A Brief History Hello, everyone! I am Dr. Zar. Today, February 1st, 2023, is the anniversary of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. In memory of this tragic event, this article presents a compilation in chronological order of our past videos concerning the space shuttle program in the hopes that you can learn about the disaster in the broader context of the Space Shuttle program’s history. Digging Deeper Our first video in this compilation concerns how the origins of the program were among the accomplishments of one of the United States’ most controversial presidents: Our second video in this compilation discusses…
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A Brief History On January 31, 1915, the German Army, in violation of the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases, launched 18,000 artillery shells containing xylyl bromide tear gas against Russian positions, the first truly large scale use of poison gas in combat. Digging Deeper While people have used various poisons to deny the use of water wells as far back as 600 BC and to foul the air with toxic sulfur fumes in 479 BC, the 19th and 20th Centuries saw efforts to outlaw such use of poisons. In World War I, the first and most common use of…
A Brief History On January 30, 1925, Douglas Engelbart was born in Portland, Oregon. Engineer, inventor, and computer pioneer, Engelbart would make our lives easier by inventing the computer mouse, patented in 1970. Digging Deeper Engelbart was educated at Oregon State University and the University of California at Berkely and went on to his life’s work of improving human–computer interaction, creating user friendly ways of using computers and the internet. Engelbart founded the Doug Engelbart Institute and received numerous honors and awards, including the National Medal of Technology, the U.S.’s highest technology award. Incredibly, his employers at Tymshare and McDonnell…
A Brief History On January 27, 1880, Thomas Edison patented the incandescent light bulb, the first truly commercially viable electric light bulb, but certainly not the first light bulb! Digging Deeper Prior to Edison’s patent, other inventors experimented with various ways to produce light from electricity, including Englishman Joseph Swann, who actually marketed the first light bulbs used to light homes and other buildings in 1881. Prior to Swann and Edison’s successes at producing viable electric light, Ebenezer Kinnersley, an English scientist, first showed how a wire heated by passing an electric current through it caused the wire to glow,…
A Brief History On January 26, 2009, a single California woman gave birth to 8 babies at one time, becoming the first mother of octuplets that survived infancy. Digging Deeper Nadya Suleman was born a native Californian to parents of Lithuanian and Palestinian descent, and while she was married from 1996 to 2008, she was single when she underwent fertility treatments prior to having her 8 babies. She attended Mt. San Antonio College and earned a BS and a psychiatric technician license, applying her education to a job in a mental health facility for 3 years. Prior to the record…