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Astronomy and space exploration

• March 16 – Robert Goddard launches the first liquid-fueled rocket, at Auburn, Massachusetts. This is considered by some to be the start of the space age, although his rocket did not reach outer space.¹

Biology

• American microbiologist Selman Waksman publishes Enzymes.
• The Quarterly Review of Biology is established by Raymond Pearl in the United States.

Chemistry

• Waldo Semon and the B.F. Goodrich Company develop a method of plasticizing polyvinyl chloride, giving it commercial potential.
• Graham Edgar originates the octane rating system for automotive fuel.²
• Phencyclidine (PCP, angel dust) is first synthesized.

Earth sciences

• Vladimir Vernadsky popularises the concept of the biosphere in a book (in Russian) of this title.

Exploration

• May 12 – Roald Amundsen, Umberto Nobile and crew fly over the North Pole in the airship Norge.

Mathematics

• Otakar Borůvka publishes Borůvka's algorithm, introducing the greedy algorithm.³⁴⁵⁶

Medicine

• First vaccine for pertussis.
• American biogerontologist Raymond Pearl publishes his book Alcohol and Longevity⁷ demonstrating that drinking alcohol in moderation is associated with greater longevity than either abstaining or drinking heavily.⁸
• Finnish physician Erik Adolf von Willebrand first describes Hereditär pseudohemofili ("Hereditary pseudohemophilia"),⁹ later known as Von Willebrand disease.
• German-Jewish dermatologist Walter Freudenthal gives the earliest clear histopathological description of keratoma senile (actinic keratosis), distinguishing it from verruca senilis (seborrheic keratosis), in Breslau.¹⁰
• The description 'glioblastoma multiforme' is introduced by Percival Bailey and Harvey Cushing.¹¹

Meteorology

• Wasaburo Oishi first describes the jet stream.¹²

Paleontology

• Gerhard Heilmann publishes The Origin of Birds (in English) on bird evolution.

Physics

• Wolfgang Pauli uses Werner Heisenberg's matrix theory of quantum mechanics to derive the observed spectrum of the hydrogen atom.

Technology

• January 26 – Scottish inventor John Logie Baird demonstrates his pioneering greyscale mechanical television system (which he calls a "televisor") at his London laboratory for members of the Royal Institution and a reporter from The Times.^13141516
• February – Hidetsugu Yagi and Shintaro Uda publish the first description of the Yagi–Uda antenna.
• June 28 – A patent for an electric percussion fuse for explosive projectiles, invented by Herbert Rühlemann, is filed in Germany.
• July
  • Alan A. Griffith publishes An Aerodynamic Theory of Turbine Design, proposing an airfoil shape for turbine blades.¹⁷¹⁸
  • Carl Zeiss, Jena, open a planetarium housed in a geodesic dome designed by Walther Bauersfeld.¹⁹
• November 23 – The aerosol spray can is patented by Erik Rotheim, a Norwegian chemical engineer.²⁰
• The Einstein refrigerator is invented by Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard.
• Ulster-born engineer Harry Ferguson is granted a British patent for his 'Duplex' hitch linking tractor and plough.
• German engineer Andreas Stihl patents and develops an electric chainsaw.²¹

Awards

• Nobel Prizes
  • Physics – Jean Baptiste Perrin
  • Chemistry – Theodor Svedberg
  • Medicine – Johannes Andreas Grib Fibiger²²
• Copley Medal: Frederick Hopkins
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Henry Fairfield Osborn

Births

• January 11 – Lev Dyomin (died 1998), Soviet Russian cosmonaut.
• January 29 – Abdus Salam (died 1996), Punjabi theoretical physicist.²³
• February – David Medved (died 2009), American physicist.
• March 7 – Margaret Weston (died 2021), English electrical engineer and Director of the Science Museum, London.
• April 3 – Gus Grissom (died 1967), American astronaut.²⁴
• May 1 – Eva Siracká (died 2023), Slovak physician
• May 8 – David Attenborough, English broadcaster and naturalist.
• May 17 – Franz Sondheimer (died 1981), German-born British chemist
• June 19 – Erna Schneider Hoover, American computer technologist.
• June 23 – Lawson Soulsby (died 2017), English parasitologist.
• July 27 – W. David Kingery (died 2000), American materials scientist specializing in ceramic materials.
• July 31
  • Bernard Nathanson (died 2011), American medical doctor and activist.
  • Hilary Putnam (died 2016), American philosopher, mathematician and computer scientist.
• August 11 – Sir Aaron Klug (died 2018), Lithuanian-born British biophysicist and chemist.
• August 19 – George Daniels (died 2011), English horologist.
• September 4 – George William Gray (died 2013), Scottish chemist, discoverer of stable liquid crystal materials leading to the development of liquid-crystal displays.
• September 7 – Donald Pinkel (died 2022), American pediatric hematologist and oncologist.
• September 15 – Jean-Pierre Serre, French mathematician.
• October 2 – Michio Suzuki (died 1998), Japanese mathematician.
• October 12 – Ruth L. Kirschstein (died 2009), American pathologist and science administrator at the National Institutes of Health.
• October 31 – Narinder Singh Kapany (died 2020), Punjabi-born physicist.
• November 29 – Dilhan Eryurt (died 2012), Turkish astrophysicist.
• December 10 – Neena Schwartz (died 2018), American endocrinologist.

