Gnovember is a busy month, Marie Curie's birthday, Robert Goddard's experiments with rockets. For the Romans, it was the ninth month. . We'll have Election Day, Veteran's Day (see bonus gnus), and Thanksgiving. Also, National Children's Book Week, Cat Week, Indian Heritage Day (the 25th), Favorite Author's Day, and National Stamp Collecting Week. It  is also a very busy day for presidential births featuring; Zachary Taylor, James K. Polk, Franklin Pierce, James Garfield and Warren Harding.  

This month's full moon is called the "Beaver Moon"

Science Gnus is an almanacish compendium of News of Science, History, Mathematics and Items of Interest as well as Professor Sy Yentz, Dr. Matt Matician, the Activity of the Month, Factorinos, Trivia Question, Bonus Trivia Question, Extinct, Trivia Answers, Jokes, Obscure Question, Scientist of the Month, and the Flower Rock and Word of the Month

1.     1500 – Happy Birthday, Benvenuto Cellini, Italian renaissance  sculptor/goldsmith/writer most famous for his sculpture of Perseus holding the Head of Medusa and his autobiography. Cellini would be the perfect subject for a movie or television series. In addition to his artistic accomplishments he was a soldier and occasionally broke the law.  He was banished from his native Florence for his alleged role in a brawl.  In his autobiography he claimed to play a role in the unsuccessful defense of Rome in 1527 against the forces of Charles VII, slaying the Constable of Bourbon in one attack and later killing Philibert, Prince of Orange, as well. In 1529 he killed a man who had early killed Cellini's brother and, in another incident, wounded a notary of the city. He was imprisoned in 1537 on a charge of stealing gems from a tiara of the Pope. Where the Pope was when the gem went missing from his tiara is unclear. Intervention by Cardinal d'Este of Ferrara (for whom he had created a silver cup) and others brought his release, and Cellini left Rome and spent a few years at the court of Francis I of France before returning to Florence and concentrating on his art rather than his hooliganism.

            1512- Michelangelo's frescos in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican in Rome was opened to the public for the first time. (The lines were around the block and kept getting longer as tour groups were inserted into the line by their guides.) Michelangelo's ceiling frescoes (a fresco is a painting technique in which pigments suspended in water are applied to a damp lime-plaster surface), which took several years to complete, and now are among his most famous. The ceiling is a complex system of decoration featuring figures in nine panels devoted to biblical world history. The most famous of these is The Creation of Adam, a painting in which the arms of God and Adam are stretching toward each other with the fingers almost touching. And, while Charlton Heston starred in the movie, The Agony and the Ecstasy, no, Michelangelo didn’t do the painting lying on his back. There was an elaborate scaffold system.  In fact, if one looks carefully, one can see the paint-by-numbers outline used by the great artist.  Not once did he paint “over the line”.  The chapel was originally constructed from 1473 – 81 by Giovanni dei Dolci for Pope Sixtus IV (for whom it is named, yes it was the ”joy of Sixtus” or “Sixtus in the City”). The ceiling frescoes were commissioned by Pope Julius II and painted from 1508 – 12. Michelangelo’ other famous painting(s) in the chapel was  the Last Judgment fresco on the western wall which was painted from 1536 – 41 for Pope Paul III. Take a close look at the fresco and find the  figure of St. Bartholomew, the martyr who was flayed alive.  Hanging from the saint’s hand is Michelangelo’s self portrait, his own face in the empty envelope of skin, a metaphor for the artist's tortured soul. The Gnus highly recommends, Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling by Ross King for a great description of the process.

      1520 – “Do you think we should make a left turn up here?”  “No Magellan, go strait. The Strait of Magellan, the passage immediately south of mainland South America, connecting the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, was first navigated by Ferdinand Magellan during his global circumnavigation voyage. It was another serendipitous moment in history as Magellan found the strait that is now named after him by chance. When two of his ships were driven towards land in a storm, the men feared they would be dashed against the shore. Then, just in time, they spotted a small opening in the coastline. The passage through the strait took over a month.

             1604 - William Shakespeare's tragedy Othello was first performed, at Whitehall Palace in London before King James I and his court.  The famous Renaissance actor Richard Burbage was the first Othello, contrary to popular thought, Joan Rivers was not the first Desdemona.

