2013 Calendar - The City University of New York

Transcription

LaGuardia
and Wagner
Archives
www.cuny.edu/inventingthefuture
2013 Calendar
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Chancellor Matthew Goldstein
right Model of CUNY’s Advanced Science Research Center on the campus of
City College in Harlem.
I am very pleased to introduce the CUNY/New York Times in College 2013 calendar,
“Inventing the Future: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math in America.” This
well-timed calendar not only highlights the importance of the STEM fields to the
advancement of new discoveries but also emphasizes the collaborative nature of
scientific breakthroughs. For example, the incandescent light bulb was the work of
a large group of scientists at Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park “invention factory” who
were competing with other research teams to complete the first marketable electric
bulb. Alexander Graham Bell is best remembered for inventing the telephone, but
his greatest legacy may be Bell Labs, which conducted research to create the first fax
machine in 1925, the transistor in 1947, the laser in 1958, and the first orbital communications satellite in 1962. No single inventor can take credit for these and other
inventions and innovations; it was the brilliant collaboration of many great minds in
the STEM disciplines that developed them.
During World War II, universities also became central to STEM research. Harvard
and the University of Pennsylvania were pioneers in early computer research. With
the onset of the Cold War, the federal government greatly increased its funding of
public and private research universities and they became centers of both applied and
basic research, including the foundations of what would become the Internet.
The STEM theme is timely for both the nation and The City University of New
York. To compete in the world economy, the United States must invest in STEM disciplines. CUNY’s Decade of Science initiative, begun in 2005, has strengthened the University’s commitment to STEM participation and proficiency. Enrollment in CUNY’s
STEM disciplines increased by 35 percent from 2005 to 2010, and there has been a 25
percent increase in STEM faculty since 2006. CUNY is also constructing new science
facilities, most notably the Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC), scheduled to
open on the City College campus in 2014. The ASRC will provide high-end equipment and space for research in photonics, nanotechnology, water and environmental
sensing, structural biology, and neuroscience. Other major initiatives include the
CUNY Energy Institute, which is conducting research to improve the efficiency of
electric, electrochemical and thermal energy storage to enable utilization of renewable energy sources, and the Environmental Crossroads Initiative, an internationally
recognized research center dedicated to the analysis of strategic local, regional and
global environmental challenges.
CUNY is also increasing its public outreach through the development of CUNY
TV programs like Science & U, which examines the world of science through today’s
headlines and demonstrates its importance in everyday life, referencing many of the
themes in this year’s calendar. At the bottom of each month is a QR code that links
to an episode of Science & U related to that month’s theme.
The concept and development of the 2013 “Inventing the Future” calendar and
Web site have been guided by CUNY Senior Vice Chancellor for University Relations
and Board Secretary Jay Hershenson and LaGuardia Community College President
Gail O. Mellow. Their vision has been realized by Richard K. Lieberman, director of
the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives and professor of history at LaGuardia Community College, and his colleagues at the archives, Associate Project Directors Steven
A. Levine and Stephen Weinstein, and Assistant Project Director Tara Jean Hickman.
The project has received valuable input from some of the University’s finest scholars,
whose participation underscores the integrity of the content. The calendar’s one-ofa-kind images were sourced from both the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives and The
New York Times photo archives.
For more than 30 years, the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives has produced exemplary calendars and lesson plans on a variety of subjects, including the history of the
New York City Council and the origins of public housing. For the past eight of those
years, the archives has produced the CUNY/New York Times in College calendar projects, consisting of printed calendars, Web sites, and curricula focused on the following
topics: voting rights and citizenship, women’s leadership, immigrants, city life, freedom,
public higher education, health, and the economy.
The commitment of the calendar’s sponsors has been particularly important.
CUNY offers special thanks to JPMorgan Chase Chairman and C.E.O. Jamie Dimon,
JPMorgan Chase Foundation President Kimberly Davis, Senior Vice Presidents Leonard Colica, Michael Nevins and Timothy G. Noble, and Executive Director Kim Jasmin.
We are deeply appreciative of our ongoing partnership with our esteemed
colleagues at The New York Times in College for making the calendar widely
accessible, facilitating the curricular elements and providing access and publication
rights to The New York Times’s archival photos. With the help of The New York
Times in College, accessible online at www.nytimes.com/edu, CUNY is collaborating
with faculty, administrators, and students in states nationwide. In particular, we want
to acknowledge and thank these Times colleagues: Diane McNulty, executive director community affairs and media relations; Susan Mills, managing director, education;
Stephanie Doba, Newspaper in Education manager; and Tom Glieden and Walter
Barleycorn, education account managers.
Thanks are also due to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York City
Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Queens Borough President Helen Marshall.
Their historic support and funding of the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives and its
calendars and curricula have helped the archives to preserve history and make it
available and accessible to the public.
“Inventing the Future” is a work of scholarship, enabling an understanding of
the history of science, technology, engineering and math and the impact that breakthroughs in these fields have on society. The University takes great pride in the
partnerships that allow the calendar to bring this history to life.
Matthew Goldstein, Chancellor
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
SENIOR PROJECT DIRECTOR
Jay Hershenson, Senior Vice Chancellor for University Relations
and Secretary of the Board of Trustees, CUNY
PROJECT ADVISOR
Gail O. Mellow, President, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
PROJECT DIRECTOR
Richard K. Lieberman, Director of the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives
and Professor of History, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
ASSOCIATE PROJECT DIRECTORS
Steven A. Levine, Coordinator for Educational Programs, LaGuardia and
Wagner Archives, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Stephen Weinstein, Assistant to the Director, LaGuardia and Wagner
Archives, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
ASSISTANT PROJECT DIRECTOR
Tara Jean Hickman, Educational Associate, LaGuardia and Wagner
ADMINISTRATION
Eduvina Estrella, Assistant to the Director, LaGuardia and Wagner
WEB DESIGN
Livia Nieves, Web Designer, CUNY
CALENDAR DESIGN
Sandy Chase, Fluid Film
Abigail Sturges, Sturges Design
LAGUARDIA AND WAGNER ARCHIVES STAFF
Soraya Ciego-Lemur
Marian Clarke
Douglas Di Carlo
Nadeen Elakkad
Oleg Kleban
Brian Portararo
Juan Rodriguez
Michael Rothbard
Jean Carlos Sanchez
Joshua Whitaker
EDITORIAL SCHOLARS
Carol Groneman, Professor Emerita, John Jay College and
The Graduate Center, CUNY
Gerald Markowitz, Distinguished Professor, John Jay College and
The Graduate Center, CUNY
Senior Consulting Scholar
Geoffrey Zylstra, Assistant Professor, New York City College
of Technology, CUNY
CONSULTING SCHOLARS
Pennee Bender, Associate Director, American Social History Project,
CUNY Graduate Center
Joshua Brown, Executive Director, American Social History Project,
Blanche Wiesen Cook, Distinguished Professor, John Jay College, CUNY
Charles Liu, College of Staten Island, CUNY
Andrea Vasquez, Associate Director, American Social History Project,
LaGuardia Community
College, CUNY, student
Laura Aguilera and Rima
Coleman, PhD, of the
Hospital for Special Surgery
conduct mineralized tissue
research.
SPECIAL THANKS
Deena Adelman, Federal Highway Administration Research Library
Allen Adon, Jr., Federal Highway Administration Research Library
Laura Aguilera, Hospital for Special Surgery, NYC
Aaron Alcorn
Christopher Alexander, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Tom Angotti, Hunter College, CUNY
Paul Arcario, Provost, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs,
LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Michael Arena, University Director of Communications and Marketing,
Office of University Relations, CUNY
Thomas Baione, American Museum of Natural History
Dr. Ellen Baker, NASA Astronaut (Former)
Walter Barleycorn, Education Account Manager, The New York Times
André Beckles, Photographer/Production Coordinator,
Joyce Bedi, Smithsonian Institution
Susanne Belovari, Tufts University
Felisa Bienstock, Business Office/Purchasing,
Carly Bogen, Museum of the Moving Image
Edward Busch, Michigan State University
Kim Buxton, Office of University Relations, CUNY
Alan B. Carr, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Peter Catapano, New York City College of Technology, CUNY
Robert Clark, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library
Brian Cohen Associate Vice Chancellor and University Chief
Information Officer, CUNY
Jim Cohen, Emeritus Professor, John Jay College, CUNY
Robert Colburn, IEEE History Center, Rutgers University
Dr. Rhima Coleman, Hospital for Special Surgery, NYC
Phyllis Collazzo, Permissions, The New York Times
Diane Colon, Director, Administrative and Support Services,
Marian Cordry, CBS Licensing
Dr. Douglas B. Cowan, Harvard Medical School,
Children’s Hospital Boston
Kelle Cruz, Hunter College, CUNY
Jeff Day, Min/Day Architects
Leonard DeGraaf, U.S. Department of the Interior,
National Parks Service, Thomas Edison National Historic Park
Aurora Deshauteurs, Free Library of Philadelphia
Theresa Desmond, Special Assistant to the Chancellor
and Senior Writer, CUNY
John DeVilbiss, Utah State University
Stephanie Doba, Education Manager, The New York Times
Allan Dobrin, Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Operating Officer,
CUNY
Donnelly Marks Photography
Robert Edelstein, Marketing, The New York Times
Richard Elliott,Vice President for Administration, LaGuardia
Community College, CUNY
Jackie Esposito, Pennsylvania State University
Randy Fader-Smith, Marketing and Communications Office,
Susan Farkas, President, Farkas Media
Erin Faulder, Tufts University
Stephanie Fiorenza, Graduate Center, CUNY
John Fleckner, Smithsonian Institution
Sharon Forde, Office of University Relations, CUNY
Robert Friedel, University of Maryland
Tom Glieden, Education Account Manager, The New York Times
Patricia Gray, Director of Corporate Relations and Special Events,
Sarah Gustafson, Tufts University
Shanique Haile-Francois, U.S. Department of Energy
Richard Hanley, New York City College of Technology, CUNY
Curt Hanson, University of North Dakota
Mary Hedge, MTA Bridge and Tunnel Special Archive
Thomas Hladek, Executive Director of Finance and Business,
Bruce Hoffacker, Executive Associate to the Vice-President for
Academic Affairs, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Nalband Hussain, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Robert Isaacson, Executive Director, CUNY-TV
Paul Israel, Thomas A. Edison Papers, Rutgers University
Karen Jania, University of Michigan
Richard Jensen, University of Illinois, Chicago
Luz Jimenez, Executive Assistant to the Vice Chancellor for Research,
CUNY
Seth Jordan, University of Tennessee
Liz Kalodner, CBS Licensing
Nick Kaloterakis@kollected
Maribeth Keitz, National Academy of Engineers
John Kotowski, Director of City Relations,
Kim Lange, WET Design
Stacee Gravelle Lawrence, The Monacelli Press
Milagros Lecuona, Lecuona Associates
Janet Lieberman, Professor Emerita,
Samuel Lieberman, Student, SUNY Purchase
Mail Center Staff, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Larry McAllister, Paramount Pictures
Sean McNally, Museum of the Moving Image
Diane McNulty, Executive Director, Marketing, The New York Times
Miriam Meislik, Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh
Hourig Messerlian, Deputy to the Secretary, CUNY Board of Trustees
Barbara Miller, Museum of the Moving Image
Michael Miller, American Philosophical Society
Susan Mills, Managing Director, Education, The New York Times
John Mogulescu, Senior University Dean for Academic Affairs
and Dean of the School for Professional Studies, CUNY
Angela Leimkuhler Moran, United States Naval Academy
Erica Mosnery, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ
Joe Nasr, Ryerson University
Barbara Niss, Mount Sinai Medical Center
Mark O’English, Washington State University
Thomas Onorato, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Rene Ontal, Office of Communications and Marketing, CUNY
Peter Parides, New York City College of Technology, CUNY
Robert Passwell, University Transportation Research Center,
City College, CUNY
Gabriella Petrick, George Mason University
Kimberly Porter, University of North Dakota
Preethi Radhakrishnan, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Gregory Raml, American Museum of Natural History
Mark Renovitch, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library
Ed Rhodes, Campaign Officer, Marketing, Invest
in CUNY Campaign Office
Eneida Rivas, College and Community Relations Office,
Rita Rodin, Senior Editor, Office of Communications and Marketing,
CUNY
Neill Rosenfeld, Staff Writer, Office of Communications and Marketing,
CUNY
Erin Clements Rushing, Smithsonian Institution Libraries
Henry Saltiel,Vice President for Information Technology,
Samuel Sanchez, The Morris Raphael Cohen Library, City College, CUNY
Frederick Schaffer, Senior Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs
and General Counsel, CUNY
Wendy Shay, Smithsonian Institution
Richard Sheinaus, Director of Graphic Design,
Office of Communications and Marketing, CUNY
Nadine A. Shelbert, WET Design
Sigmund Shen, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Claire Shulman, Former Queens Borough President
Daniel Shure, Managing Editor of CUNY.edu,
Office of Communications and Marketing, CUNY
Gillian Small,Vice Chancellor for Research, CUNY
Melanie Sorsby, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Vanda Stevenson, Business Office/Accounting,
Shanequa Terry, Office of University Relations, CUNY
David Tobis, Principal, Maestral International
Kim Thomas, Federal Highway Administration Research Library
John Van Citters, CBS Licensing
Sydney Van Nort, The Morris Raphael Cohen Library, City College,
CUNY
Mary Beth Wallace, Wayne State University
James E. West, Johns Hopkins University
Paul West, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
Stan Wolfson, Office of University Relations, CUNY
Burl Yearwood, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
THIS PUBLICATION IS MADE POSSIBLE
IN PART BY GRANTS FROM
THE MAYOR’S OFFICE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
Michael Bloomberg, Mayor
Patricia Harris, First Deputy Mayor
THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
Christine Quinn, Speaker
Leroy Comrie, Deputy Majority Leader
Domenic M. Recchia, Jr., Chair, Finance Committee
Ydanis Rodriguez, Chair, Higher Education Committee
James Van Bramer, Council Member
JPMORGAN CHASE
Jamie Dimon, Chairman and C.E.O.
