One of the things that has helped me as much as any other, is not how long I am going to live, but how much I can do while living. – George Washington Carver
1853 – Opening of the first major US world’s fair, the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York City.
Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations was a World’s Fair held in 1853 in what is now Bryant Park in New York City, in the wake of the highly successful 1851 Great Exhibition in London. It aimed to showcase the new industrial achievements of the world and also to demonstrate the nationalistic pride of a relatively young nation and all that she stood for. Jacob Aaron Westervelt, at that time Mayor of New York, was the President of the exhibition-committee. The general superintendent was Admiral Du Pont.
Opening on July 14, 1853 with newly sworn President Franklin Pierce in attendance, the fair was seen by over 1.1 million visitors before it closed on November 14, 1854. The fair featured its own glass and iron exhibition building – the New York Crystal Palace – directly inspired by London’s. The Palace was destroyed by fire on October 5, 1858.
1868 – Gertrude Bell, English archaeologist and spy is born.
Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, CBE was an English writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, spy and archaeologist who explored, mapped, and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making due to her knowledge and contacts, built up through extensive travels in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia. Along with T. E. Lawrence, Bell helped establish the Hashemite dynasties in what is today Jordan as well as in Iraq.
She played a major role in establishing and helping administer the modern state of Iraq, utilising her unique perspective from her travels and relations with tribal leaders throughout the Middle East. During her lifetime she was highly esteemed and trusted by British officials and given an immense amount of power for a woman at the time. She has been described as “one of the few representatives of His Majesty’s Government remembered by the Arabs with anything resembling affection”.
1943 – In Diamond, Missouri, the George Washington Carver National Monument becomes the first United States National Monument in honor of an African American.
George Washington Carver National Monument is a unit of the National Park Service located about two miles west of Diamond, Missouri; the national monument was founded on July 14, 1943, by Franklin Delano Roosevelt who dedicated $30,000 US to the monument. It was the first national monument dedicated to a black American and first to a non-President.
The site preserves of the boyhood home of George Washington Carver, as well as the 1881 Moses Carver house and the Carver cemetery. His boyhood home consists of rolling hills, woodlands, and prairies. The 210-acre (85 ha) park has a 3/4 mile (1.2 km) nature trail, museum, and an interactive exhibit area for students. It is open year round, from 9 am–5 pm.
1965 – The Mariner 4 flyby of Mars takes the first close-up photos of another planet.
The spacecraft flew by Mars on July 14 and July 15, 1965. Planetary science mode was turned on at 15:41:49 UT on July 14. The camera sequence started at 00:18:36 UT on July 15 (7:18:49 p.m. EST on July 14) and 21 pictures using alternate red and green filters, plus 21 lines of a 22nd picture were taken. The images covered a discontinuous swath of Mars starting near 40° N, 170° E, down to about 35° S, 200° E, and then across to the terminator at 50° S, 255° E, representing about 1% of the planet’s surface. The closest approach was 9,846 km from the Martian surface at 01:00:57 UT July 15, 1965 (8:00:57 p.m. EST July 14). The images taken during the flyby were stored in the on-board tape recorder. At 02:19:11 UT Mariner 4 passed behind Mars as seen from Earth and the radio signal ceased. The signal was reacquired at 03:13:04 UT when the spacecraft reappeared. Cruise mode was then re-established. Transmission of the taped images to Earth began about 8.5 hours after signal reacquisition and continued until August 3. All images were transmitted twice to ensure no data was missing or corrupt.
The spacecraft performed all programmed activities successfully and returned useful data from launch until 22:05:07 UT on October 1, 1965, when the long distance to Earth (309.2 million km) and the imprecise antenna orientation led to a temporary loss of communication with the spacecraft until 1967.
1992 – 386BSD is released by Lynne Jolitz and William Jolitz beginning the Open Source Operating System Revolution. Linus Torvalds releases his Linux soon afterwards.
386BSD, sometimes called “Jolix”, was a free Unix-like operating system based on BSD, first released in 1992. It ran on PC-compatible computer systems based on the Intel 80386 microprocessor. 386BSD innovations include role-based security, ring buffers, self-ordered configuration and modular kernel design. The BSDs for PC descend from it.
2014 – Introducing the Raspberry Pi Model B+ – tech details and more by Ladyada @raspberry_pi #raspberrypi
Introducing the Raspberry Pi Model B+ @ The Adafruit Learning System.
Yep, that’s right, the fantastic engineers at Raspberry Pi HQ have blessed us with a new design. They’ve taken all the feedback over the last 3 years and rolled out a nice updated Pi with many fixes and extras…all at the same price!
