Coal tar…ahem, saccharin was invented mistakenly in a lab at Johns Hopkins University on February 27, 1879 while a scientist named Constantin Fahlberg was developing coal tar compounds. After returning home, his lips came into contact with his hands, and he realized that the compounds had an intensely sweet flavor. He developed it into something marketable, which later became the first commercially available artificial sweetener, always in a pink packet, known as saccharin.
1864
On March 1, 1864, Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the African American female to become a doctor, after receiving her degree from the New England Female Medical College in Boston.
1852
John Harvey Kellogg, founder of Kellogg’s, born February 26th, 1852, was an early proponent of low calorie, low fat diets, his at-the-time bizarre lifestyle now seems a portent for many of the medical and dietary beliefs that are now commonplace. He publicly announced his conviction that cigarettes caused lung cancer long before any study had linked the two, and he advocated vegetarianism and regular exercise decades before it became regular for the medical establishment to do so.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