Leonard Colica, Senior Vice President
Kimberly Davis, President, JPMorgan Chase Foundation
Michael Nevins, Senior Vice President
Timothy G. Noble, Senior Vice President
Kim Jasmin, Executive Director, Northeast Division,
Global Philanthropy and Community Relations, JPMorgan Chase
Copyright © 2012 The City University of New York
The “Inventing the Future” Web site and calendar did not involve
the reporting or editing staff of The New York Times.
LaGuardia
and Wagner
Archives
www.cuny.edu/inventingthefuture
Original crew of the U.S.S Monitor playing games
on deck while on the James River (Virginia), 1862.
Milestones for
1800s
William Saunders, an American horticulturalist working for the U.S.
Patent Office, arranged for the importation of seedless or navel
orange trees from Bahia, Brazil, in the late 1860s. Here mammoth
oranges are shipped on the Southern Pacific Railroad, 1909.
Linus Pauling, two-time Nobel Prize winner, works with a
vacuum pump in his lab at Oregon State University.
The Aerodyne, designed by Alexander Lippisch, 1950.
Inventing the Future
Dr. Patricia Bath invented a
new device and technique for
cataract surgery known as
“laserphaco” that has helped
many blind people to see.
New York suffers 3,513 deaths and begins planning to bring clean water
to the city from an upstate source.
April 28, 1852 Boston establishes the first electric-powered fire alarm
system with call boxes to indicate the location of the fire.
January 21, 1801 The Philadelphia Water Works opens, making Philadelphia
February 25, 1836 Samuel Colt patents the revolver, a handgun
“that featured a rotating cylinder with multiple chambers for bullets.”
March 29, 1806 Thomas Jefferson signs legislation committing the federal
January 11, 1838 Samuel F.B. Morse uses electric signals to shift an
electromagnet in a patterned print across paper, known as Morse code.
November 11, 1856 English metallurgist Henry Bessemer receives a U.S.
patent for a process that converts pig iron to steel, establishing a much lower
cost method for producing steel in large quantities.
the first major city in the U.S. to provide clean drinking water citywide.
government to build the Cumberland (later National) Road west from
Cumberland, MD.
1839 Charles Goodyear invents vulcanized rubber, which maintains its
August 17, 1807 Robert Fulton takes the steamboat Clermont up
the Hudson River from New York to Albany; reliable upriver steam travel
revolutionizes intercity trade and transportation.
shape despite exposure to pressure and heat. Goodyear receives his
patent in 1844.
1818 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley writes “Frankenstein,” about a creature
clean supply of water needed to combat disease, fight fires, and meet the
demands of a rapidly growing city.
October 26, 1825 The Erie Canal connects the port of New York to the
Great Lakes via the Hudson River. By 1840, New York moved more freight
than the ports of Boston, Baltimore and New Orleans combined.
May 24, 1844 Samuel F.B. Morse builds the first telegraph line, extending
from Baltimore to Washington, DC.
May 24, 1830 America’s first railroad, the Baltimore & Ohio, travels 13 miles
practical sewing machine.
July 1832 Cholera strikes New York and cities along the eastern seaboard;
October 16, 1846 The first public demonstration of ether as anesthesia
takes place during surgery performed by Dr. William T.G. Morton at
Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
produced by scientific activity in a laboratory.
from Baltimore to Ellicott City, Maryland; the line extends to Wheeling, West
Virginia, in 1853.
Patent issued to Bell Labs for the transistor, 1950.
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Tetrahedral kite designed by
Alexander Graham Bell, c. 1910.
October 14, 1842 The Croton Aqueduct provides New York with its first
1845 Innovations by Elias Howe and Isaac Singer lead to the modern,
Carl Rakeman’s painting of the first American macadam
road, n. d.
March 23, 1857 The first safety elevator for passengers in America, designed
by Elisha Otis, is installed at 488 Broadway in New York in E.V. Haughwout’s
porcelain and glassware shop.
November 30, 1858 John L. Mason patents the Mason jar, enabling America
to preserve perishable goods.
1861 Richard Gatling invents the Gatling gun, forerunner of the revolving
machine gun, under the mistaken impression that it would reduce battlefield
casualties by reducing the number of soldiers needed. He receives a patent
on May 9, 1865.
October 24, 1861 High-speed telegraph communication begins between
the Pacific and Atlantic coasts as the Western Union Company completes
its telegraph line between St. Joseph, MO, and Sacramento, CA.
July 27, 1866 The Transatlantic cable opens between Newfoundland and Val-
entia, Ireland, forever changing communication between American and Europe.
Communication that once took two to three weeks now takes minutes.
Broadway Elevated Railroad, New York, City, 1866.
Howard Coffin with steam car he built while a
student at the University of Michigan, 1899.
Edison storage battery assembly department, New Jersey, 1915.
Stone’s Marvelous Mental
Calculator, 1880.
1800s
The meeting of the rails at Promontory Point, UT, on May 10, 1869.
Edison battery-operated truck used by the
Metropolitan Opera Company of New York.
September 4, 1882 Thomas Edison’s Pearl Street Station in New York
June 23, 1868 Christopher Latham Sholes and his associates patent the
first practical typewriter; five years later he introduces the QWERTY
arrangement of keys to avoid jamming.
September 8, 1868 Bessemer Steel’s first “blow” is made at the Cleve-
land Rolling Mills, inaugurating an American industrial revolution; the cities
of Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Chicago would soon anchor the new
industrial heartland of the nation.
May 10, 1869 The Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads forge link
at Promontory Point, UT, opening train travel between the eastern U.S.
and California.
November 24, 1874 Joseph Glidden introduces barbed wire fencing,
enabling herds to remain on private ranches.
March 10, 1876 Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone, signaling
the decline of the telegraph industry.
begins the first successful commercial production of electricity in America,
distributing direct current to 203 customers in lower Manhattan within four
months. The New York Times building is lit up on this first night.
1883 American inventor Charles Fritts creates the first solar cell.
March 20, 1883 Jan Ernst Matzeliger invents a shoe and boot-lasting machine
that increases shoemaking speed by 900%.
May 24, 1883 The Brooklyn Bridge opens, connecting the nation’s largest
and third largest cities, New York and Brooklyn. Its towers were the tallest
structures in America.
1885 William Seward Burroughs creates a “calculating machine.”
1884-1885 America’s first skyscraper, Chicago’s 10-story Home Life
Insurance Building, utilizes a lightweight fireproof steel structure made
possible by the Bessemer process of steel manufacturing.
March 20, 1886 William Stanley demonstrates the first practical use of
1879 Constantine Fahlberg and Ira Remsen of Johns Hopkins University
discover saccharine, the first synthetic sweetening agent.
January 27, 1880 Thomas Edison receives a patent for the electric light bulb;
the first successful test had occurred on October 22, 1879.
December 20, 1880 New York’s Broadway receives its first electric lights
between 14th and 34th streets. The stretch between 23rd and 34th streets
becomes known as The Great White Way for its brightly illuminated
advertisements.
alternating current electrification, distributing electrical illumination in
Great Barrington, MA.
1888 Nikola Tesla develops the first motor for translating alternating current
(AC) to mechanical energy.
February 2, 1888 The nation’s first electric streetcar system opens in
Richmond,VA. Frank Sprague and the Richmond Union Passenger Railway
Company operate 10 streetcars in its nascent network.
September 4, 1888 George Eastman receives a patent and begins
The inventors of the transistor at Bell Labs, William
Shockley (seated), John Bardeen and Walter Brattain,
1947.
1889 Boston’s West End Street Railway opens the first large scale rapid
transit system operating on electric power.
March 20, 1890 University of Wisconsin professor Stephen Babcock invents
the butterfat tester, giving birth to the Wisconsin cheese industry.
July 10, 1893 Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performs one of the first successful
open-heart surgeries, at Provident Hospital in Chicago.
1895 H.G. Wells writes “The Time Machine,” about the wonders of time
travel in a spaceship.
January 8, 1896 William Roentgen discovers x-rays; the first clinical x-ray
is taken at the Dartmouth University Medical School.
1900s
January 2, 1900 The direction of the Chicago River is reversed so that it
flows into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, thereby cleansing the city’s
Lake Michigan drinking water.
March 20, 1900 Nikola Tesla is granted a U.S. patent for a “system of
transmitting electrical energy” (the radio patent) and another patent for
“an electrical transmitter.”
July 17, 1902 Willis Carrier designs an air-conditioning system for a
Brooklyn printing plant.
1903 The first steam turbine generator, pioneered by Charles Curtis, is
put into operation at the Newport Electric Corporation in Rhode Island.
marketing his first Kodak camera.
Inauguration of air mail delivery by U.S. Post Office, 1918.
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John von Neumann and J. Robert Oppenheimer at
the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, 1952.
Mirror fusion test facility magnet at Lawrence
Livermore National Library, 1981.
Hampton Institute (Virginia) class in mathematical
geography studying earth’s rotation around the sun, 1899.
Telstar, the first telecommunications satellite,
developed at Bell Labs, 1962.
Engineering students examine aircraft engine
at Michigan State University, c.1955.
Mastodon Corn made possible
with Maule seeds.
Agricultural explorer Frank N. Meyer in Chinese Turkestan on a
Steam-powered elevated railway in lower Manhattan on
mission to bring back plants of economic value; the gingko biloba,
great curve at Coenties Slip, 1895.
kaki (Chinese persimmon) and the Meyer lemon, (a hybrid between
a lemon and a mandarin or orange) c.1910.
1900s
1910 Gulf Oil, Texas Refining and Sun Oil introduce asphalt manufactured
December 17, 1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright conduct the first
motor-powered flight at Kitty Hawk, NC.
1904 Benjamin Holt, a California manufacturer of agricultural equipment,
develops the first successful crawler tractor, equipped with a pair of tracks rather
than wheels. Dubbed the ‘caterpillar’ tread, the tracks help keep heavy tractors
from sinking in soft soil and are an inspiration for the first military tanks.
1905 Jay Brownlee Davidson designs the first professional agricultural
engineering curriculum at Iowa State College. Courses include agricultural
machines, agricultural power sources, farm building design, rural road construction and field drainage.
from byproducts of the oil-refining process. Suitable for road paving, it is less
expensive than natural asphalt mined in and imported from Venezuela.
August 19, 1912 Garrett Morgan files a patent for his “breathing device” to be
used by the Cleveland Fire Department. His invention is later incorporated into
the gas masks used by the U.S. military in World War I.
1913 The University of Kansas School of Medicine discovers that corn oil
is good for cooking.
East Texas farmer rolling up old barbed wire
near Harleton, TX, 1939.
April 15, 1917 Wisconsin is the first state to adopt a numbering system as
the network of roads increases. The idea gradually spreads across the country.
1917 American Gas & Electric, an investor-owned utility, establishes the first
long-distance high-voltage transmission line. The line originates from the first
major steam plant to be built at the mouth of a coal mine, virtually eliminating fuel transportation costs.
November 2, 1920 Pittsburgh’s Westinghouse-owned KDKA, the first com-
mercial radio station in the United States, broadcasts election results.
By 1922, three million Americans own radios.
November 5, 1913 The Los Angeles-Owens River Aqueduct opens, bringing
water by gravity to the Los Angeles basin from the eastern Sierra Nevada
mountains, more than 230 miles to the north.
July 1, 1925 Cleveland opens the first municipal airport in the U.S. in continuous operation; 100,000 visitors celebrate the occasion.
December 1, 1913 Ford introduces the moving assembly line for the mass
November 13, 1927 Completion of the Holland Tunnel beneath the Hudson
December 24, 1906 Reginald Fessenden conducts the first wireless radio
production of autos in Highland Park, MI, a concept borrowed from the
meat-packing industry. Workers perform a single task rather than master
whole portions of automobile assembly.