Deaths

• March 5 – Clément Ader (born 1841), French engineer and inventor, airplane pioneer.
• April 11 – Luther Burbank (born 1849), American plant breeder.
• May 8 – Stephen Paget (born 1855), English surgeon.
• July 21 – Washington Roebling (born 1837), American civil engineer.
• September 23 – Paul Kammerer (born 1880), Austrian Lamarckian biologist (suicide).
• October 7 – Emil Kraepelin (born 1856), German psychiatrist.
• October 10 – Clara H. Hasse (born 1880), American botanist.
• October 19 – Victor Babeș (born 1854), Romanian physician and bacteriologist.
• November 26 – John Browning (born 1855), American firearms designer.

References

1. "Goddard launches space age with historic first 85 years ago today". Retrieved 2022-08-09. http://www.clarku.edu/article/goddard-launches-space-age-historic-first-85-years-ago-today ↩

2. "The Octane Scale". Polymer Science Learning Center. Retrieved 2023-10-11. https://pslc.ws/macrog/exp/rubber/synth/octane.htm ↩

3. Borůvka, Otakar (1926). "O jistém problému minimálním [About a certain minimal problem]". Práce Mor. Přírodověd. Spol. V Brně III (in Czech and German). 3: 37–58. ↩

4. Borůvka, Otakar (1926). "Příspěvek k řešení otázky ekonomické stavby elektrovodních sítí [Contribution to the solution of a problem of economical construction of electrical networks]". Elektronický Obzor (in Czech). 15: 153–4. ↩

5. Nešetřil, Jaroslav; Milková, Eva; Nešetřilová, Helena (2001). "Otakar Borůvka on minimum spanning tree problem: translation of both the 1926 papers, comments, history". Discrete Mathematics. 233 (1–3): 3–36. doi:10.1016/S0012-365X(00)00224-7. hdl:10338.dmlcz/500413. MR 1825599. /wiki/Jaroslav_Ne%C5%A1et%C5%99il ↩

6. "ekonomicke stavby". www.domy-drevostavby-na-klic.cz. Retrieved 20 January 2016. http://www.domy-drevostavby-na-klic.cz/technologie-ekonomicke-stavby/ ↩

7. Pearl, Raymond (1926). Alcohol and Longevity. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-405-13615-3. 978-0-405-13615-3 ↩

8. Boyle, Peter; Boffetta, Paolo; Lowenfels, Albert B.; Burns, Harry; Brawley, Otis; Zatonski, Witold; Rehm, Jürgen (2013). Alcohol: Science, Policy and Public Health. Oxford University Press. p. 14. ISBN 9780199655786. 9780199655786 ↩

9. Von Willebrand, E. A. (1926). "Hereditär pseudohemofili". Finska Läkaresällskapets Handlingar (in Swedish). 68: 87–112. ↩

10. Freudenthal, Walter (1926). "Verruca senilis und Keratoma senile". Archiv für Dermatologie und Syphilis. 152 (2): 505–528. doi:10.1007/BF01828395. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩

11. Bailey; Cushing (1926). Tumors of the Glioma Group. Philadelphia: Lippincott. ↩

12. Ooishi, W. (1926). Raporto de la Aerologia Observatorio de Tateno (in Esperanto). Aerological Observatory Report 1, Central Meteorological Observatory, Japan. 213 pp. ↩

13. "BBC - History - John Logie Baird". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2019-04-07. https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/baird_logie.shtml ↩

14. The Hutchinson Factfinder. Helicon. 1999. ISBN 1-85986-000-1. 1-85986-000-1 ↩

15. "Baird demonstrates TV". History com. Retrieved 2019-04-13. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/baird-demonstrates-tv ↩

16. "John Logie Baird | British inventor". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2019-04-13. https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Logie-Baird ↩

17. Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, Report no. H 1111. /wiki/Royal_Aircraft_Establishment ↩

18. Rubbra, A. A. (1964). "Alan Arnold Griffith. 1893–1963". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 10: 117–136. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1964.0008. JSTOR 769315. /wiki/Biographical_Memoirs_of_Fellows_of_the_Royal_Society ↩

19. "Photographs of the Zeiss Optical Company's first geodesic dome". Archived from the original on 2013-03-19. Retrieved 2011-12-19. https://web.archive.org/web/20130319084511/http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~trothman/domes.html ↩

20. Bellis, Mary. "The History of Aerosol Spray Cans". About.com. Archived from the original on May 26, 2012. Retrieved 2011-06-27. https://archive.today/20120526093628/http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/a/aerosol.htm ↩

21. Reid, Mark Collin (2017). "Timber!". Canada's History. 97 (5): 20–23. ↩

22. "These Nobel Prize Winners Weren't Always Noble". National Geographic News. 6 October 2015. Archived from the original on August 8, 2020. Retrieved 19 January 2021. https://web.archive.org/web/20200808155045/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/10/151005-nobel-laureates-forget-racist-sexist-science/ ↩

23. Kibble, T. W. B. (1 November 1998). "Muhammad Abdus Salam, K. B. E.. 29 January 1926-21 November 1996". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 44: 387–401. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1998.0025. /wiki/Doi_(identifier) ↩

24. "Virgil I. Grissom | American astronaut". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 19 January 2021. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Virgil-I-Grissom ↩