On April 1, 1959, Donald Kaufman was born in New York City. The family moved to the town of Massapequa, NY when Donald was a boy, then to Connecticut, where he and his brother Charles graduated from high school. After graduating he followed his brother to Boston University. Then they both transferred to New York… Continue reading

Remember cold fusion? Back in 1989, two scientists specializing in electrochemistry announced — not in a scientific journal, but in a press conference — that they’d created a “sustained nuclear fusion reaction” at room temperature without the vast technical apparatus traditional “hot” fusion experiments required. The leading scientist on the team was Martin Fleischmann, who… Continue reading

Back in the days before GPS and similar systems, navigation was complex and difficult. It was one thing on a ship, which is moving at a reasonable speed, but as airplanes got bigger and capable of longer distances, somebody had to navigate a machine hurtling through an invisible fluid at super-high speed. On March 28,… Continue reading

One of the unfortunately recurring themes of International Women’s Month has been women whose achievements have been relatively ignored and overlooked. Women who want to simply participate in many areas, including engineering and science, have had to overcome barriers to entry that men simply haven’t faced (since  the barriers were often created by those men).… Continue reading

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Robert Frost, a 20th Century American poet born March 26, 1874 in San Francisco. Some poets achieve their greatest fame only after they’re gone, but Frost was widely celebrated during his lifetime, and is still the only poet to win four Pulitzer Prizes.  Frost’s family moved across… Continue reading

Even centuries ago in male-dominated Europe, there were occasionally women who exerted their influence in politics and religious matters openly rather than behind the scenes. Caterina di Jacopo di Beincasa was one of those. She was born March 25, 1347 in Siena, which is now in Italy. Her father owned a cloth dyeing business, and… Continue reading

The 1600s in Europe — specifically, in this case London, England — was a time when intellectually-oriented people started to correspond, meet, experiment, and publish. Scientists like Robert Boyle, writers like John Milton, philosophers like William Petty, and architects like Christopher Wren all knew each other and were in close touch. They created informal societies… Continue reading

Today is the Day of Equality in Finland. Not by coincidence, it’s also the “flag flying day” of Minna Canth, and the anniversary of her birth in 1844. Canth was a prominent Finnish writer and social activist.  She was born in Tampere, a medium-sized town on the Nokia River (yes, that Nokia). Her father was… Continue reading

Even though we live in a largely patriarchal society (which used to a lot more patriarchal), there have always been women willing to strike out on their own paths in spite of sometimes dire consequences. One of them, long, long ago, was Anne Howard, who was born in England in 1557. Her life was almost… Continue reading

Sports, in general, tends to be an area where the sexes are segregated. You won’t find any women on a men’s baseball team, for example, and vice versa. But what about the officials? It turns out that there have been female umpires and referees, and for longer than you might guess.  Amanda Clement was born… Continue reading