            1755- Lisbon, Portugal. A powerful earthquake, felt across Europe, rocked the city three times causing destruction of property, fires and three tsunamis. Over 60,000 died, most drowning in the enormous tidal waves. The earthquake struck in mid-morning during a high religious holiday, All Souls Day. Shortly afterward, the three large tsunamis swept over the city's harbor and killed many thousands of refugees. A week later, after uncontrollable fires and unremitting aftershocks, essentially the whole city of Lisbon was in ashes

         1765 - Despite widespread opposition in the American colonies, the British Parliament enacted the Stamp Act, a taxation measure designed to raise revenue for British military operations in America. People were required to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they used. Ship's papers, legal documents, licenses, newspapers, other publications, and even playing cards were taxed……..seems very similar to many of the taxes we have today……. This should not be confused with the "Stamp Your Foot Act" - a tantrum thrown by young children and adults when they are angry or frustrated.
        1798- Happy Birthday, Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, Irish brewer and first lord mayor of Dublin under the reformed corporation in1851. Guinness’ brewery became one of the largest in the world. He had taken control of his grandfather’s business in 1855.  Until his time Dublin stout was chiefly used in home consumption; he developed an immense export trade particularly to the United States, although Professor Sy Yentz loves the stout in Ireland, he thinks the imported stuff tastes like swill.

        1800- President John Adams, in year four of his only term as president, moved into the newly constructed President’s House, the original name for what is known today as the White House. It was designed by Irish-born architect James Hoban, who won a gold medal for his design. John and Abigail Adams had been looking for a three bedroom, two-bathroom split level ranch in a good neighborhood with a small but manageable lawn for a small garden, good schools and perhaps a pool. They settled for 132 rooms, 32 bathrooms, and 6 levels to accommodate all the people who live in, work in, and visit the White House. There are also 412 doors, 147 windows, 28 fireplaces, 7 staircases, and 3 elevators.

            1815- Happy Birthday, Crawford W. Long, American physician who pioneered use of anesthetics.  He performed his first surgical procedure using sulfuric ether gas on March 20, 1842, when he removed a tumor from the neck of a young man. Though he performed more surgeries using anesthesia over the next several years and began using it in his obstetrical practice, Long did not publish his findings. Note: Anesthetics were named after Anna Sthesia, a Greek philosopher noted for her C-SPAN like monologues that put people to sleep.  There is a Crawford Long Museum in Jefferson, Georgia http://www.crawfordlong.org/index.html We don’t think visitors are administered anesthesia when entering the museum.

                 1848 - The Boston Female Medical School, first medical school in the world exclusively for women opened for its first 12 students. It was founded by Samuel Gregory, who disapproved of male doctors attending childbirth and so its early curriculum focused on midwifery (which is not a study of the middle wife of a man who has been married three times but the art and science of assisting a woman before during and after labor and birth). These first twelve students graduated in 1850.  In the same year it was expanded to include a full medical curriculum, and began to grant medical degrees to women.  The school operated for 26 years before it merged with Boston University School of Medicine, which thus became one of the first coed medical colleges worldwide.

            1863- Happy Birthday, George Safford Parker, American inventor who perfected the fountain pen - after failing to find a pen that wrote well and didn’t leak - and founded the Parker Pen Company to manufacture it. The key element in the Parker Pen was the “Lucky Curve” feed system, a system that allowed ink to flow back into the reservoir….instead of all over the paper, your fingers, your pocket or your purse.

         1870- First weather observations made by U.S Weather Bureau- in twenty four locations.  Evidently, someone looked out the window and said, "It's raining by golly. Let’s tell someone.” That made a pretty good observation.  On November 8, the first "cautionary storm signal" was issued for Great Lakes shipping by Increase A. Lapham Also, thank you Jacob Bjerknes, see Nov. 2 below.  

        1871 - Happy Birthday, Stephen Crane, American journalist, poet and  author of  The Red Badge of Courage published in  1895.  The action in the book takes place at the Battle of Antietam, Sept. 1962.  Crane describes war from the point of view of an ordinary soldier. It has been called the first modern war novel.

