Antoine Lavoisier is the father of modern chemistry due to his numerous contributions and the influence he had on constructing hypotheses and experiments to test them. He rejected the phlogiston theory elaborated by Joseph Priestley in England, intuitively seeing the relationship between burning and animal respiration and devising experiments to prove his point. On the other hand, he left behind the concept of "caloric" or "matter of fire," a chemical substance without mass that a modern scientist could say was clearly disproved by Lavoisier's own work. However, it makes little sense to measure a scientist by the problems he left unsolved, and his insight, experimental work, and conclusions clearly puts him in the class with Galileo, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein in their respective fields. When Lavoisier requested time to complete some scientific work after he was sentenced to death during the French Revolution the presiding judge answered "The Republic has no need of scientists."
Two inventors whose work was never properly recognized were granted patents today. Everyone "knows" that Robert Fulton invented the steam boat, calmly ignoring both the patents granted and the working vessels developed a quarter century before. Like his contemporary John Logie Baird in the UK, Philo Farnsworth is generally unknown. He fought RCA at the patent office and later in the courts. RCA president David Sarnoff supposedly said "RCA doesn't pay royalties, we collect them." Farnsworth did collect from RCA, but was stalled long enough that it didn't amount to much.
We also have a pope commissioning a major statue, the founders of Massachusetts stubbornly demanding that they travel with all their paperwork, the beginning of the end of an Indonesian island, and the first television broadcast of a baseball game.
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1498 - Pope Alexander VI commissioned the "Pietŕ" from 23-year-old Michelangelo Buonarotti. The marble sculpture of Mary lamenting over the dead body of Jesus, whom she holds across her lap, was completed in 1501.
1629 - Twelve members of the Massachusetts Bay Company sign the Cambridge Agreement for establishing a settlement in Massachusetts, cleverly demanding that "the whole Government, together with the patent for the said Plantation" be taken with the settlers, frustrating an attempt by King Charles to destroy the charter in 1635 and appoint a viceregal dictatorship on the colony.
1791 - John Fitch was granted a US patent for the steamboat after a dispute with James Rumsey in which George Washington sided with Rumsey. Fitch had demonstrated a 45-foot steamboat on the Delaware river in 1787. Robert Fulton, generally credited with the development, built his first boat after Fitch's death.
1883 - The first of four explosive eruptions of the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa sent a plume of ash 17 miles into the air above Indonesia. Active volcanic activity had been taking place since May, three major and eleven minor vents were noted.
1930 - The US Patent Office granted Philo T. Farnsworth two patents, No. 1,773,980 for a "Television system" and No. 1,773,981 for a "Television receiver." Several years of litigation with RCA confirmed Farnsworth's priority and RCA begrudgingly paid royalties, but World War II suspended all manufacture of television sets and by the time significant volumes were again in production the patents expired.
1939 - First major league baseball game telecast, a double-header between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York. NBC station W2XBS broadcast the game, sources disagree on the announcer - it was either Walter L. "Red" Barber or Bill Stern.
Women's Equality Day, US - Commemorates the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, which extended voting to women, proclaimed by President Ford in 1974. Known as Susan B. Anthony Day in Massachusetts.
1743
- Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, French scientist - Born at Paris,
France to a prosperous lawyer, studied chemistry, botany, astronomy, and
mathematics at the College Mazarin 1754 - 1761, licensed to practice law
in 1764 but never practiced. Published a plan for street lighting in Paris
in 1765, elected to the Royal Academy of Science and joined the Fermés
Generalé in 1768. (This was a private company responsible for collecting
taxes and paying a fixed sum to the state.) In 1771 married Marie-Anne
Pirette Paulze, who became his collaborator, she learned English and translated
the work of Priestly and other English scientists for him. He was the
first to carefully measure the mass of his materials before and after
experiments, changing chemistry from a philosophical proposition to a
science. Debunked the concept of phlogiston, replacing it by explaining
the role of oxygen (which he caled "pure air"), reformed chemical notation,
and was first to demonstrate the conservation of matter in chemical reactions.
Active in politics, serving on public boards and writing reports on economic
and social conditions, tax reforms, economics, and administration of hospitals
and prisons - both of which appalled him. He created public schools in
his tax district and advocated a system of fire hydrants. Appointed to
the National Gunpowder Commission in 1775 he moved into the Arsenel of
Paris and established a laboratory with his own funds. His secretary and
assistant was E. I. du Pont, who expanded on Lavoisier's improvements
in gunpowder manufacturing after fleeing France. Published Traité elémentaire
de chimie in 1789, the first textbook on chemistry, which included the
current concept of elements and named 55 of them. On 8 May 1794 all 28
members of the Fermés Generalé had been arrested, they were tried in less
than a day, immediately decapitated, and thrown into a common grave. The
specific charges aginst Lavoisier were that he watered the soldiers' tobacco
(he had developed a process to keep it moist) and taken the gunpowder
from the artillery (without mentioning that he had replaced it with powder
that was safer and more consistent).
Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry
is the study of carbon compounds that crawl.
- Mike Adams
I recently read that love is entirely a matter of chemistry. That must
be why my wife treats me like toxic waste.
- David Bissonette
Baseball is a skilled game. It's America's game - it, and high taxes.
- Will Rogers
Trifles make perfection - and perfection is no trifle.
- Michelangelo Buonarroti
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