Learn about the history of science by reading about the significant scientific events that took place on this day in history.
1965 - First "Close up" photographs taken of Mars.
NASA
NASA's Mariner 4 spacecraft made its closest approach to the planet Mars and began recording pictures of the planet's surface. Mariner 4 sent back 22 pictures that showed impact craters and vast stretches of barren terrain much like the Moon. It was later learned the terrain mapped by Mariner 4 was atypical of most of the Martian surface.
1921 - Geoffrey Wilkinson was born.
Geoffrey Wilkinson shares the 1973 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Ernst Otto Fischer for their independent pioneering work with organometallic compounds. He worked on compounds with transition metal complexes and catalysts to hydrogenate alkenes into alkanes. He also identified the structure of the sandwich compound, ferrocene.1907 - William Henry Perkin died.
Wikimedia Commons
Perkin was an English chemist who discovered the first aniline dye called mauveine. He was trying to synthesize quinine and discovered aniline mixed with sodium dichromate produced a very purple mixture. This discovery started the artificial dye business that revolutionized the textiles industry.
He also synthesized coumarin, the first synthetic perfume that began the synthetic perfume industry.
1874 - André Louis Debierne was born.
Debierne was a French chemist who discovered the element actinium. He was also active in the research of radium with Pierre and Marie Curie. He and Marie Curie demonstrated the metallic properties of radium.1827 - Augustin Jean Fresnel died.
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Fresnel was a French physicist best known for the development of wave optics. He investigated light wave interference and polarization, showing light traveled as a longitudinal wave instead of a horizontal wave like sound waves. He developed the Fresnel lens, which uses concentric prisms to focus light for use in lighthouses.
1801 - Johannes Peter Müller was born.
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Müller was a German anatomist who was one of the pioneers of modern comparative anatomy. He is best known for his discoveries on the senses. He found each sense responds to stimuli in its own unique way. He determined the law of specific nerve energies where the nature of perception is defined by the path the stimuli takes to the brain and not the origin of the sensation. For example, when you close your eyes and press on your eyelids, you 'see' light, even though there is no light involved.
1800 - Jean Baptiste André Dumas was born.
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Dumas was a French chemist who pioneered the field of organic chemistry and determined atomic mass by measuring vapor density. He is also known for his "Law of Substitution" where the hydrogen atoms of a compound could be substituted by chlorine or oxygen atoms in some organic reactions without greatly changing the compound's structure.