    1879-  The world's first all-steel railroad bridge was placed in service over the Missouri River at Glasgow, Missouri. It was built for the Chicago & Alton. We know that the 2,700-ft five-span did not get a hernia since it had a truss.  It  took only a year to build but the Glasgow bridge was replaced, for heavier traffic, by a new bridge in 1900 reusing some of the substructure, but with Parker truss (truss, in addition to having faith in someone, is also a structural framework of wood or metal based on a triangular system).

            1880- Happy Birthday, Alfred Wegener, German meteorologist and geophysicist who first gave a well-developed hypothesis of continental drift - plate tectonics in 1912.  It was one of the most important and far-ranging geological theories of all time. Naturally, when first proposed, it was ridiculed, but steadily accumulating evidence finally prompted its acceptance, with immense consequences for geology, geophysics, oceanography, and paleontology. Wegener found that large-scale geological features on separated continents often matched very closely when the continents were brought together. For example, the Appalachian mountains of eastern North America matched with the Scottish Highlands, and the distinctive rock strata of the Karroo system of South Africa were identical to those of the Santa Catarina system in Brazil. Wegener also found that the fossils found in a certain place often indicated a climate utterly different from the climate of today: for example, fossils of tropical plants, such as ferns and cycads, are found today on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen. He suggested that about 250 million years ago all the present-day continents came from a single primitive land mass, the super continent which he named Pangaea, eventually broke up and gradually drifted apart.  Early in November 1930, in attempting to cross Greenland from an ice-cap camp to the Kamarujuk base on the west coast, he lost his life.  His suspected cause of death was heart failure through overexertion.

            1896 – Opening the way for years academic photos that would also titillate thousands of boys, picture showing the unclad (bare) breasts of a woman appeared in National Geographic magazine for the first time. It was a photograph of a Zulu bride and groom in Witwatersrand, South Africa. The decision to run it set a precedent to publish photos of indigenous peoples

            1901- Dr. J.E. Gillman announced an X-ray treatment for breast cancer.  Wilhelm Roentgen, Professor of Physics in Worzburg, Bavaria, had discovered x-rays in 1895.

            1918 – The Malbone Street wreck, the worst accident on a mass transit system occurred  in Brooklyn,  New York City as as BRT (Brooklyn Rapid Transit) Brighton Beach line subway drain driven by an overtired dispatcher driving for the first time – the motormen were on strike- derailed killing 93 people. The Malbone Street wreck also indirectly contributed to the death of the BRT, which fell into receivership a month later. The accident even managed to kill Malbone Street itself. The street became so synonymous with the grisly subway disaster that its name was later changed to Empire Boulevard.

1938 - Seabiscuit defeated War Admiral in an upset victory during a match race deemed "the match of the century" in horse racing. War Admiral had won the “Triple Crown”, the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes earlier in the year. The five year old Sea Biscuit had won many stakes races and this match at Pimlico Racetrack (site of the Preakness) 1 and 3/16 miles was eagerly anticipated. Seabiscuit won by four lengths.

             1939 -A rabbit conceived by artificial impregnation, was the first such animal in the U.S. to be displayed.  Dr. Gregory Pincus, an American biologist, had removed an egg from the ovary of a female rabbit and fertilized it with a salt solution. The egg was then transferred to the uterus of a second rabbit, which functioned as an “incubator.” The rabbit, exclaiming "What's up Doc?" gave a mighty "ahooo, ahooo" and bounced down the road being pursued by a pudgy, odd looking, hunter who kept exclaiming "cwazy Wabbit".

1946 - The New York Knicks (Knickerbockers) played against the Toronto Huskies at the Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, in the first Basketball Association of America game. The Knicks would win 68-66. Ed Sadowski, with 18 points, and New York's Leo Gottlieb, with 14, led their respective teams. Note; this game had no tattooed, chest pounding, trash talking,  posing exhibitionist “players” on either team.

1950 – Extremist Puerto Rican nationalists Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo attempted to assassinate President Harry S. Truman at the Blair House in Washington, D.C. Truman escaped unharmed. The two men had simply walked up to the door of Blair House (the Vice Presidential residence where Truman was staying while the White House underwent renovations) and opened fire.  Later attempts on the president featured blasting Jennifer Lopez recordings through a loud speaker and invitations to join Menudo.

