- 1494 German scientist Agricola (Georg Bauer) born; father of Geology and Mineralogy; wrote De Re Metallica, a systematic description of mining geology and metallurgy; wrote De Natura Fossilium on minerology and paleontology.
- 1809 French mathematician Joseph Liouville born; discovered transcendental numbers; Sturm-Liouville theory of differential equations; published Galois's manuscripts.
- 1840 English archaeologist George Smith born; discovered the world's oldest literary work, the Epic of Gilgamesh, including the (Biblical) Flood, in Babylonian cuneiform tablets.
- 1882 German physiologist Robert Koch published the cause of tuberculosis; 1905 Nobel.
- 1893 German-American astronomer Walter Baade born; discovered (with Fritz Zwicky) that cosmic rays and neutron stars result from supernovas; doubled the size of the Universe by discovering a second kind of Cepheid variable (standard distance measurement) star.
- 1917 British biochemist John Kendrew born; 1962 Nobel (with Max Perutz) for discovering how myoglobin stores and releases oxygen for muscle cells.
- 1917 German-American physicist Krafft Ehricke born; developed rockets (with Wernher von Braun) for Nazis; invented the liquid hydrogen propelled launch vehicle, allowing planetary exploration.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Today in History: March 24
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