Sir Alexander's life was apparently controlled by accidents. When studying medicine at St Mary's in London he specialized in surgery, but there were no openings for surgeons at the hospital. Further, the captain of St Mary's rifle team knew Fleming was a crack shot and wanted to keep him, so introduced him to the head of Inoculation and convinced him to make his career at St Mary's. Almost 25 years later, he left for a holiday with a culture plate inoculated with Staphylococcus bacteria uncovered. His lab unheated in his absence, the culture grew slowly enough that a spore of Penicillium notatum drifted in before the plate was overgrown with staph, and a clear halo around the green spot of mold meant that something was killing the staph bacteria. He wrote it up, but dropped it other than keeping the culture alive for other researchers.
Some estimate that the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved a million lives, mostly Japanese lives at that, by eliminating the need for a ground assault on the Japanese homeland. Today is the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. It's also the anniversary of the first electrocution, a gruesome spectacle largely supported by Thomas Edison in a desperate attempt to make alternating current appear unsafe to the American public. The execution itself was badly done, in fact it had to be done twice. I'll spare you the details.
We also mark the record-setting swim of an American girl across the English channel, the first movies with synchronized recorded sound (actual speech came the next year), and a charming holiday in China.
1806 - Although it had been largely irrelevant for 250 years, the Holy Roman Empire finally comes to an end with the abdication of Emperor Francis II (Francis I of Austria).
1890 - William Kemmler, a fruit peddler in Buffalo, New York who had murdered his wife the previous March, was the first person electrocuted as punishment. Edison had built the electric chair at Auburn Prison using a Westinghouse AC generator as a demonstration of the danger of alternating current, Westinghouse was appalled and paid for Kemmler's appeal - he didn't need such publicity.
1926 - A 19-year-old American swimmer, Gertrude Ederle, became the first woman to swim the English Channel. Her time from Cape Gris-Nez, France, to Dover, England was 14 hours 39 minutes (beating the previous record of 16 hours 23 minutes) - no woman broke her record for 35 years.
1926 - Warner Brothers' affiliate Vitaphone premiered the first motion picture with prerecorded sound in New York, the John Barrymore swashbuckler "Don Juan" in which the system was used to add music and synchronized sound effects. Eight musical shorts called "The Vitaphone Prelude" were shown the same day.
1945 - Colonel Paul W. Tibbets flew a Martin-built Boeing B-29 Superfortress from Tinian Island in the Marianas to the Japanese port city of Hiroshima, releasing the first atomic bomb used in war, the 8,900-pound "Little Boy" from an altitude of 31,600 feet.
Independence Day, Bolivia - Marks the 1825 declaration of independence from Spain, one of the six countries led to independence by Venezuelan general Simon Bolivar. Bolivians seem to like changing governments, there have been about 200 governments and 16 constitutions since.
Qi Qiao Jie or Valentine's Day, China - According to Buddhist tradition, a lonely cowherd named Niu Lang saw the seven daughters of the Goddess of Heaven come down from the sky to bathe in a river on the seventh day of the seventh month of the Chinese lunar year. As a prank he ran off with their clothes. It fell to Zhi Nu, the youngest (seventh born) and prettiest, to ask him for their clothes, and as he had seen her naked they had to marry. Called back to her constellation, Zhi Nu was allowed to return to her cowherd on this day each year.
1881
- Sir Alexander Fleming, British scientist - Born to a sheep-farming
family at Lochfield Farm, Darvel, Ayrshire, Scotland, did well in local
school, moved to London 1895, studied at the Polytechnic School on Regent,
then worked as a clerk in a shipping firm. Signed up for the Boer War,
became an excellent marksman, but never shipped out, studied medicine
at St Mary's starting 1901 when he received a small inheritance, joined
the research department in 1906 and spent the rest of his working life
there. Developed a thriving practice treating syphilis in 1909 using a
new compound developed by Paul Erlich, went with most of the bacteriology
staff to France in WW I to setup field hospitals and came home frustrated
at the poor results. He searched for an effective antibiotic through the
1920s without success until his 1928 accidental discovery of penicillin.
Published results 1929, poo response and difficulties in extracting and
administering the original drug stopped his work which was picked up by
Howard Florey and Ernst Chain in 1939. Fellow of Royal Society 1943, knighted
(with Florey) in 1944, won Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology with
both. Died of a heart attack 11 March 1955, buried as national hero in
St Paul's Cathedral at London.
If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it.
- Jonathan Winters
The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.
- Thomas Woodrow Wilson
The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.
- Voltaire
Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
- Harry Morris Warner
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