September 26, 1908 Jersey City, NJ, becomes the first city in the U.S. to
November 14, 1914 Dodge introduces the first car body made entirely
of steel, fabricated by the Budd Company of Philadelphia.
January 7, 1927 Philo Farnsworth files a patent for the first electronic
January 25, 1915 Alexander Graham Bell makes the first transcontinental
May 21, 1927 Charles Lindbergh completes the first nonstop solo flight
September 26, 1905 Albert Einstein publishes the special theory of relativity.
broadcast of entertainment and music in Brant Rock, MA.
begin chlorination of its water supply. Death rates from waterborne diseases,
typhoid in particular, begin to plummet.
July 13, 1907 Belgian scientist Leo Baekeland files a U.S. patent for Bakelite,
the first completely man-made plastic material, which marked the birth of
the plastics industry.
1910 Thomas Hunt Morgan’s experiments with fruit flies show that heredity
was in part determined by genes carried by chromosomes.
Biologists at the University of North Dakota, 1960s.
page 3
telephone call to Thomas Watson – from New York to San Francisco.
1916 Clarence Birdseye begins experiments in quick-freezing. Birdseye
develops a flash-freezing system that moves food products through a
refrigerating system on conveyor belts. This causes the food to be frozen
very fast, minimizing ice crystals.
University of Arkansas graduate student, Hong Wen,
transferring a nanomaterial sample from a molecular beam
epitaxy machine to a scanning tunneling microscope, c. 2005.
River links New York City and Jersey City, NJ. It is named for engineer
Clifford Holland, who solved the problem of venting the build-up of deadly
car exhaust by installing 84 electric fans, each 80 feet in diameter.
television set.
across the Atlantic Ocean, traveling 3,600 miles from New York to Paris.
August 19, 1927 “The Jazz Singer” is the first featured-length motion
picture to have synchronized sound.
February 22, 1928 Charles Adler, Jr., invents the first modern electric
traffic signal, which is installed at a Baltimore intersection.
Packeting floor of the Seed Distribution Bureau,
Washington, DC., 1905.
Students with giant slide rule at Michigan State
University, 1960.
Woman living at Casa Grande Valley
Farms, Pinal County, AZ removing
the cover from her electric washing
machine, 1941.
New York City youngsters in the Federal Art Project
learn metal craft, c. 1937.
Cleveland inventor Garrett
Morgan developed the first
safety hoods for the local fire
department, in 1912.
1900s
March 15, 1929 Working at the Carnegie Observatories in California,
astronomer Edwin Hubble publishes a scientific paper claiming that distant
galaxies were moving away from each other at a rate constant to the
distance between them.
1932 The U.S. Public Health Service, working with the Tuskegee Institute,
begins a study to record the natural history of syphilis in hopes of justifying
treatment programs for African-Americans. The Tuskegee Study of Untreated
Syphilis in the Negro Male is conducted without the patients’ informed
consent. Although penicillin becomes widely available for use against syphilis
in 1947, patients never receive it. Originally projected to last six months, the
experiments continue until 1972.
December 26, 1933 Edwin H. Armstrong patents frequency modulation,
or wide-band FM, radio.
November 12, 1936 Englishman Alan Turing and American Alonzo Church
introduce an algorithm that describes what information can be computed
and provided a model for computing.
May 27, 1937 The Golden Gate Bridge opens, connecting San Francisco
with Marin County.
1937 The paving of Route 66 linking Chicago and Santa Monica, CA, is complete. Stretching across eight states and three time zones, the 2,448-milelong road is the country’s main thoroughfare, bringing farm workers from
the Midwest to California and contributing to California’s post-World War II
population growth.
Authority (TVA), a federal corporation providing electrification to homes and
businesses in the Tennessee Valley.
February 28, 1935 DuPont chemist Gerard Berchet of the Walter Caroth-
ers research group invents nylon, intending it to replace silk in stockings.
May 11, 1935 President Roosevelt signs an executive order establishing
the Rural Electrification Administration (REA). The REA provided loans and
Dr. Nora D.Volkow, pioneered
the use of brain imaging to investigate the toxic effects of drugs.
October 1, 1940 The Pennsylvania Turnpike opens as the country’s first
roadway with no cross streets, no railroad crossings and no traffic lights.
Built on an abandoned railroad right of way, it includes 7 miles of tunnels
through the mountains, 11 interchanges, 300 bridges and culverts, and 10
service plazas.
December 30, 1940 The Arroyo Seco Parkway (today known as the
Pasadena Freeway) opens, connecting Pasadena and Los Angeles. This first
freeway in southern California begins a wave of highway construction that
transforms urban transportation in America.
August 13, 1942 The Manhattan Engineering District is founded with the
mission to design and build a nuclear bomb.
November 20, 1942 The Alaska Canada Military Highway (the Alcan) is
1938 A window air conditioner using Freon is marketed by Philco-York as
the “Cool-Wave.” The Philco air conditioner plugs into an electrical outlet.
completed, linking Dawson Creek, British Columbia and Delta Junction,
Alaska. Built by African American and white soldiers of the Army Corps
of Engineers, the Alcan has been called “the road to civil rights.”
October 22, 1938 Physicist Chester Carlson invents xerography.
December 2, 1942 The first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction occurs
August 2, 1939 Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard write a letter to President
May 18, 1933 Congress passes legislation establishing the Tennessee Valley
page 4
Nobel Prize winner Luis Alvarez Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory working
and his son Walter, near Gubbio, on missile development for the U.S. Army, 1951.
Italy where they dated the extinction of dinosaurs, 1981.
other assistance so that rural cooperatives could build and run their own
electrical distribution systems.
1929 Frigidaire markets the first room cooler, designed to be located outside the house, or in the basement.
University of Maryland Terrapin rocket program, c.1956.
Milky Way, the galaxy next door, seen from NASA’s Galaxy
Evolution Explorer, 2012.
at the University of Chicago in an experiment led by physicist Enrico Fermi.
Roosevelt explaining the need to build a nuclear bomb to counter Nazi
Germany’s effort.
July 16, 1945 The U.S. Army’s Manhattan Engineer District tests the first
atomic device at Alamogordo, NM, under the code name Trinity.
October 1939 John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry at Iowa State College
August 6, 1945 The atomic bomb nicknamed Little Boy is dropped on Hiroshima,
Japan; three days later another bomb, Fat Man, is dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
design the first electronic computer, which incorporates binary arithmetic
and electronic switching.
1940 Oldsmobile introduces the first mass-produced fully automatic
transmission, named Hydra-Matic, in its cars.
First filmed boxing match takes place at the Coney
Island Athletic Club (1899); Jeffries defeats Sharkey. Filming requires 200 special arc lights of 400 candle power
each – strongest artificial light ever created.
October 8, 1945 Engineer Percy Spencer accidentally discovers the possibil-
ity of making a microwave oven during an experiment with electromagnetic
radiation while working at Raytheon.
Philco Predicta Model 4654 Chinese student working in the food chemistry
television produced in 1959. laboratory at Purdue University.
Early road-paving machine in Tennessee.
Valencia Community College students conduct a biology
experiment, 2009.
B-24 bombers on the assembly
line at Willow Run, MI, during
World War II.
1900s
Baldwin locomotive at the Philadelphia Centennial Fair,
1876.
Aeroplane Graflex camera in action, c. 1918.
October 1, 1951 Stanford University sponsors Stanford Industrial Park,
a research facility containing Hewlett-Packard, General Electric and Lockheed; area becomes known as Silicon Valley.
February 14, 1946 John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert Jr. put the first
electronic computer into operation at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) weighs 30 tons
and includes 18,000 vacuum tubes, 6,000 switches and 1,500 relays.
August 1, 1946 President Truman signs the Atomic Energy Act, transferring
nuclear authority from the Army to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
1947 Mass-produced, low-cost window air conditioners become possible as
a result of innovations by engineer Henry Galson, who sets up production
lines for a number of manufacturers. For the first time, many homeowners
enjoy air conditioning without having to buy a new home or renovate their
heating system.
October 14, 1947 U.S. Air Force pilot Capt. Charles “Chuck” Yeager pilots
October 4, 1951 Henrietta Lacks dies at Johns Hopkins University Hospital
in Baltimore from cancer of the cervix; her living cancerous cells removed
from her body and preserved in a lab later launch a medical revolution.
December 20, 1951 In Arco, ID, Experimental Breeder Reactor I produces
the first electric power from nuclear energy, lighting four light bulbs.
1952 Grace Murray Hopper, a senior mathematician at the Eckert-Mauchly
Computer Corporation and a programmer for Harvard’s Mark I computer,
develops the first computer compiler, a program that translated computer
instructions from English into machine language.
1953 Ray Bradbury writes “Fahrenheit 451,” a dystopian tale about a futuristic
society where books are banned.
the first manned supersonic flight aboard the Bell X-1.
1953 Scientists James Watson and Francis Crick discover the structure of
December 24, 1947 John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William B.
Shockley, scientists at Bell Labs, build the first transistor that can amplify
and switch electronic signals.
December 8, 1953 President Eisenhower delivers his “Atoms for Peace”
December 23, 1949 American physicist Willard Libby and his colleagues
develop radiocarbon dating, revolutionizing the field of archeology.
1951 Isaac Asimov writes “Foundation,” a science fiction story about a
group of scientists who try to preserve knowledge as civilization regresses.
Smoke-shrouded Pittsburgh in early afternoon, 1940s.
page 5
DNA, the substance that contains the genetic instructions for all living things.
speech before the United Nations, calling for greater cooperation in the
development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes.
1954 Gordon Teal, a physical chemist with Texas Instruments, creates
transistors from pure silicon, thereby demonstrating the first mass-produced
transistor.
April 25, 1954 Bell Labs demonstrates the first practical silicon solar cell.
The Flip-Flop or Loop-the-Loop defied the laws of
Sheet music heralded the
arrival of automobiles, electric gravity at Coney Island, 1895.
railroads, and telephones, 1900.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration consumer safety officer
working at the border crossing at Nogales, AZ, prepares tomato
samples for testing by the FDA mobile lab unit, c. 2011.
1956 The first transatlantic telephone cable, the TAT-1, is installed from
Scotland to Nova Scotia, providing telephone service between North American and the United Kingdom. Additional circuitry links London to Western
Europe.
June 29, 1956 President Eisenhower signs a new Federal Aid Highway Act,
committing $25 billion in federal funding to link all state capitals and most
cities with populations larger than 50,000.
December 8, 1956 Larry Curtiss, a junior at the University of Michigan,
constructs the first glass-clad fibers and inaugurates the use of fiber-optics
in medical research.
1957 FORTRAN (for FORmula TRANslation), a high-level programming
language developed by IBM, becomes commercially available. Other
programming languages quickly follow, including ALGOL in 1958 and
COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language) in 1959.
December 2, 1957 The world’s first large-scale nuclear power plant begins
operation in Shippingport, PA, supplying electricity to the Pittsburgh area.
December 12, 1958 Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments (and Robert Noyce
of Fairchild Semiconductor independently) invents the integrated circuit.
1958 The Seagram Building, Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe’s “glass box” master-
piece opens in New York and shapes the appearance of many American cities.
September 2, 1958 The National Defense Education Act authorizes a $1
billion four-year program of federal financial assistance to strengthen science,
mathematics and foreign-language instruction.
Patent issued to the Wright Art Reeves “Sensitester” used to
Brothers for flying machine, examine the degree of contrast in
1906.
the camera negative, 1939.
Chuck Jennings and his stage coach vs. Air Mail, c. 1930.
Glider in flight, 1910.
Herman Hollerith operating the Hollerith
tabulator at the U.S. Census Office, 1904.
1900s
1959 Research Triangle Park is created near Raleigh, NC, by state and local
government, nearby universities, and business community; it’s home today to
over 130 research and development facilities, including the largest IBM
location in the world, employing 11,000.
December 29, 1959 Richard Feynman, a Cal Tech physics professor, delivers
Patent for life-preserving coffin in doubtful cases of actual
death, 1843.
Dr. Charles Drew developed the first
blood plasma bank.
1968 Arthur C. Clarke writes “2001: A Space Odyssey” in conjunction with the
film directed by Stanley Kubrick.
February 20, 1962 John Glenn pilots the Mercury Friendship 7 spacecraft
in the first U.S. human orbital flight.
July 20, 1969 Astronaut Neil Armstrong is the first man to step on the
July 11, 1962 The first transatlantic transmission of a television signal takes
October 29, 1969 The first ARPANET message is sent from UCLA to the
Stanford Research Institute; the inauguration of sharing a message digitally
launches the Internet revolution.
place using the TELSTAR satellite.
