In 1851 Isaac Singer was granted a patent for his sewing machine. In 1865 Joseph Lister performed the first antiseptic surgery. Progress. We had the old and the new – in 1981 the IBM PC was released, and nine years later in 1990 the largest and most complete T-Rex skeleton, nicknamed Sue, was discovered in South Dakota. Yet there were still setbacks. In 1994 the major league baseball players went out on strike causing the cancellation of the World Series that year. And in 2000 the Russian Navy submarine Kursk exploded and sank in the Barents Sea, killing the entire 118-man crew during a military exercise.
Notable people born on this date include Katherine Lee Bates (1859) writer of “America the Beautiful”, American mega movie maker Cecil B DeMille (1881), Austrian Nobel Prize-winning physicist and academic Erwin Schrodinger (1887) remembered most for his mysterious cat, Hungarian-American businessman, financier and fan of Q everywhere George Soros (1930), and Star-Trek reboot Captain Pike and Resident Dr Bell actor Bruce Greenwood (1956).
Cleopatra reportedly got bit by an asp and perished with Mark Anthony in 30 BC. Spy and spy-author Ian Fleming, who brought us James Bond apparently met his match and maker in 1964. Pioneering automaker and assembly line creator Henry Ford reached the end of his line in 1982. Two notable music men died on this date – music theorist and experimenter John Cage (1992) and guitar maker and player Les Paul (2009). And legendary lady of the movies and companion of Bogie – Lauren Bacall left the stage in 2014.
This is International Youth Day and World Elephant Day.
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