Canada. Luigi Zarossi, an immigrant from Italy, after getting rich with the first Chain Letter, was forced to flee to Mexico, but not before teaching the trick to the enterprising Romagnol Carlo Ponzi, later Charles Ponzi, who even managed to patent the “Ponzi scheme.”
At 17, Robert Goddard, when he took refuge in his cherry tree near his home in Worcester, Massachusetts, imagined spaceships landing on Mars. When he came down from the tree, he was a different person: he would dedicate the rest of his life to building
Pierre Curie wrote the letters Po for polonium in the laboratory log, a name given in honor of Marie’s beloved homeland, Poland. However, the element was still linked to bismuth and barium in plechbenda, a uranium mineral, in which they would eventually find radium in
Aluminum is worth about one hundredth of silver. In 1855, when an industrial process was first developed to extract it from bauxite, it cost 12 times as much as silver. The use and diffusion of aluminum went from specific to common and finally banal, a
The Philippines proclaims independence. After 300 years of Spanish rule, Filipino rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo proclaims his country’s independence during the Spanish-American War. With the support of the United States, Aguinaldo quickly expelled the Spanish and established Asia’s first democratic republic, which lasted only until
Havana, Cuba (a Spanish possession). The American battleship USS Maine, anchored in the harbor, suddenly explodes and quickly sinks. Some of the sailors are rescued by the nearby, mighty Spanish ship Alfonso XII. In all, 85 sailors are saved, and 265 lose their lives. Admiral
Leo Szilard was born in Budapest, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Royal Institution, London. Physicist Thomson, in evening dress, recreates a series of experiments at the periodic Friday Evening Discourse event. These events were designed to publicly showcase the latest scientific discoveries and drew huge crowds each time.
H.G. Wells writes The Plattner Story, in which the protagonist finds himself living in a universe with Möbius strip geometry, so that when he walks in one direction he finds himself with inverted symmetry, including his internal organs.
The Times reports the news of a “Benin Disaster”: a British delegation in Benin is attacked and some of its members killed. In response, the British organize a punitive expedition that exiles the Oba Regent and creates the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria. The loot includes
The Niagara Power Plant begins transmitting power to Buffalo using three-phase AC, using the Westinghouse-Tesla solution. Within the following decade, the same electrical power will also reach New York. A similar solution will soon be adopted on the Canadian side of the Falls. Following the
London. Guglielmo Marconi meets for the first time with his cousin Henry’s lawyer, William Carpmael, who has specific experience in the industrial application of electricity. A few days later, the first patent is filed.
London. The very young (22-year-old) Guglielmo Marconi has only arrived in the city a few days ago, but he is already receiving General Annibale Ferrero, the Italian ambassador to London and also a senator, at his home (71 Hereford Road, Bayswater). Marconi would like to
Henri Becquerel first observed the phenomenon of uranium radioactivity. He intended to conduct an experiment on the fluorescence of uranium salts, but instead abandoned the experiment and left the photographic plate with the uranium salt chip on it in a drawer. A few days later,
Guglielmo Marconi’s first experiments (at age 21) were conducted at his father’s residence (Giuseppe Marconi): Villa Griffone in Pontecchio Marconi, near Bologna. Marconi transmitted a radio signal from the window of his laboratory to bypass the Celestini hill, located 2 km away. That same year,
Edward Dean Adams and Nikola Tesla found the Nikola Tesla Company. The American economy is still in recession after the financial panic of 1893, which forces the new company to significantly shift its strategy from divergent (innovation) to convergent (product development). But Tesla isn’t as
Dubois returned to Europe after his discovery of the Trinial Skullcap attributed to the hominid Anthropitecus erectus, later popularized as Java Man and today known as Homo erectus; he expected a triumphant reception, which instead turned out to be very lukewarm and even hostile; Dubois
Bayer chemist Feliz Hofmann investigated the properties of compounds with similarities to salicyclic acid, obtained from salicin, a molecule with analgesic properties isolated in 1827 from willow bark (Salix). Salicyclic acid, despite containing glucose, has a bitter taste. Its properties reduce fever and relieve pain,
United States. In the International Niagara Commission’s contest to determine the best method for extracting and distributing electricity from the falls, Lord Kelvin insists to its leader, banker Edward Dean Adams, “Trust you to avoid the gigantic mistake of adopting alternating current.” Adams instead chooses
United States. Westinghouse (with Nikola Tesla’s patents) and General Electric (with Elihu Thomson and Charles Bradley’s patents) are locked in a patent dispute over multi-phase AC motors and generators. The legal battle has obvious implications for the contest established by banker Edward Dean Adams (formerly
United States. Westinghouse decides (finally) to enforce his (Tesla’s) patents for three-phase AC motors and generators. This also applies to the contest established by banker Edward Dean Adams (formerly head of the Cataract Construction Company in Niagara): the International Niagara Commission, to determine the best
Homestead Strike, Cleveland, Ohio. Two thousand workers at Andrew Carnegie’s steel mills are on strike over the unacceptable working conditions imposed by ruthless manager Henry Clay Frick. Carnegie has traveled to his estates in Scotland to give Frick a free hand, who hires the Pinkertons,
The General Electric Company was born as a merger between the Edison Electric Light Company and the Thomson-Houston Company
Paris. Nikola Tesla, fresh from his tremendous success in London, also visits the French capital and gives a lecture at the Societe de Physique and the Societe International des Electriciens. Edouard Hospitalier calls him “almost a prophet.” Tesla then meets with representatives of Schneider &
John L. Loud creates the first pen with a small rotating ball that is constantly fed with ink, but fails to exploit the invention commercially.
