Sunday, March 30, 2008

Today in History: March 30

  • 1674 English agronomist Jethro Tull born; promoted seed rows over seed scattering; invented a rotary seed "drill" (1701) to plant 3 rows at a time, the first agricultural machine.
  • 1791 (Revolutionary) French National Assembly defines the meter, beginning the metric system of measures; it was 1/10,000,000 of the distance between the north pole and the equator.
  • 1842 American physician Crawford Long, first used an anesthetic, ether, in surgery.
  • 1855 The "Border Ruffians" enter Kansas to vote in its 1st elections to force entry into the Union as a slave state by swamping the actual Kansan votes by some 10 to 1; part of Greeley's "Bleeding Kansas".
  • 1867 Russian ambassador agrees to sell Alaska to the U.S. for $7,200,000; American public favors it, but major newspapers are against it calling it "Seward's Folly".
  • 1892 Polish mathematician Stefan Banach born; father of modern functional analyis; Banach space, Banach algebra, Banach-Tarski paradox.
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