Every month, Pacific Science Center publishes a Calendar of Science, a compendium of science facts to add a little knowledge to your daily routine. So, read on and discover a few things you may not have known. If you would like to receive a daily dose of science, subscribe to →Calendar of Science on Twitter. We've also set up a →Google Calendar to which you may subscribe. Have a comment or question? Please →drop us a line. Remember, life's boring without discovery!
July 1, 1889 - The Berlin Urania, the world’s first science center, opened to the public. It had a public observatory, a scientific theater, and a hall of physics where visitors could perform their own experiments.
July 2, 1906 - Birthday of the German physicist Hans Bethe (pronounced BAY-ta), who discovered that stars shine by nuclear fusion, converting hydrogen into helium.
July 3, 1886 - The German engineer Karl Benz demonstrated the first internal combustion automobile. It reached a top speed of 10 miles per hour.
July 4, 1054 - A supernova appeared in the constellation Taurus and was observed by Chinese astronomers, who called it a guest star. Its remnant now forms the Crab nebula.
July 5, 1687 - The English physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton published Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, in which he proposed the three laws of motion and the law of gravity.
July 5, 1867 - Birthday of the American astronomer Andrew Douglass, who developed a method of dating using tree rings, which he called dendro-chronology.
July 6, 1885 - The French microbiologist Louis Pasteur used a vaccine against rabies for the first time to save the life of a nine-year-old boy.
July 7, 1752 - Birthday of the French silk weaver Joseph Jacquard, who invented the punched card. He used it to control the operation of a loom.
July 8, 1851 - Birthday of the English archaeologist Arthur Evans, who discovered and excavated the Palace of Knossos on the island of Crete, the main center of the Minoan civilization.
July 9, 1856 - Birthday of the Croatian-American physicist Nikola Tesla, who built the first induction motor, which used a rotating magnetic field to generate an alternating current.
July 10, 1962 - NASA launched Telstar 1, the world’s first communications satellite, which made possible the first live television transmissions between Europe and the US.
July 11, 1732 - Birthday of the French astronomer Joseph Jérôme de Lalande, who compiled a catalogue of over 47,000 stars. Many of the numbers in the catalogue are still used by astronomers today.
July 12, 1854 - Birthday of the American inventor George Eastman, who invented the Kodak camera, which was the first to use rolls of film.
July 13, 1995 - The NASA spacecraft Galileo released a probe which entered the atmosphere of Jupiter, sending back data on its temperature, pressure, and chemical composition.
July 14, 1965 - The Mariner 4 satellite took the first close-up photographs of Mars.
July 15, 1915 - Birthday of the American chemist Albert Ghiorso, who led a team which created four of the trans-uranium elements (numbers 103 to 106).
July 16, 1994 - The first fragments of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 struck Jupiter. In all there were 21 fragments and they collided with Jupiter over a 6 day period.
July 17, 1894 - Birthday of the Belgian astronomer Georges Lemaître, who proposed that the universe was created by the explosion of what he called the “cosmic egg”. This was the first version of the Big Bang theory.
July 18, 1853 - Birthday of the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz, who proposed that objects in motion contract in the direction they are moving. Einstein later used this idea in his special theory of relativity.
July 19, 1799 - Near Rosetta, Egypt, Napoleon’s troops discovered a basalt tablet inscribed in three languages. Called the Rosetta stone, it was the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics.
July 20, 1804 - Birthday of the English paleontologist Richard Owen, who invented the word dinosaur.
July 20, 1969 - The Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first people to walk on the moon.
July 21, 1620 - Birthday of the French astronomer Jean Picard, who made the first accurate measurement of the Earth’s circumference.
July 22, 1822 - Birthday of the Austrian botanist Gregor Mendel, who discovered the laws of heredity.
July 22, 1888 - Birthday of the American biochemist Selman Waksman, who discovered the antibiotic streptomycin.
July 23, 1928 - Birthday of the American astronomer Vera Rubin, who discovered that galaxies consist mostly of dark matter which gives off no light or other radiation.
July 23 through Aug. 21 - Perseid meteor Shower
July 24, 1911 - The American archaeologist Hiram Bingham discovered Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas, in the Peruvian Andes.
July 25, 1920 - Birthday of the English biochemist Rosalind Franklin, who took the first X-ray diffraction photographs of the DNA molecule which clearly showed its helical structure.
July 26, 1894 - Birthday of the English author Aldous Huxley, who wrote the novel Brave New World, in which he warned of the dangers of advanced technology.
July 27, 1870 - Birthday of the American physicist Bertram Boltwood, who discovered how to determine the age of rocks by using the rate of decay of the radioactive isotopes which they contain.
July 28, 1904 - Birthday of the Russian physicist Pavel Cherenkov, who dis-covered that when charged particles travel faster than light through a liquid or a transparent solid, they give off a blue light (now called Cherenkov radiation).
July 29, 1796 - Birthday of the American engineer Walter Hunt, who invented the safety pin.
July 30, 1889 - Birthday of the Russian-American engineer Vladimir Zworykin, who invented the cathode-ray picture tube which is used in television sets and computer monitors.
July 31, 1752 - The Schönbrunn Zoo opened in Vienna, Austria. It was the world’s first zoo, and it is still in operation.