1963 The first touch-tone telephone is introduced, with the first commercial
May 9, 1960 The era of modern contraception begins when the Food and
1963 Kurt Vonnegut writes “Cat’s Cradle,” about life in a post-Hiroshima world.
May 16, 1960 Theodore Maiman creates the first working laser (an acronym
January 14, 1964 James E. West and Gerhard M. Sessler, working for Bell Labs,
receive a patent for their “electroacoustic transducer,” a microphone that is used
today in almost all telephones, camcorders, baby monitors and hearing aids.
for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) at the Hughes
Research Laboratories in California.
1961 Robert A. Heinlein writes “Stranger in a Strange Land,” about a human
who comes to earth from the planet Mars.
February 21, 1961 Otis Boykin invents the electrical resistor that is later used
in computers, radios and televisions.
November 22, 1961 The U.S. Navy commissions the world’s largest ship, the
U.S.S. Enterprise. It is a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with the ability to
operate at speeds up to 30 knots for distances up to 400,000 miles without
refueling.
1962 The U.S. military introduces ARPANET, a network of two computers
that grew to more than a million computers by 1992.
Schematic mechanism for baseball stitching machine, 1948.
page 6
Mural of Benjamin Banneker,
18th century surveyor, inventor and astronomer.
Mario Molina, MexicanAmerican Nobel Prize
winner in Chemistry.
1962 Consumer activist Rachel Carson writes “Silent Spring,” documenting the
dangers of pesticide use to humans and wildlife, and leading to the ban on DDT.
a speech on nanotechnology, declaring that storing vast amounts of data in
minute objects was possible.
Drug Administration approves the birth control pill for distribution.
Kaiser-Frazer motor car company
assembly line, Willow Run, MI, 1946.
service available in Carnegie and Greensburg, PA, for an extra charge.
moon during the Apollo 11 mission.
June 30, 1970 AT&T inaugurates picture-phone service in Pittsburgh,
but the idea fails to catch on.
1971 Intel introduces a “computer on a chip,” the 4004 microprocessor.
1965 Frank Herbert writes “Dune,” set in an imaginary desert landscape.
Costing $1,000, it was as powerful as ENIAC, the vacuum-tube computer
of the 1940s. Executing 60,000 operations per second, it changes the face
of modern electronics by making it possible to include data processing in
hundreds of devices.
1965 James Russell invents the compact disc.
1973 Martin Cooper, the director of research at Motorola, invents the cell
1965 Ralph Nader writes “Unsafe at Any Speed,” charging that the American
automobile industry is neglecting consumer safety issues.
1967 A Texas Instruments team led by Jack Kilby invents the first handheld
calculator.
June 21, 1967 Stanford University professor Douglas Engelbart applies for
phone.
1975 The Altair 8800, widely considered the first home computer, is
marketed to hobbyists. Bill Gates and Paul Allen form a partnership called
Microsoft and write a version of BASIC for the new computer.
1976 Stanford University professor Martin Hellman and graduate student
a patent for his invention of the computer mouse as a pointing device.
Whitfield Diffie invent public key cryptography, which enables users on the
Internet to transmit private data securely.
1968 Philip K. Dick writes “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” a tale about
a post-apocalyptic future.
1977 Citibank introduces the 24-hour automated teller machine (ATM),
U.S. Marine Corps, bedding down a big barrage balloon
at Parris Island, SC, 1942.
Patent issued to Steinway
& Sons for wood bending
machines, 1880.
which revolutionizes customers’ access to their money.
Computer pioneer Grace Hopper examining the sequence
mechanism of the Harvard Mark 1 electromechanical computing
machine, 1944.
Dr. Jerome Tobis, of Coler Hospital, NYC,
mid-1950s, researching ways to improve the
mobility of severely disabled children.
Charles Adler Jr., inventor of the
traffic light, tinkering with models
Moving the Brighton Beach Hotel 100 feet from the Atlantic Ocean required
six locomotives, over 10,000 ropes and nearly a ton of chains, 1888.
1900s
George Sidney of Metro-GoldwynMayer with film, cameras and lenses.
Governor DeWitt Clinton celebrates the opening of
the Erie Canal in 1825.
Dr. Daniel Hale Williams
performed the first successful
open-heart surgery, at Provident
Hospital in Chicago, 1893.
1977 Piers Anthony writes the first in his series of fantasy novels, “The Xanth.”
8088 microprocessor and an operating system, MS-DOS, designed by
Microsoft. Fully equipped with 64 kilobytes of memory and a floppy disk
drive, it costs $1,565.
April 11, 2003 The Human Genome Project is completed, identifying
and mapping the approximately 20,000 to 25,000 genes of the human
genome.
April 16, 1977 Apple Computer, founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak,
1982 “Tron” is the first motion picture to use computer-generated imagery.
August 30, 2006 The California Senate passes the Global Warming Solutions
Act, requiring a 25% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2025 (or back
to 1990 levels).
releases the Apple II, a desktop personal computer for the mass market that
features a keyboard, video monitor, mouse and RAM that can be expanded
by the user.
July 3, 1977 Dr. Raymond Damadian completes the first full-body magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI) in order to distinguish between cancerous and
noncancerous tissue.
August 1977 Orson Scott Card’s “Enders Game” first appears in the magazine
Analog Science Fiction.
1978 The U.S. government launches a satellite-based navigation system for
military purposes which, adapted to civilian life, becomes the GPS.
March 28, 1979 The worst accident in U.S. commercial reactor history
1984 Apple introduces the Macintosh, a low-cost, plug-and-play personal
computer. Although it doesn’t offer enough power for business applications,
its easy-to-use graphic interface finds fans in education and publishing.
1985 Margaret Atwood writes, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a dystopian novel about
a totalitarian Christian theocracy that has overthrown the U.S. government.
May 17, 1988 Dr. Patricia E. Bath invents a new device for cataract surgery
known as the “laserphaco.”
1990 Tim Berners-Lee invents the Web by creating the first Web browser
and Web pages, which could be accessed by the Internet.
1991 The World Wide Web becomes available to the general public.
January 9, 2007 Steve Jobs of Apple introduces the iPhone at a technology
conference in San Francisco, forever changing the way we communicate.
2009 Kodak announces the discontinuance of Kodachrome film.
July 3, 2012 Scientists at the multinational research center CERN,
headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, announce that they have discovered
a new subatomic particle (the Higgs Boson) that helps explain life in the
universe.
August 15, 2012 NASA safely lands a one-ton robotic rover named
Curiosity on Mars, over 150 million miles away from Earth.
occurs at the Three Mile Island nuclear power station near Harrisburg, PA.
1994 Linus Torvalds creates the Linux open source operating system.
June 6, 1980 Nobel Award winner in Physics Luis Alvarez and his son,
1995 “Toy Story” is the first all computer-generated feature movie.
abundant on Earth (copper, zinc and tin).
January 1, 1998 Larry Page files a patent for PageRank, the forerunner
August 30, 2012 The U.S. federal government finalizes an agreement
with the 13 leading automobile makers to achieve an average of 54.5 miles
per gallon fuel economy by the model year 2025.
geologist Walter Alvarez, publish a scientific paper in Science magazine
theorizing that 65 million years ago a giant asteroid had struck earth, killing
the dinosaur population.
1981 Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is reported to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a new disease when
symptoms are noted in many young men in Los Angeles and New York.
August 12, 1981 IBM introduces the Personal Computer using the Intel
Wrought Iron Bridge Company, Canton, OH, c.1870.
page 7
Aeroplane ambulance, c. 1918.
of Google, which revolutionized how we conduct research.
2000s
August 17, 2012 IBM creates an efficient photovoltaic cell using materials
September 5, 2012 The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE), an
November 10, 2001 Apple starts selling the iPod, a portable digital audio
player that revolutionizes listening to music.
immense federal project involving 440 scientists from 32 labs around the
world, reveals how the non-gene parts of DNA, previously regarded as junk
DNA, contribute to human diseases.
Patent for telephone issued to Bridge on Orange & Alexandria (Virginia) Railroad, as
Alexander Graham Bell, 1876. repaired by army engineers, 1865.
Frank Oppenheimer and Bob Thornton examine cyclotron
at Lawrence National Laboratory.
Astronomy
left Jupiter and its moon Io, NASA
photo of the day, April 8, 2012.
below Galileo’s observations of
Earth’s Moon and the moons of Jupiter
in “Starry Messenger, “1610
right Apollo 15 lunar module pilot
Jim Irwin loads the lunar rover with
tools and equipment in preparation
for the first lunar spacewalk at the
Hadley-Apennine landing site, 1971.
W
hat are the wonders in the sky that we see at night? Humans have been pondering this question since before
recorded history, often giving supernatural powers to the stars and planets. Prehistoric farmers used the movement
of constellations to know when to plant and harvest their crops. Early Chinese astronomers charted the paths of
comets, while the heelstone at Stonehenge in England was constructed in alignment with the Summer Solstice.
The ancient Greeks first developed theories about the nature of the movement of stars and planets. Although heliocentric
theories (where the Earth revolves around the Sun) had first been advanced by Aristarchus in the 3rd century B.C.E., Aristotle’s
4th century B.C.E. hypothesis that the Sun and the other stars and planets revolved around the Earth (geocentrism), later codified
by Greek mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy in the 2nd Century C.E., became the foundation of the Catholic Church’s
(and the West’s) belief placing the earth at the center of the universe.
Not until 1543 did the Polish mathematician and astronomer Copernicus challenge geocentrism. The Church declared
heliocentrism to be heretical in 1616, setting the stage for a confrontation with the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, whose
astronomical observations proved Copernicus correct. Galileo’s pioneering use of the telescope helped him to discover sunspots,
the phases of Venus, the four moons orbiting Jupiter and the mountains on the Moon. His findings fundamentally weakened the
Ptolemaic theory and theological ideas placing humans at the center of the universe. In 1633, the Church’s Holy Inquisition judged
Galileo “vehemently suspect of heresy,” and forced him to recant his views and spend the remainder of his life under house arrest.
Although persecuted in his own time, Galileo’s ideas later became the basis for modern astronomy, the scientific seed that
ultimately led, centuries later, to the Apollo missions to the moon. Perhaps most importantly, the Inquisition’s judgment against
Galileo is a lesson that scientific inquiry should not be restricted by any kind of influence from church, state or private donor, but
must be based on free evidence. While the work of scientists and scholars will always reflect the larger society in which they live,
that society should not place barriers in the way of knowledge.
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left Astronaut Ellen
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ORTHODOX CHRISTMAS
1838 Samuel F.B. Morse uses
electric signals to shift an electromagnet in a patterned print across
paper, known as Morse code.
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KING JR. DAY (OBSERVED)
MAWLID AL-NABI
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BIRTHDAY)
TU B’SHVAT
1801 The Philadelphia Water Works
opens, making Philadelphia the first
major city in the U.S. to provide
clean drinking water citywide.
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INTERNATIONAL DAY
OF COMMEMORATION
IN MEMORY OF THE
VICTIMS OF THE
HOLOCAUST
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1880 Thomas Edison receives
right Dr. Jill Bargonetti, Profes-
a patent for the electric light bulb;
the first successful test had occurred
on October 22, 1879.
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chemotherapeutic drugs on DNA.
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Go to your App Store
to download our free
This Date in History App.
Science Fiction
left Jules Verne, “From the
Earth to the Moon,” 1874.
above Lunar module on
Apollo 11 mission to the
moon, 1969.
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cientific and technological advances do not occur in a vacuum and many scientists have looked to science
fiction as fuel for their imagination. CUNY physicist and co-creator of string field theory Michio Kaku has
credited Flash Gordon as an early inspiration. So, too, Jules Verne’s 1865 novel, “From the Earth to the
Moon,” animated future generations of scientists to develop space travel and rocketry. Indeed,Verne’s story
of a rocket-propelled trip to the moon eerily foreshadowed events that would occur100 years later.
In Verne’s story, three Americans blasted off to the moon from a giant cannon in a rocket named Columbiad
and parachuted safely in the Pacific Ocean on their return. Apollo 11’s commander Neil Armstrong, the first
man to step on the moon, acknowledged his crew’s intellectual debt to Verne during the mission. “A hundred
years ago, Jules Verne wrote a book about a voyage to the Moon. . . It seems appropriate to us to share with
you some of the reflections of the crew as the modern-day Columbia completes its rendezvous with the
planet Earth and the same Pacific Ocean tomorrow.”
Connections between science fiction and space technology increased in the late 20th century, as television
shows like “Star Trek” and “Lost in Space” helped kids imagine the technologies of the future. While NASA
developed the Apollo program in the mid 1960s, “Star Trek’s” creators portrayed contemporary social and
political conflicts in the 23rd century and imagined the technologies of the future. Although traveling faster
than light “warp speed” appears impossible, “Star Trek’s” writers imagined devices like floppy disks, e-books
and tablets years before scientists and engineers made them a reality.
In the late 1980s “Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Enterprise” introduced a holodeck, a virtual reality
room where people could become characters in holo-novels and create scenarios of their own. Within the
holodeck, the ship’s computer simulated all forms of matter, including people and other living organisms.