1952- First test explosion of the H- Bomb – “Operation Ivy” (yes, this was the worst case of “poison ivy” that one can imagine) was held at Eniwetok in the Marshall Islands. The bomb, named, "Mike," was set off at 3,000 miles west of Hawaii. The "mushroom" cloud rose to top out in 5 minutes at 135,000 ft (the top of the stratosphere) and eventually spread to 1000 miles wide.   The USSR, thanks to its extensive espionage system, the country was like the kid next to you that spends peeks over your shoulder at your test, came up with its own H-bomb about a year later. So, Professor Sy Yentz, what is the difference between an atom bomb and a hydrogen bomb, we’re just as dead in either case, right?  Yes but there are more dead with an H-bomb which is the nuclear fusion of hydrogen isotopes. An atomic bomb, works by fission, not fusion,  uranium or plutonium is split into lighter elements that together weigh less than the original atoms, the remainder of the mass appearing as energy.     

1952 – And on the same day as the explosion of the first hydrogen bomb came the  premier of the great movie, Son of Geronimo, Apache Avenger – actually it was a serial. The cinematic classic, Ingmar Bergman would have been green with envy, starred television’s Clayton Moore (The Lone Ranger), Rod Redwing as Porico, son of Geronimo, and Rance Rankin.   

        1959 – Goalie Jacques Plante of the Montreal Canadiens hockey team became the first goalie to wear a mask in games on a regular basis. Note, Clint Benedict of the Montreal Maroons had 29 years earlier, but it was short-lived experiment….probably because it had no openings for the eyes, nose, or mouth….. ha, ha, ha, Professor Sy Yentz has his disguised sense of humor) Many goalies of the era wore masks in practice, including Plante, but after his nose was broken by a hard shot in a game on November 1 in New York against the New York Rangers, he refused to come back in without his fiberglass face mask. Since there was no backup goalie with the team so Montreal coach Toe Blake gave in. Plante wore a mask from that game on.

            1969 - Suspicious Minds, by Elvis Presley, hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts. The song was Presley's first chart-topper in seven years and would be his last. The following week it would yield the number 1 spot to Wedding Bell Blues by the Fifth Dimension. Presley, who made huge contributions to the mainstreaming of Rock and Roll in the mid 1950s, was reduced (under the guidance of Col. Tom Parker) to a bloated, drug addled caricature who posed nightly in Las Vegas during the remaining years of his life.  His musical contributions were reduced to classics such as He's Your Uncle, Not Your Dad ("Speedway") Poison Ivy League ("Roustabout") Dominic the Impotent Bull ("Stay Away, Joe") Queenie Wahine's Papaya ("Paradise Hawaiian Style")

             1977- Chiron, the farthest known asteroid (and original birthplace of Rosie O’Donnell) was discovered by Charles Kowal on a photographic plate taken on October 18. Chiron, located between Saturn and Uranus (reminder the correct pronunciation is "YOOR a nus" – so that Chiron is not located between Saturn and Your Anus) is a small asteroid about 200 Km in diameter.  It is volcanically active suggesting that it may not have been in its present orbit for more than a few million years and my have originated in the Kuiper Belt, a hypothetical disk-shaped reservoir of objects of sizes ranging from tiny particles to (the former planet, currently dwarf planet) Pluto or larger sized bodies at the outer edges of the Solar System.

             1978- The Environmental Education Act was passed.  The Act established and supports educational programs to improve awareness of environmental problems and encourages students to pursue careers related to the environment.

2.      1470 – Happy Birthday, King Edward V of England ,1483. Son of  King Edward the IV and more famously known as one of the “princes in the tower”.  After Edward IV’s death, his brother, Richard of Gloucester assumed “protection of young Edward V and his younger brother, Richard”. They were confined to the Tower of London and eventually declared illegitimate (Edward IV had a “woman problem” since possibly as a young man he was rumored to wedded a wench). Gloucester named himself rightful heir to the crown as Richard III.  The two young boys never emerged from the Tower, apparently murdered by, or at least on the orders of, their Uncle Richard. During renovations to the Tower in 1674, the skeletons of two children were found, possibly the murdered boys.  Due to historical controversy which continued to surround the matter of the fate of the Princes in the Tower, George V gave permission for the exhumation of these bones in 1933. An examination was conducted on the bones. They concluded that these were the bones of two children, the eldest aged twelve to thirteen and the younger nine to eleven. The heights of the two children were calculated to be four feet nine and a half inches and four feet six and a half inches respectively but identification was still uncertain.  Due to historical controversy which continued to surround the matter of the fate of the Princes in the Tower, George V gave permission for the exhumation of these bones in 1933. http://www.englishmonarchs.co.uk/plantagenet_13.htm

