TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
NEWSLETTER • 6 MAY
On 6 May 1896, inventor Samuel Pierpoint Langley launched Aerodrome No.5, using a a spring-actuated catapult mounted on top of a houseboat on the Potomac River, near Quantico, Virginia. It made the first successful flight of an unpiloted, engine-driven, heavier-than-air craft of substantial size.
Yet Langley's career had been primarily as a physicist, astronomer, and was the third Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He also researched the relationship of solar phenomena to meteorology. It was only later in his life that had taken an active interest in aeronautics.
An article published in the Chautauquan (1906) provides an interesting biographical sketch of Samuel Pierpoint Langley over the span of his diverse and productive career.
On 6 May 1937, in a well-remembered disaster, The Hindenburg airship burned while landing. Today's book pick is: The Golden Age of the Great Passenger Airships: Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg, by Harold G. Dick, published by Smithsonian Books. The author was Harold Dick was the American representative (1934-38) in Germany of the Goodyear-Zeppelin joint venture. With extensive photographs, data, and manuals, collected while there, the author was able to draw from an extraordinary accumulation of material to a first-hand account of the two great passenger Zeppelins.
It is available from Amazon, typically about New from $26.01. Used from $3.91. (As of earlier time of writing - subject to change.)
 | Hypotheses like professors, when they are seen not to work any longer in the laboratory, should disappear. — Henry Edward Armstrong, English organic chemist (born 6 May 1848).  |
 | No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere. — Sigmund Freud, Austrian psychiatrist and psychologist (born 6 May 1856). |
 | The conflict of theories, leading, as it eventually must, to the survival of the fittest, is advantageous. — Grove Karl Gilbert, American geologist and geomorphologist (born 6 May 1843). |
| Before you look at today's web page, see if you can answer some of these questions about the events that happened on this day. Some of the names are very familiar. Others will likely stump you. Tickle your curiosity with these questions, then check your answers on today's web page. | |
| Births | |
 | If you’ve taken organic chemistry, you’ll have heard of this French chemist born 6 May 1871 who received a share of a Nobel Prize in 1912 for his development of the reaction known by his name. He prepared reagents by reacting magnesium with an organic halide in dry ether of the type RMgX which are versatile for use in the synthesis of a large number of different classes of compounds in organic chemistry. What is the name of this scientist? |
 | Together with his black assistant Matthew Henson and four Inuit companions, this American explorer, born 6 May 1856, reached a point on the earth never attained before on 6 Apr 1909 - the North Pole. He also had discovered on an earlier expedition in northern Greenland discovered the largest meteorite. What is the name of this explorer? |
| Deaths | |
 | This famous American author and naturalist (1817-62) was known as the "Hermit of Walden". He observed the natural history where he lived, keeping thorough journals. Many regard him as the father of the environmental movement. What is the name of this naturalist author? |
| Events | |
 | In 1962, a nuclear ballistic missile with a live nuclear warhead was test-fired. It was aimed across the Pacific Ocean toward Christmas Island on a 12.5 minute, 1,200-mile flight which ended when the warhead exploded in the air at an altitude of over 10,000-ft. Was the missile fired from a U.S. state, an island base, a ship, a submarine, an aircraft or another platform? |
 | In 1937, the crash of The Hindenburg disaster killed 36 people. The zeppelin carrying 61 crew and 36 passengers burst into flame while landing an American the naval air station. Onlookers were horrified, as the 7 million cubic feet of hydrogen which supported the dirigible exploded in a fireball that destroyed the ship in about a half a minute. In which U.S. state did The Hindenburg crash occur? |
 | In 1851, a U.S. patent was issued to John Gorrie for his invention of the first mechanical device of its kind, a forerunner of something now found in any modern house. What was John Gorries’s invention? |
Fast answers for the previous newsletter for May 5: The decade including the year 1981 • mercury-vapour lamp • plutonium • Alan Bartlett Shepherd, Jr. • Guilty! with a $100 fine that was overturned as excessive upon appeal, but the law remained on the books, though unenforced, until it was finally repealed decades later..
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