This level of sophistication does not appear likely anytime soon, but the holodeck has captured the imagination
of scientists, engineers and technology corporations as they refine and improve virtual reality. february
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left
“Modern
Electrics,”
1911.
left
Science
Fiction
tale, “The
Rocket,” by
Allyn Draper,
1899.
left
“The Steam
Man of the
Prairies,” by
Edward S.
Ellis, 1868.
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left Frank
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streetcar system opens in
Richmond,VA. Frank Sprague and
the Richmond Union Passenger
Railway Company operate 10 streetcars in its nascent network.
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ASH WEDNESDAY
GROUNDHOG DAY
1888 The nation’s first electric
Holodeck
from Star Trek:
The Next
Generation.
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right
Reade, Jr’s
“Weekly
Magazine,”
1902.
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VASANT PANCHAMI
(HINDU OBSERVANCE)
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1946 John W. Mauchly and J. Presper
Eckert Jr. put the first electronic
computer into operation at the
University of Pennsylvania. The
Electronic Numerical Integrator and
Computer (ENIAC) weighs 30 tons
and includes 18,000 vacuum tubes,
6,000 switches and 1,500 relays.
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PRESIDENTS’ DAY
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1962 John Glenn pilots the Mercury
1961 Otis Boykin invents the electrical resistor that is later used in
computers, radios and televisions
1928 Charles Adler, Jr. invents the
Friendship 7 spacecraft in the first
U.S. human orbital flight.
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PURIM (BEGINS AT
SUNDOWN)
first electric traffic signal, which is
installed at a Baltimore intersection.
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1935 DuPont chemist Gerard
Berchet of the Walter Carothers
research group invents nylon, intending it to replace silk in stockings.
right CUNY Vice Chancellor for
Research Dr. Gillian Small researches
organelle biogenesis and molecular
regulation of lipid metabolism.
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Bridges O
n May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge opened to the public, revolutionizing
bridge construction and transportation in the United States. John Roebling and
his son Washington had connected New York and Brooklyn, the nation’s first
and third largest cities, using the new suspension bridge technology and spinning of steel
cables. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, new bridges utilizing suspension cables,
cantilevers and arches made it possible to conquer previously unspannable distances.
While bridge technology incorporated more concrete and steel, engineers
gained a greater understanding of the fundamentals of physics, and bridges of a
longer span, like the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (below left) were built. In the postWorld War II era, these bridges helped connect highways through the Interstate
Highway System that began in 1956. One such structure, the Tappan Zee Bridge,
spans the Hudson River between Tarrytown and Nyack, NY, north of New York
City at its second greatest width (to avoid the jurisdiction of the Port Authority of
New York and New Jersey), and is a key connection of the New York State Thruway,
which stretches from New York City to Buffalo.
Verrazano-Narrows
Bridge linking Brooklyn
and Staten Island under
construction, c.1962
right Plan for a Tappan
Bridge Park by Milagros
Lecunda, 2012.
However, the Tappan Zee Bridge was not built to last. Unable to reach the bedrock 300
to 800 feet below sea level, the engineers designed its foundation to float above bedrock.
Like many other post-World War II bridges, it was built to be “non-redundant,” based on a
belief that computer technology made redundancies unnecessary. This means that a loss of
structural integrity in any load-bearing member could lead to bridge collapse because the
weight or load in that area can’t be transferred and supported by another section. Designed
to carry 100,000 vehicles per day, it now averages 140,000 and has peaked at 170,000.
The New York State Thruway Authority is currently developing a plan for a new bridge
and a debate is taking place whether to include rail and/or bus rapid transit on it.
Building on the success of the High Line in New York City and the Walkway-OverThe-Hudson, which reuses an abandoned railway bridge in Poughkeepsie, the Tappan
Bridge Park Alliance has begun a campaign to turn the existing structure into a park
and pedestrian/bicycle path. While the Thruway Authority proposes its demolition,
the Alliance hopes to create a large recreational park and transportation alternative
beyond the automobile (sketch of proposed redevelopment below right).
march
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left Dr. Marie Filbin,
Distinguished Professor of
Biological Sciences, Hunter College,
investigates spinal cord injury.
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DAYLIGHT SAVINGS
TIME BEGINS
MAHA SHIVRATRI
(HINDU OBSERVANCE)
left Digging the caisson
for the Brooklyn Bridge.
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INTERNATIONAL
WOMEN’S DAY
9
1876 Alexander Graham Bell invents
the telephone, signaling the decline
of the telegraph industry.
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ST. PATRICK’S DAY
LENT (ORTHODOX)
VERNAL EQUINOX
(SPRING BEGINS)
1857 The first safety elevator for
passengers in America, designed by
Elisha Otis, is installed at 488 Broadway in New York in E.V. Haughwout’s
porcelain and glassware import shop.
1883 Jan Ernst Matzeliger invents a
shoe and boot-lasting machine that
increases shoemaking speed by 900%.
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PALM SUNDAY
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PASSOVER (BEGINS
AT SUNDOWN)
FIRST DAY OF
PASSOVER
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SECOND DAY OF
PASSOVER
HOLI (HINDU
OBSERVANCE)
EASTER
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HOLY THURSDAY
1979 The worst accident in U.S.
commercial reactor history occurs
at the Three Mile Island nuclear
power station near Harrisburg, PA.
february
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1806 Thomas Jefferson signs
legislation committing the federal
government to build the Cumberland (later National) Road west
from Cumberland, Maryland, MD.
The New York Times
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Green Architecture
“He was building a sod house. The walls had now risen breast-high; in its half-finished condition,
the structure resembled more a bulwark against some enemy than anything intended to be a human
habitation. And the great heaps of cut sod, piled up in each corner might well have been the stores
of ammunition for defence of the stronghold.”
— A description of a 19th century sod house on the Great Plains
by Norwegian immigrant O. E. Rölvaag in “Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie”
A
vailable materials shape and influence the structures we
live, work and play in. Nowhere was this truer than in
the Great Plains of the United States. In the late 19th
century, as settlers came into Nebraska, Kansas, the Dakotas,
Montana and Wyoming, they found few trees to build homes.
They turned to sod as their building material, using wood only
for the door and windows. Sod worked as an insulator keeping
homes cool in the summer and warm in the winter. However,
a sod roof did not completely seal out the weather, and a heavy
rainstorm could often lead to wet clothes and bedding. Settlers would later add wood lean-tos for
additional rooms and white-wash the interiors to lighten the space and protect it from the elements.
The sod house was a practical response by the pioneers, but they generally built wood homes as
soon as they could afford them, showing that culture plays a large role in our material choices.
Sod houses no longer play a role in contemporary architecture, but designers still attempt to
create environmentally sustainable buildings. The Wedge House (below) is a three bedroom house
built to reduce energy consumption, using stack effect cooling and structural insulated panels. This
home provides a model for reducing energy in a single family home environment.
While architects today use synthetic materials more than ever before, some of them have also
returned to the sod roof, in particular, the rooftop garden pictured above. Agriculture had been
integral to the urban environment into the early 20th century, but planning ideas removed food
production from the city in favor of a more remote agribusiness based system. With the rising
popularity of locavore and organic agriculture and concern that industrial agriculture is a
contributor to global warming, rooftop gardens and other forms of urban agriculture are
becoming increasingly popular as they shorten the distance required to supply food and use less
energy-intensive means to grow them.
top left Sylvester
Rawling family in front
of sod house, north of
Sargent, Custer County,
NE, 1886;
above Atop the
1919 Standard Motor
Products building on
Northern Boulevard in
Long Island City sits
the flagship farm of the
Brooklyn Grange, 2012.
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left Dr. Lesley Davenport,
Professor of Chemistry, Brooklyn
College, investigating complex
biomolecules with her lab group.
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WORLD HEALTH DAY
YOM HASHOAH
(HOLOCAUST
REMEMBRANCE DAY)
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YOM HAATZMAUT
ISRAEL
INDEPENDENCE DAY
1977 Apple Computer, founded
by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak,
releases the Apple II, a desktop
personal computer for the mass
market that features a keyboard,
video monitor, mouse and RAM,
which can be expanded by the user.
1917 Wisconsin is the first state to
adopt a numbering system as the
network of roads increases. The
idea gradually spreads across the
country.
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EARTH DAY
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ADMINISTRATIVE
PROFESSIONALS DAY
25
TAKE OUR
DAUGHTERS AND
SONS TO WORK DAY
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ARBOR DAY
27
1954: Bell Labs demonstrates the
first practical silicon solar cell.
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ORTHODOX PALM
SUNDAY
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right The Wedge House,
1852 Boston establishes the first
designed by the San Francisco
architectural firm Min/Day for
a location in Phippsburg, Maine,
2011.
electric-powered fire alarm system
with call boxes to indicate the
location of the fire.
may
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LaGuardia
and Wagner
Archives
“Modern Times”
C
harlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times” brilliantly satirized the assembly line, which dominated U.S. manufacturing during the Great Depression. The film highlighted the power, efficiency and increased productivity of
the machine age, while showing how it dehumanized the lives of workers. In 1913, Henry Ford adapted
the assembly line to automobile production, reducing the chassis assembly time of the Model T from 14 to
1.5 hours. From 1908 to 1927 Ford was able to reduce the price of his revolutionary car from $950 to $280,
while increasing his company’s revenues and profits. These improvements to productivity and price reductions
transformed the automobile from a toy of the wealthy to a mass-produced product for the middle classes.
These and other advances in industrial manufacturing benefitted the consumer and the owner, but Chaplin
made the human costs clear in his comical dance through the monotony and alienation of the assembly line.
The film implicitly critiques Frederick W. Taylor’s theory of scientific management. “Taylorism,” used scientific
analysis of the workplace to streamline, simplify and speed up the work process and increase productivity,
but strengthened management’s control and reduced workers’ power. Taylor argued that in bricklaying,
“Modern Times, “ 1936.
“management must also see that those who prepare the bricks and the mortar and adjust the scaffold, etc.,
for the bricklayers, cooperate with them by doing their work just right and always on time; and they must also
inform each bricklayer at frequent intervals as to the progress he is making, so that he may not unintentionally
fall off in his pace.”
Chaplin charmed the audience with his antics, but he tapped into a brutal reality; machines once designed
to aid humans were now their masters, improving profits but not working lives. As Phil Stallings, a Ford
assembly line worker in Chicago, recounted to Studs Terkel in “Working,” “I don’t understand how come more
guys don’t flip. Because you’re nothing more than a machine when you hit this type of thing. They give better
care to that machine. And you know this. Somehow you get the feeling that the machine is better than you
are.” In the last century, technological advances and increases in productivity have made consumer items
from the automobile to the computer tablet less expensive. The greater cost is the dehumanizing of factory
workers, whether they are producing cars in Chicago or smart phones at Foxconn factory in China.
may
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left Dr. Mandë Holford,
Assistant Professor of Chemical
Biology at Hunter College, focuses
on reconstructing the evolutionary history of venomous marine
gastropods (cone snails, terebrids,
and turrids), and investigates their
toxins as biochemical tools for
characterizing cellular communication in the nervous system and as
potential drug development targets.
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EASTER)
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V-E DAY
ASCENSION THURSDAY
1960 The era of modern contracep-
tion begins when the Food and Drug
Administration approves the birth
control pill for distribution.
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MOTHER’S DAY
SHAVUOT (BEGINS
AT SUNDOWN)
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FIRST DAY OF
SHAVUOT
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LAST DAY OF
SHAVUOT
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WORLD PRESS
FREEDOM DAY
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1869 The Union Pacific and Central
Pacific Railroads forge link at
Promontory Point, UT, opening
train travel between the eastern
U.S. and California.
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ARMED FORCES DAY
1933 Congress passes legislation
1988 Dr. Patricia E. Bath invents a
new device for cataract surgery
known as the “laserphaco.”
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PENTECOST
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MEMORIAL DAY
(OBSERVED)
WESAK (BUDDHA’S
BIRTHDAY)
connecting the nation’s largest and
third largest cities, New York and
Brooklyn. Its towers were the tallest
structures in America.
the first nonstop solo flight across
the Atlantic Ocean, traveling 3,600
miles from to New York to Paris.
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1883 The Brooklyn Bridge opens,
1927 Charles Lindbergh completes
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establishing the Tennessee Valley
Authority (TVA), a federal corporation providing electrification to
homes and businesses in the
Tennessee Valley.
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The New York Times
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That’s Entertainment
T
echnological innovations of the late 19th century transformed the American entertainment industry and
increased the privatization of American life. Today, Americans experience more entertainment in their
home rather than in public movie theaters and concert halls. Technological changes in instrument design
have transformed more than just the entertainment mediums; they have changed the way people interact with
each other.
Americans embraced the radio and especially the television at an unprecedented rate. In the 1920s, a culture
that had previously emphasized communal participation in piano-based live entertainment now turned to the
phonograph and the radio, which created passive listeners. The broadcasting power of radio also intensified the
possibilities of mass culture, as stations across the country sent public events, from political rallies to sporting
competitions and vaudeville shows, into the private homes of millions. When Texas Instruments put the transistor
inside the Regency TR1 pocket-sized radio in 1954, entertainment became even more personal. Radio now fit into
the pocket of American teenagers eager to listen to rock and roll on the go.
