speaker that sounded more lifelike than its predecessors. The Klipschorn, which today is still manufactured and sold worldwide, proved popular. The resulting acoustics career of Klipsch spanned from 1946, when he founded one of the first U.S. loudspeaker companies, to 2000 when the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society published one of his papers. He died on May 5, 2002 at the age of 98. 1944 – Paul C. P. McIlhenny, American businessman at family-owned McIlhenny Company, maker of Tabasco sauce. 1955 – Pat Murphy, American science fiction author. With her second novel, The Falling Woman (1986), she won the Nebula Award, and another Nebula Award in the same year for her novelette, Rachel in Love. Her short story collection, Points of Departure (1990) won the Philip K. Dick Award, and her 1990 novella, Bones, won the World Fantasy Award in 1991. Happy birthday guys!
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 09:40:33 +0000