After photographer Eadweard Muybridge visited Thomas Alva Edison to show him zoopraxiscopic images—that is, images that follow one another rapidly and leave the impression of movement on the retina—Edison went on to invent the Kinetograph and the Kinetoscope: “an instrument that does for the eye
Albert A. Michelson of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, measured the speed of light (with what would later be called the Michelson Interferometer) with such precision that he could declare it constant despite the Earth’s motions (rotation and revolution). The Michelson-Morley experiment thus
Heinrich Hertz discovered a puzzling phenomenon (for physicists): the photoelectric effect. Ultraviolet (UV) light on a charged metal surface causes sparks (loses electrons), while infrared (IR) light does not. Wave theory at the time predicted that energy is proportional to amplitude, not frequency. It would
United States. Nikola Tesla, convinced that his three-phase motor should be viewed as a single invention, files for a comprehensive patent, which will, however, be divided into seven separate patents, approved on May 1, 1888.
Manhattan, New York. Charles Peck and Alfred Brown of the Mutual Union Telegraph Company rent a laboratory for Nikola Tesla in lower Manhattan. They agree to split the profits: 33% to Tesla, 33% split between Peck and Brown, and 33% reinvested in R&D. That April,
Apache chief Geronimo surrenders to the U.S. Army after 30 years of fighting. General Nelson Miles accepts the surrender.
A general strike at the Edison Machine Works called for wage increases and union recognition. Thomas Alva Edison considered moving operations to Schenectady, where his financial advisor Insull had acquired an old locomotive factory. Schenectady would become the headquarters of General Electric.
Berlin, Germany. The AEG (Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft) is founded, which, like Bell Labs in New York, sees a fruitful collaboration between basic and applied research. Its original name was actually the Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft für angewandte Elektricität, and after World War II it moved to Frankfurt am
Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia erupts, ejecting 10km3 of material and killing 36,000 people.
Thomas Alva Edison and Samuel Insull, who had just arrived from England the day before to manage Edison’s finances, went to 4 Goerck Street, New York, near the East River, to inspect three old factories: an immense old ironworks now crowned by the word “EDISON
While pursuing his hobby of photography, the French Count Hilaire de Chardonnet discovered a collodion solution (used to coat glass plates, which were then sensitized with a special solution) from which he could draw long silk-like threads. It was the first reasonable “synthetic” imitation of
Scotland. The longest bridge in the world, the Tay Rail Bridge, made of cast iron, collapses during a violent storm. A train carrying 75 passengers falls into the river, killing everyone. The disaster makes it clear that cast iron is unsuitable for these tasks. Improved
Menlo Park, New Jersey. A charred wick begins to burn in the hollow of Thomas Alva Edison’s light bulb. It produces a light that, this time after thousands of attempts, would not soon go out. It will last 13 and a half hours before going
The Philadelphia Centennial opens. The day before, Thomas Alva Edison registers the last of his first five patents, all registered as “telegraphs,” although three are actually telephone patents. The Philadelphia Centennial highlights are June 25th, with Alexander Graham Bell’s demonstration of his telephone to a
The Swiss company Nestlé produces its first milk chocolate. It’s yet another attempt (this time extremely successful—previous attempts included milk flour) to store excess Swiss milk production in a long-life form. (In the Po Valley, the solution is Parmigiano Reggiano and Grana Padano.) Milk chocolate
The last Prussian soldier leaves occupied France, the incredible French economic recovery begins.