Television intensified the trend that began with radio, as it reinforced the culture of social isolationism in home
entertainment. The advent of nationally broadcast television shows in the 1960s emphasized a normative culture
across America, although they sometimes exacerbated the country’s deep racial, class and gender divisions.
Today, the top-down economic business model of the entertainment industry has given way to the more
democratic DIY entertainment option. In 2001, the iPod’s ability to store lots of music in a relatively small
device revolutionized the music industry. Now consumers control how and when they listen to music by utilizing
electronic media. Since home entertainment systems have become more affordable, pay services such as Internet
access and on-demand cable television provide both entertainment and communication for the majority of
American households at a cost of $1,000 a year per person. As more Americans opt to stay home, movie
theaters across the country have closed. Technological and stylistic changes such as IMAX, digital images,
and social media have forced directors, cinematographers, producers and actors to reinvent their craft.
Social media also offers cheaper and faster outlets for marketing greater musical diversity.
Soldiers
gathered around a
Steinway “victory
piano” and several
guitars in the field
during World War II,
c. 1943.
above left
above Men gather
around a radio in
Harlem to listen to
music, c. 1930s.
right La Guardia
Community
College, CUNY, students Anthony
Williams, Kellian
Quallo, Moenette
Alston, Drá Vicki
Bartholomew and
Nveka Charles during
break between classes,
2012.
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far right James West (pictured)
Professor of Chemistry, Bronx
Community College, researches
polymer and material science.
and Gerhard Sessler received a
patent for their electroacoustic
transducer, a microphone that is
hearing aids.
right Nikola Tesla’s transmission
right James West’s patent for
left Dr. Vicki Flaris, Associate
of electrical energy (radio), 1900.
2
the Electroacoustic Transducer.
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FEAST OF CORPUS
CHRISTI
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ANNIVERSARY DAY
(BROOKLYN-QUEENS DAY)
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1980 Nobel Award winner in Physics
Luis Alvarez and his son, geologist
Walter Alvarez, publish a scientific
paper in Science magazine theorizing
that 65 million years ago a giant
asteroid had struck earth, killing
the dinosaur population.
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FATHER’S DAY
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PHILIPPINES
INDEPENDENCE DAY
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WORLD REFUGEE DAY
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FLAG DAY
SUMMER SOLSTICE/
SUMMER BEGINS
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1967 Stanford University professor
Douglas Engelbart applies for a
patent for his invention of the
computer mouse as a pointing
device. Engelbart also develops
the graphical user interface (GUI).
23
1868 Christopher Latham
Sholes and his associates
patent the first practical
typewriter.
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july
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CUNY NOBEL LAUREATES
CUNY TV Science & U
IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERIN G AND MATH
Arno Penzias
Julius Axelrod
Leon Lederman
Jerome Karle
Nobel Prize for Physics,
1988
City College
Class of 1943
Nobel Prize for Chemistry,
1985
City College
Class of 1937
Rosalyn Yalow
Robert
Hofstadter
Nobel Prize for Medicine,
1977
Hunter College
Class of 1941
1961
City College
Class of 1935
Gertrude Elion
Herbert
Hauptman
1988
Hunter College
Class of 1937
Nobel Prize for Chemistry,
1985
City College
Class of 1937
Stanley Cohen
Arthur
Kornberg
1978
City College
Class of 1954
1986
Brooklyn College
Class of 1943
1970
City College
Class of 1933
1959
City College
Class of 1937
Corn
A
n ear of fresh
sweet corn
is one of the
joys of summer, but
it represents a small
fraction of the more than 10 billion bushels of corn produced in the United States
in 2012. Although corn yields increased
slowly from 1870 to World War II (1.1
billion to 2.2 billion), the advent of war
and the resulting manpower shortage encouraged the use of technology to rapidly
increase production. J.L Anderson, a leading historian of the agrarian Midwest, has
pointed to the close relationship between
corn and cattle and argued that in the
immediate post-war period, too, “farmers
decreased production costs by substituting machines for labor, used pesticides to
destroy weed and insect pests that were
obstacles to high crop yields and livestock
gains, fertilized fields with chemicals,
installed automated feeding systems, and
added feed supplements that accelerated
animals’ ability to absorb nutrients and
calories.” Without nitrogen-based fertilizer (pioneered by German scientist Fritz
Haber), mechanical harvesting equipment
and hybrid corn (advanced by Vice President and Agriculture Secretary Henry
Wallace) this unprecedented growth
would not have been possible. Later,
in the mid-1990s, genetically modified
organisms, developed by corporations
like Monsanto, came to represent more
than 75% of the acreage devoted to the
production of corn. Today corn plays an
ever-present role in our lives.
Scientific advancements to increase
corn yields have made it easier to feed
a growing population in the United
States and the world, but these changes have also meant the industrialization
of the food systems which bring food
from the farmer’s field to our plates.
These advancements have transformed
corn into a primary ingredient in the
cattle, poultry and pork feed and the
ethanol used in gasoline. Indeed, corn
used for fuel alcohol production increased from less than 1% of total U.S.
Advertisement for Ratekin’s
Seed House, Iowa, 1913
domestic corn use in 1980-81 to almost
25% in 2007-08.
Corn’s omnipotence today owes much
to federal government policy. In the 1970s
government farm policy increased subsidies
for corn farmers, making corn less expensive.
Although processors began converting corn
starch into high fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
in the 1940s and 1950s as a cheap alternative
to sugar, it was only in the 1970s when they
began using it in large quantities. In 1980,
Coca-Cola, for instance, began using HFCS in
soft drinks; by 1984 both Coke and Pepsi no
longer used sugar at all. Using HFCS rather
than sugar has kept the price of the product
down, but both HFCS and sugar have the
same number of calories. Consumption of
soda in America has skyrocketed since the
1960s, when soda manufacturers sold their
product in 6 ½ ounce bottles; today, their
bottles contain 20 ounces. Over the past
25 years, for instance, American per capita
consumption of soda per year has grown
from 28 gallons to nearly 45 gallons.
The revolution in corn production has
also affected cattle feeding and the modern
beef diet. Modern beef factories congregated
on the southern plains in western Kansas
hold as many as 100,000 cattle in confined
feedlots in contrast to the late 19th century
feedlots which rarely contained more than
1,000 head. Cattle in today’s giant feedlots
are fattened for about six months on cheap,
surplus corn, protein supplements and drugs,
including antibiotics and growth hormones,
in order to reach a “finished” weight of
1,250 pounds because those raised solely on
grass take longer to reach slaughter weight,
and the modern meat industry wants to
extinguish a beef calf’s life at 14-16 months,
as opposed to the life span of 4-5 years in
the early 20th century.
Ironically, corn growers have not
benefitted from the increased yields that
scientific breakthroughs and subsidies have
made possible. Growers are often plagued
by overproduction, which leads to lower
commodity prices and little or no profit.
They sell their corn primarily to a few large
processors, which process it for use in soda,
animal feed, and ethanol.
july
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INDEPENDENCE DAY
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1925 Cleveland opens the first
municipal airport in the U.S. in
continuous operation; 100,000
visitors celebrate the occasion.
Maize was the staple
crop of North Americans in
the pre-Columbian era.
left
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RAMADAN BEGINS
1962 The first transatlantic transmis-
sion of a television signal takes place
using the TELSTAR satellite.
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BASTILLE DAY
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FAST OF TISHA B’AV
(BEGINS AT SUNDOWN)
TISHA B’AV
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1902 Willis Carrier designs an air-
1969 Astronaut Neil Armstrong is
conditioning system for a Brooklyn
printing plant.
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the first man to step on the moon
during the Apollo 11 mission.
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1866 The Transatlantic cable opens
between Newfoundland and Valentia,
Ireland, forever changing communication between America and Europe.
Communication that once took two
to three weeks now takes minutes.
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right Dr. Eleanore Wurtzel,
Professor of Biological Sciences
at Lehman College, incorporates
genomic tools to investigate
carotenoid accumulation in
important food crops such as
maize, wheat and rice.
june
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Atomic
Energy
T
he scientific breakthroughs that led to the creation of nuclear fission and the atomic bomb
began with Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity in 1905 and his formula E=mc²
(Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared). Bringing this to fruition would
require four decades of research experiments and the military impetus to create a bomb during
World War II. Like most scientific breakthroughs, it was not the work of a single scientist, but a
long-term effort in which scientists built upon the theories and experiments of others, including
Ernest Rutherford, Lise Meitner, Otto Hahn, Niels Bohr, Frédéric Joliot, Hans von Halban, Lew
Kowarski, Enrico Fermi, Ernest Lawrence and Leo Szilard. As these scientists collaborated and
competed to advance nuclear physics, they thought more about the science and potential
economic implications of applying atomic energy for domestic industrial uses, such as the
generation of power, than the military implications of splitting the atom.
This changed when a war with Nazi Germany, which had its own atomic weapons program,
seemed inevitable. On August 2, 1939, Albert Einstein, together with Leo Szilard, wrote President
Franklin Roosevelt that Germany could develop an atomic bomb and that the United States
must begin its own program. In 1942 this became the Manhattan Project. Under the leadership
of Lieutenant General Leslie Groves and physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, it brought together
200 of the world’s leading physicists and chemists, many of them Jewish refugees, to develop an
atomic bomb in Los Alamos, NM, while nuclear reactors in Oak Ridge, TN, and Hanford, WA,
created the fissionable elements Uranium 235 and Plutonium as the fuel for the atomic bombs.
At a cost of $2 billion, the United States had created the first atomic weapons. Completed after
Nazi Germany had surrendered, the United States dropped two atomic weapons, in a still highly
debated decision, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading the Japanese to surrender.
Norris
Bradbury, group leader for
bomb assembly, stands next
to the partially assembled
Gadget atop the test tower
in the New Mexico desert,
1945.
above left
above Albert Einstein
visits City College, where
he delivers lecture to
faculty, 1921.
Ernest O. Lawrence,
Glenn T. Seaborg and
J. Robert Oppenheimer
control the magnet of the
184-inch cyclotron, which
is being converted from its
wartime use to its original
purpose as a cyclotron,
1946.
right
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left The 90-inch cyclotron,
installed at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory in 1954 was
a leading particle accelerator in its
time. The machine operated until
1971.
left Dr. Ruth Stark, Distinguished
Professor of Chemistry, City College,
uses NMR techniques to study the
molecular structure of fatty acid
binding proteins.
5
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HIROSHIMA DAY
7
1939 Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard
write a letter to President Roosevelt
explaining the need to build a
nuclear bomb to counter Nazi
Germany’s effort.
8
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(RAMADAN ENDS)
9
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1945 The atomic bomb nicknamed
Little Boy is dropped on Hiroshima,
Japan; three days later another bomb,
Fat Man, is dropped on Nagasaki,
Japan.
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V-J DAY
FEAST OF THE
ASSUMPTION OF MARY
1981 IBM introduces the Personal
Computer using the Intel 8088
microprocessor and an operating
system, MS-DOS, designed by Microsoft. Fully equipped with 64 kilobytes
of memory and a floppy disk drive,
it costs $1,565.
1807 Robert Fulton takes the steamboat Clermont up the Hudson River
from New York to Albany; reliable
upriver steam travel revolutionizes
intercity trade and transportation.
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BANDHAN (HINDU
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INTERNATIONAL
DAY FOR THE
REMEMBRANCE OF THE
SLAVE TRADE AND ITS
ABOLITION
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1912 Garrett Morgan files a patent
for his “breathing device” to be used
by the Cleveland Fire Department.
His invention is later incorporated
into the gas masks used by the U.S.
military in World War I.
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WOMEN’S EQUALITY
DAY
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CUNY TV Science & U
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Toys
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he popularization of new, middle-class
conceptions of childhood as a period of
life largely free of adult responsibilities
helped create a consumer market for toys in the
United States by the late 19th century. Urban
department stores and specialty retailers met
the growing demand for toys by stocking the
latest imported and domestically-manufactured
playthings. Some amusements—such as Milton
Bradley’s enormously successful board game The
Checkered Game of Life (1860), which encouraged players to avoid temptations like idleness
and intemperance on their path to wealth and success—carried strong moral lessons;
others were designed purely for fun. Animated clockwork toys from Germany—whose
subjects included running animals, oarsmen rowing boats, boys riding velocipedes, and, later,
automated suffragettes—joined simple, less-expensive, offerings from American manufacturers
such as dolls, wood blocks, and vehicles or figures cast in iron or tin. Despite the popularity
of animated toys, however, some observers warned these toys risked robbing children of the
chance to exercise their own imaginations. Popular children’s novelist Kate Wiggin, for example,
argued that the “more imagination and cleverness the inventor has put into the toy, the less
room there is for the child’s imagination and cleverness and genius.”
The American toy industry remained small throughout the nineteenth century, but its
fortunes brightened considerably in subsequent decades as increasing prosperity and a general
trend to more indulgent parenting styles helped foster year-round demand for toys. Manufacturers maintained close ties with retailers to gauge changing consumer tastes, advertising
budgets swelled, and toy makers adopted modern production methods. These developments,
coupled with boycotts of German-made goods during the First World War, allowed the
U.S. toy industry to expand some 1,300 percent between 1905 and 1920.
In the early decades of the 20th century, toys reflected a widespread public fascination for
science and technology, while at the same time reinforced social norms concerning genderappropriate play. Girls, for example, received dolls, kitchen sets, and other child-sized domestic
technologies to socialize them as future homemakers, while boys got construction toys, tools
chests, and scientific-oriented offerings like chemistry outfits, toy microscopes, and wireless
radio sets. An entire category of ‘career-oriented’ toys promised to train young minds and
hands for the modern world. The success of Erector (pictured abaove right), created by the
A.C. Gilbert Co. in 1913, placed Connecticut—which was also home to model train maker, the
Ives Company—at the center of the American toy industry, and, more significantly, helped spur
innovations in child-centered advertising. Inspiring boys to aspire to engineering careers
remained constant. In the wake of Charles A. Lindbergh’s historic transatlantic flight in 1927,
the American Boy magazine established the Airplane Model League of America—a nationwide
club for boys sponsored, in part, by the Ford Motor Co.—to encourage boys’ dreams of
aviation industry careers. Similarly, the Fisher Body Company sponsored an annual modelmaking contest from 1930 onward for teenage boys with an eye on training future generations
of car designers. During the Cold War, the popularity of model rocketry clubs nationwide
fueled young visions of exploring space.
Innovations in modern computing crept into toy design in the 1970s. In 1972, for example,
Magnavox released ‘Odyssey,’ the first home video game system and a precursor to more
advanced systems by Atari, Nintendo, and X-box, and in 1978, Texas Instruments developed the
first toy to utilize a computer chip, the Speak and Spell, a learning toy replete with a speech
synthesizer. Interestingly, the development of the multi-billion dollar video game industry—
as well as efforts to incorporate wearable computing, like those from Valve (pictured right) and
Google glasses—has only renewed debates about the player’s passivity and lack of creativity
that first arose in the 19th century.
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left Patent issued to La Marcus
A. Thompson for the first roller
coaster in America, 1885.
LABOR DAY
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1882 Thomas Edison’s Pearl Street
Station in New York begins the first
successful commercial production
of electricity in America, distributing
direct current to 203 customers
in lower Manhattan within four
months.
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GRANDPARENTS DAY
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WORLD TRADE
CENTER
REMEMBRANCE DAY
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YOM KIPPUR (BEGINS
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YOM KIPPUR
1868 Bessemer Steel’s first “blow” is
made at the Cleveland Rolling Mills,
inaugurating an American industrial
revolution; the cities of Cleveland,
Pittsburgh, Detroit and Chicago
would soon anchor the new
industrial heartland of the nation.
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EL GRITO DEL
DOLORES (MEXICAN
INDEPENDENCE DAY)
CITIZENSHIP DAY
(CONSTITUTION DAY)
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AUTUMNAL
EQUINOX/AUTUMN
BEGINS
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SUKKOT (BEGINS AT
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LAST DAY OF SUKKOT
(HOSHANAH RABBAH)
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SHEMINI ATZERET
(BEGINS AT SUNDOWN)
SUKKOT
CHUSEOK (KOREAN
HARVEST MOON
FESTIVAL)
SHEMINI ATZERET
SIMCHAT TORAH
(BEGINS AT SUNDOWN)
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SIMCHAT TORAH
NATIVE AMERICAN
DAY
INTERNATIONAL DAY
OF PEACE
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1905 Albert Einstein publishes his
special theory of relativity.
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right Dr. Myriam Sarachik, Dis-
tinguished Professor of Physics, City
College, researches superconductivity, disordered metallic alloys and
metal-insulator transitions in doped
semiconductors.
right Schematic mechanism
for baseball stitching machine,
1948.
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Computers
L
ike most advances in science and technology, the computer has no single inventor or eureka moment
of creation. The word computer once described people, predominantly women, who did repetitive
mathematical calculations. Only in the 20th century did it come to mean an electronic-based
calculating machine. One of the roots of the modern computer lay in Herman Hollerith’s punch card
tabulating machine, used to count the 1890 U.S. census. Hollerith’s Tabulating Machine Company was
consolidated into the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. in 1911, which was renamed IBM in 1924.
World War II gave rise to an alliance between the military and academia that marked a turning point
for computer development. During WW II, Harvard scientist Howard Aiken and U.S. WAVE Grace Hopper
designed an electromechanical computing machine that IBM built and sent to Harvard in 1944. The Mark
I solved complicated math calculations for the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ships. The ENIAC, developed by John
Mauchly and John Presper Eckert at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946, utilized 17,000 vacuum tubes
to make math calculations a thousand times faster than earlier machines. Military and academic researchers
were the primary users of the ENIAC and its successors, the EDVAC and ORDVAC. In the early 1950s,
John von Neumann at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton led a group of engineers and scientists
in developing the MANIAC computer, which made the calculations necessary to develop the hydrogen
bomb in 1952.
In the 1950s, computers were very large and few in number, but transistors made them smaller and
commercialization driven by IBM made them more common in the 1960s. However, few would have
predicted in 1970 that computers would become a ubiquitous part of the home and office. By the late
1970s, computers had advanced from hobbyist kits to the Apple II and Radio Shack TRS 80 and within a
few years IBM had entered the personal computer market, run with Microsoft software. The progressive
increase in computer speed and memory made it possible to transform the Internet, a computer network
created by the U.S. Defense Department and research universities in the 1970s, into the locus of information and commerce that has transformed our world. As computer microchips have become smaller and
faster, computers can now fit in our phones, eyeglasses and perhaps our bodies. The possibilities seem limitless, but threats to privacy are real as is the specter of a world in which technology dominates our lives..
october
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1951 Henrietta Lacks dies at Johns
Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore from cancer of the cervix; her
living cancerous cells removed from
her body and preserved in a lab later
launch a medical revolution.
left Dr. Corinne Michels,
Distinguished Professor of Biology,
Queens College, researches the
regulation of gene expression.
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EID AL-ADHA (FEAST
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NATIONAL BOSS’S DAY
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New York with its first clean supply
of water needed to combat disease,
fight fires and meet the demands of
a rapidly growing city.
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UNITED NATIONS DAY
1825 The Erie Canal connects the
port of New York to the Great Lakes
via the Hudson River. By 1840, New
York moved more freight than the
ports of Boston, Baltimore and New
Orleans combined.
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HALLOWEEN
right Mathematician Mina S. Rees
served as president of the Graduate
School and University Center at
CUNY.
CUNY TV Science & U
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Collective Innovation
I
nnovations applying fiber optics, mobile phones and satellites have been the result of
simultaneous inventions and incremental improvements rather than the achievement of the
lone inventor enjoying an eureka moment. The myth of the sole inventor persists because
it supports our celebration of the rugged individualist, who by (usually his) own bootstraps
rises to conquer all obstacles. This self-reliance of independent scientists and engineers from
Eli Whitney to Samuel F. B. Morse, Thomas Edison and on to Henry Ford has been
the mainstay of our folklore.
In reality, scientific discoveries result from steady increments in knowledge, the
uninterrupted social interaction between scientists, systematic methods of inquiry and
the consequences of their time. Robert K. Merton, the noted sociologist, argued that “the
pattern of independent multiple discoveries in science is in principle the dominant pattern,
rather than a subsidiary one.”
The laboratories of Thomas Edison (see above) in Menlo Park, New Jersey and New York
provide a good example of the collective basis of innovation. In Menlo Park, Edison and Francis
Upton developed a carbon filament that did not melt; this new design led to a long-lasting (up
to 40 hours) lamp. Thus, in late 1879 Edison introduced the first practical incandescent bulb.
The Edison Electric Illuminating Company developed a central generating station on Pearl
Street in lower Manhattan, which opened on September 4, 1882. Edison’s team at the Pearl
Street station installed six “Jumbo” dynamos, each weighing 27 tons and capable of powering
more than 1,100 lights. His collaborators included Lewis Latimer, holder of a patent for
improved carbon filaments, (see photo above and left, patent), who worked at the Edison
Electric Light Company in New York from 1884 to 1896 as a patent investigator and draftsman.
In the 20th century Bell Labs offers the best evidence of collaborative innovation.
Opened in Manhattan in 1925, Bell Labs moved to the New Jersey suburbs after World War
II, where its long corridors and mandatory open-door policy fostered interaction among engineers, physicists, chemists, materials scientists and mathematicians. Bell Labs believed that
innovation best occurs when people of different talents work in an environment conducive
to open dialogue. The transistor (1947) resulted from the teamwork of William Shockley,
Walter Brattain and John Bardeen which sparked the invention. Bell Labs contributed greatly
to the telecommunications system of the mid-20th century through its innovations in
transistors, lasers, communication by satellites, charge-couple devices (CCD), silicon solar
cells and the UNIX computer operating system.
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ALL SOULS DAY
left Dr. Maribel Vazquez researches
brain cancer infiltration and nanotechnology approaches for protein
labeling. She is currently Associate
Professor of Biomedical Engineering
at City College.
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DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME
ENDS
DIWALI (HINDU FESTIVAL
OF LIGHTS)
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1920 Pittsburgh’s Westinghouse-
owned KDKA, the first commercial
radio station in the United States,
broadcasts election results. By 1922,
three million Americans own radios.
right Patent for transistor
issued to Bell Labs, 1950.
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MUHARRAM (ISLAMIC
NEW YEAR)
ELECTION DAY
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1913 The Los Angeles-Owens River
Aqueduct opens, bringing water
by gravity to the Los Angeles basin
from the eastern Sierra Nevada
mountains, more than 230 miles to
the north.
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VETERANS’ DAY
2001 Apple starts selling the iPod,
a portable digital audio player that
revolutionizes listening to music.
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1942 The Alaska Canada Military
Highway (the Alcan) is completed,
linking Dawson Creek, British
Columbia, and Delta Junction, Alaska.
Built by African American and white
soldiers of the Army Corps of
Engineers, the Alcan has been called
“the road to civil rights.”
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CHANUKAH (BEGINS
AT SUNSET)
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THANKSGIVING DAY
FIRST DAY OF
CHANUKAH
1874 Joseph Glidden introduces
barbed wire fencing, enabling herds
to remain on private ranches.
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Water
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n the late 18th and early 19th century Philadelphia, Boston, New York and other coastal cities in the United
States grew rapidly, powered by increased trade, manufacturing and immigration. These changes led to
increased demand for water and public health problems arising from polluted water supplies. The first U.S.
city to confront this problem was Philadelphia, which grew from 41,000 in 1800 to 1.3 million in 1900. After
outbreaks of yellow fever in the 1790s killed thousands of people, Philadelphia sought cleaner supplies. Its
leaders turned to the engineer Benjamin Latrobe, who developed a waterworks by diverting the Schuylkill
River and using steam engines to pump water to a high level to distribute to the population. Philadelphia
completed the first section in 1801, but it quickly became inadequate and turned to an expanded system
in what is now Fairmount Park between 1812 and 1815. (See above).
Urban areas have continually struggled to meet increased demand for water, but conservation has
become an increasingly important tool. This is particularly true in the desert environments of the west and
southwest of the United States. Las Vegas, one of the fastest growing urban areas of the last decade, annually
receives only 4.5” of rain and has to rely on Lake Mead, a reservoir created by the Hoover Dam on the
Colorado River, for 90% of its water. A severe drought threatens this supply and it is possible that the lake
could run dry by 2021.
To look at the fountains on the strip in Las Vegas, the city and its economic engine appear to be profligate
users of water, but the reality is different. For instance, the spectacular water show at the Bellagio Hotel uses
recycled ground water so it places minimal strain on Lake Mead. On a larger scale, the Southern Nevada
Water Authority recycles 40% of its wastewater to use in power plants, construction and irrigation, compared
to a national average of 6%. With a growing population and worsening droughts that many scientists regard
as due to global warming, the United States will have to increase conservation and wastewater recycling to
maintain adequate supplies of water to cope with these changes.
december
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PEARL HARBOR DAY
1942 The first self-sustaining nuclear
chain reaction occurs at the University of Chicago in an experiment led
by physicist Enrico Fermi.
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FEAST OF THE
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
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10
16
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HUMAN RIGHTS DAY
FEAST OF OUR LADY
OF GUADALUPE
1953 President Eisenhower delivers
his “Atoms for Peace” speech before
the United Nations, calling for
greater cooperation in the development of atomic energy for peaceful
purposes.
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WINTER SOLSTICE/
WINTER BEGINS
1880 New York’s Broadway receives
its first electric lights between 14th
and 34th streets. The Broadway
theater district would eventually
move north and become known as
The Great White Way for its blazing
illumination.
1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright
conduct the first motor-powered
flight at Kitty Hawk, NC.
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CHRISTMAS EVE
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CHRISTMAS DAY
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KWANZAA BEGINS
BOXING DAY
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1947 John Bardeen, Walter H.
Brattain, and William B. Shockley,
scientists at Bell Labs, build the
first transistor that can amplify
and switch electronic signals.
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NEW YEAR’S EVE
right Professor Thomas Onorato,
LaGuardia Community College, studies the fertilization of star fish and is
trying to create the first star fish cell
line, 2012.
january 2014
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Bio Art
B
io-art blurs the distinction between science and art by using new technologies
to manipulate living organisms into artwork. An early example in the 1990s
was a genetically modified phosphorescent rabbit named Alba. Other examples
include using electron microscopes to look at things like muscle cells or bacteria.
However, the ethics of using living organisms for art remains controversial.
january 2014
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NEW YEAR’S DAY
left Dr. Neepa Maitra, Associate
KWANZAA ENDS
Professor of Physics at Hunter College, has a background in theoretical
chemical physics and focuses her
studies more specifically on timedependent density functional theory
(TDDFT), a method to describe
electronic excitations and dynamics in
atomic, molecular, chemical systems
and solids.
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THREE KINGS DAY, FEAST
OF THE EPIPHANY
ORTHODOX CHRISTMAS
1838 Samuel F.B. Morse uses
electric signals to shift an electromagnet in a patterned print across
paper, known as Morse code.
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MAWLID AL-NABI
(MUHAMMAD’S
BIRTHDAY)
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1964 James E. West and Gerhard M.
Sessler, working for Bell Labs, receive
a patent for their “electroacoustic
transducer,” a microphone that is
hearing aids.
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DR. MARTIN LUTHER
KING JR. DAY
(OBSERVED)
1801 The Philadelphia Water Works
opens, making Philadelphia the first
major city in the U.S. to provide
clean drinking water citywide.
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INTERNATIONAL DAY
OF COMMEMORATION
IN MEMORY OF THE
VICTIMS OF THE
HOLOCAUST
1880 Thomas Edison receives
a patent for the electric light bulb;
the first successful test had occurred
on October 22, 1879.
CUNY TV Science & U
february 2014
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Photo CREDITS
Front Cover
Wright Brothers Model Plane: photo courtesy of John DeVilbiss,
Utah State University; Supersonic Jet Plane, Nick Kaloterakis
@ collected.
inside Front Cover
Photo courtesy of CUNY.
Milestones Credits
Page 1
U.S.S. Monitor, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division, LC-B8171-0490, James F. Gibson photographer;
Mammoth California orange, courtesy of the Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-19095; Linus Pauling, courtesy of the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers, Special Collections, Oregon State University Libraries; Aerodyne, courtesy of
Iowa State University Archives; Dr. Patricia Bath courtesy of Dr. Bath;
Bell Labs patent, courtesy of the United States Patent and Trademark
Office; Tetrahedral kite, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints
and Photographs Division, Gilbert H. Grosvenor Collection of
Photographs of the Alexander Graham Bell Family; Carl Rakeman
macadam road, courtesy of the Federal Highway Administration,
United States Department of Transportation; Broadway elevated,
courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division,
LC-USZ62-108312, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper; Howard
Coffin, courtesy of the Bentley Historical Library, University of
Michigan, BL000228.
Page 2
Edison storage battery department and Edison battery-operated
truck, courtesy of the Thomas Edison National Historical Park,
National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior;
Promontory Point, courtesy of the Oakland Museum of California;
Transistor inventors, courtesy of Alcatel Archives; Air Mail delivery,
courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division;
von Neumann and Oppenheimer, courtesy of The Shelby White and
Leon Levy Archives Center, Institute for Advanced Study, Digital
Collections, Princeton, New Jersey; Giant magnet, courtesy of the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, United States Department
of Energy; Hampton Institute, courtesy of the Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-62376, Frances Benjamin
Johnston photographer; Telstar, courtesy of Alcatel Archives.
Page 3
Michigan State University women, courtesy of the Michigan State
University Archives & Special Collections; Mastodon Corn, courtesy
of Archives Center, NHAM, Smithsonian Institution; Frank Meyer,
courtesy of the NARA, Department of Agriculture, Agricultural
Research Service, Horticultural Crops Research Branch; Lower
Manhattan Elevated Railroad, courtesy of the Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-96204; East Texas farmer
with barbed wire, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division, LC-ISF33-012120, Russell Lee photographer;
Biologists, courtesy of the Elwyn B. Robinson Department of Special
Collections, Chester Fritz Library, University of North Dakota;
University of Arkansas Hong Wen, courtesy of the University of
Arkansas; Seed Distribution Bureau, courtesy of the NARA, Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry; Slide rule, courtesy
of the Michigan State University Archives and Special Collections;
Washing Machine, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration/Office of War
Information, LC-USF33-012689-M4, Russell Lee photographer.
Page 4
Federal Art Project, courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library,
NARA; Garrett Morgan, public domain; Milky Way, courtesy of
NASA/JPL-Caltech; Alvarez, courtesy of The Regents of the University of California, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; University
of Maryland Rocket program, courtesy of the Office of Digital Collections and Research, University Libraries, University of Maryland;
Coney Island Athletic Club, courtesy of the Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-102696; Dr.Volkow,
courtesy of the National Institute on Drug Abuse; Philco television,
courtesy of the Museum of the Moving Image; Purdue University
student working in food chemistry laboratory, courtesy of Purdue
University Archives and Special Collections; Tennessee road paving
machine, courtesy of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Blount
County Public Library, Maryville, Tennessee.
Page 5
Valencia Community College biology students, courtesy of Valencia
Community College; B-24 bombers on assembly line, courtesy of the
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division; Baldwin Locomotive, courtesy of the Print and Picture Collection, Free Library of
Philadelphia; Aeroplane Graflex, courtesy of the NARA, Department
of Defense, Department of the Army; Checking tomatoes, courtesy of
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; Smoke-shrouded Pittsburgh,
courtesy of Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh, Smoke
Control Lantern Unit; Dawn of the Century sheet music, courtesy
of Wikipedia Commons; Loop-the-Loop, courtesy of the Library of
Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-63370; Wright
Brothers patent, courtesy of the United States Patent and Trademark
Office; Sensitester, courtesy of the Museum of the Moving Image;
Stage coach courtesy of Cull A. White Collection, MASC, Washington
State University Libraries, ID# pc086b01f048_1.
Page 6
Glider in flight, courtesy of the Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts
University; Hollerith tabulator, courtesy of the Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-45687; Life Preserving
Coffin, courtesy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office; Dr.
Charles Drew, courtesy of NARA 43-0937a; Kaiser-Frazer, courtesy
of the Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University; Mario
Molina, courtesy of the Nobel Foundation; Baseball stitching machine,
courtesy of Archives Center, NHAM, Smithsonian Institution; Banneker
mural, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs
Division, LC-DIG-highsm-09905; Barrage balloon, courtesy of the
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security
Administration/Office of War Information,LC-USW361-1055, Alfred
T. Palmer photographer; Steinway and Sons patent, courtesy of the
United States Patent and Trademark Office; Grace Hopper, courtesy
of Archives Center, NHAM, Smithsonian Institution; Dr. Jerome Tobis,
courtesy of David Tobis, Principal, Maestral International.
Page 7
Traffic light inventor, courtesy of the Archives Center, NMAH, Smithsonian Institution; Brighton Beach Hotel, courtesy of the Library
of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-53843;
George Sidney, courtesy of the Museum of the Moving Image; Dr.
Daniel Hale Williams, courtesy of the National Library of Medicine,
National Institutes of Health; Governor Clinton, mural located in
DeWitt Clinton High School, New York City, courtesy New York
State Canals; Wrought Iron Bridge Canton, courtesy of the Library
of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division; Aeroplane Ambulance,
courtesy of the National Museum of the History of Medicine, Otis
Historical Archives, AFIP, Reeve Collection 63082; Bell Telephone
patent, courtesy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office;
Civil War railroad bridge, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints
and Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-4589; Frank Oppenheimer,
courtesy of The Regents of the University of California, Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory.
January 2013 Astronomy
Io: courtesy of NASA/JPL/University of Arizona; Lunar landing,
courtesy of NASA; Astronaut Ellen Baker courtesy of NASA STS-71,
Shuttle Atlantis, 1995; Dr. Jill Bargonetti, courtesy of CUNY.
Albert Einstein,
Rabbi Stephen A. Wise
and Mayor Fiorello H.
LaGuardia celebrate
Rabbi Wise’s 60th
birthday at the Hotel
Astor in New York, 1934.
February 2013 Science Fiction
Verne book cover courtesy of Wikipedia Commons; Lunar module,
courtesy of NASA; Rocket, courtesy of Bowling Green State University Commons; CUNY Vice Chancellor Gillian Small, courtesy of
CUNY; StarTrek Holodeck, courtesy of CBS Licensing and
Paramount Pictures.
March 2013 Bridges
Verrazano Narrows Bridge, courtesy of MTA Bridge and Tunnel
Special Archive; Tappan Zee Bridge Park, courtesy of Milagros Lecuona; Dr. Marie Filbin, courtesy of CUNY; Brooklyn Bridge drawing,
courtesy of the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, CUNY.
April 2013 Green Architecture
Nebraska sod house, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints
and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-8276; Rooftop farm, courtesy
of the Brooklyn Grange; Dr. Lesley Davenport, courtesy of CUNY;
Wedge House, courtesy of Min/Day.
May 2013 Modern Times
Modern Times © Roy Export S.A.S. Scan courtesy Cineteca
di Bologna; Dr. Mande Holford, courtesy of CUNY.
September 2013 Toys
See-Saw patent and Thompson patent, courtesy of the United States
Patent and Trademark Office; Erector set, courtesy of the Library of
Congress, Prints and Photographs Division; Valve Software, courtesy
of Stuart Isett/The New York Times; Baseball stitching machine, courtesy of the Archives Center, NMAH, Smithsonian Institution;
Dr. Myriam Sarachik, courtesy of CUNY.
October 2013 Computers
Women holding motherboards, courtesy of the U.S. Army Photo
number 163-12-62; Google glasses courtesy of Shutterstock.com;
Computer technicians, courtesy of the Regents of the University of
California, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; CUNY twitter
page, Dr. Mina Rees and Dr. Corinne Michels, courtesy of CUNY.
November 2013 Collective Innovation
Edison workers, courtesy of the Thomas Edison National Historical
Park, National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior; Lewis Latimer, courtesy of the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives,
CUNY and the Queens Borough Public Library; Latimer patent and
Bell Labs, courtesy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office;
Dr. Maribel Vazquez, courtesy of CUNY.
June 2013 That’s Entertainment
WW II Soldiers, courtesy of LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, CUNY
and U.S. Army Air Corps; Harlem radio listeners, courtesy of the
New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black
Culture; LaGuardia Community College students, courtesy of Tara
Jean Hickman; Dr.Vicki Flaris, courtesy of CUNY; Tesla patent and
West patent, courtesy of the United States Patent and Trademark
Office; Jim West, courtesy of Jim West.
December 2013 Water
Fairmount and Waterworks, courtesy of the American Philosophical
Library; Professor Thomas Onorato, courtesy of Steven A. Levine.
Centerfold Award-Winners
Mentor Award and CUNY’s 2012 Science All Star Team and CUNY
Nobel Winners, courtesy of CUNY.
Photo Credits
Einstein, Wise and LaGuardia photograph courtesy of the
LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, CUNY.
July 2013 Corn
Corn seeds advertisement, courtesy of the Archives Center, NMAH,
Smithsonian Institution; Dr. Eleanore Wurtzel, courtesy of CUNY.
acknowledgments
Hospital for Special Surgery, courtesy of Tara Jean Hickman.
August 2013 Atomic Energy
Gadget, courtesy of the United States Department of Energy; Einstein
photo courtesy of the City College of New York Archives; Oppenheimer
photograph, courtesy of The Regents of the University of California, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Dr. Ruth Stark, courtesy of CUNY;
Cyclotron, courtesy of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
United States Department of Energy Digital Archive.
January 2014 BioArt
BioArt image, courtesy of Dr. Douglas Cowan, Harvard Medical
School, Children’s Hospital Boston; Dr. Neepa Maitra, courtesy of
CUNY.
Back Cover
All WPA posters courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs Division, NYC Municipal Airports, 3g04242, Keeping Up
With Science, 3b48702, Museum of Science and Industry, 3b48895,
Occupations Related to Mathematics, 3b49003, Plains Farms Need
Trees, 3b48715, Adler Planetarium, 3b48791.

2013 Calendar - The City University of New York

Transcription

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