             1734 - Happy Birthday Daniel Boone (brother of singer Pat Boone) frontiersman and explorer, born in Berks County, near present day Reading Pa. At typical Boone quote: “I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks”.  If you saw the story of Boone’s life on TV (not counting the Fess Parker shows – which were basically Fess playing his old Davy Crockett role but now as Daniel Boone) it would be hard to believe all of his accomplishments and adventures…..in 1775 Boone and 30 other woodsmen were hired to improve the trails between the Carolinas and the west. The resulting route reached into the heart of Kentucky and became known as the "Wilderness Road." That same year Boone built a fort and village called Boonesborough in Kentucky, and moved his family over the Wilderness Road to their new home. In 1776, Shawnee warriors kidnapped his daughter and two other girls. Two days later Boone caught up with the Indians and through surprise attack rescued the girls. In 1778, he was captured by another band of Shawnee. Boone learned that the tribe was planning an attack on Boonesborough. He negotiated a settlement with Chief Blackfish of the Shawnee, preventing the attack. The Indians admired their captive for his skill as a hunter and woodsman and adopted him into their tribe as a son of Blackfish. They named him Guppy, no, no no Professor Sy Yentz has his foster sense of humor.

          1755 – Happy Birthday, Marie- “let them eat cake” Antoinette, French queen consort to Louis VXI guillotined in 1793.  Marie Antoinette was born in Austria, a daughter (the fifteenth) of Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor, and Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. After reading How to Win Friends and Influence People, Marie alienated the French Court and French etiquette by her behavior. She also alienated most of the French nobility. This made enemies for her husband the king. By 1786 most of France hated Marie Antoinette. Scandalous stories became wide spread of Marie’s sordid private life. In December 1792, King Louis XVI was tried for treason, convicted and put to death. In January 1793, he was executed on the guillotine. On October 14, Marie Antoinette was awoken at night and faced the Revolutionary Tribunal and soon after was found guilty and beheaded. You can visit her cell in the Conciergerie in Paris.

             1795-Happy Birthday, James K. Polk 11th President of the U.S. 1844-1848. He was the only Speaker of the House of Representatives to be elected President. When the Democratic party's leading Presidential contenders Martin Van Buren and Lewis Cass failed to attract sufficient support to win the nomination, the deadlocked convention needed a compromise candidate. The Democrats' "dark horse" nominee was Polk. A believer in “manifest destiny”, he lead the nation to victory in the war (provoked) with Mexico and a confrontation with Great Britain over Oregon (“54-40 or fight”). Polk left office  having added California, New Mexico and Oregon to the nation.  During Polk's term of office, the United States acquired over 800,000 square miles of western territory and extended its boundary to the Pacific Ocean. The Polk Administration also achieved economic objectives by lowering tariffs and establishing an independent Federal Treasury. Polk was the last strong president before the Civil War and clearly accomplished the goals set at the beginning of his presidency.

          1815 – Happy Birthday, George Boole, English mathematician. He came up with a type of linguistic algebra- Boolian Algebra- the three most basic operations of which were (and still are) AND, OR and NOT. It was these three functions that formed the basis of his premise, and were the only operations necessary to perform comparisons or basic mathematical functions. His two value system, separating arguments into different classes which can then be processed according to the presence or absence of a certain property, enabled any proposition - regardless of the number of individual items - to draw logical conclusions. Think of him when selecting the appropriate options for connecting search terms to find information in search engines such as Google or Yahoo. And he still couldn’t balance his check book.

             1865 – Born on the same day as James K. Polk (see above) – but seventy years later, Warren G.  Harding, 29th President of the United States 1921-1923. Like Polk, Harding, from Ohio, was nominated to run for president by  the Republican Party as a dark horse candidate – on the 10th ballot-. His running mate was Calvin Coolidge.  Harding is consistently ranked as one of the worst presidents of all time.. He was inaugurated in 1921 and took over the White House from two-term Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Harding's administration is chiefly remembered for the Teapot Dome scandal, a messy tale of bribery, fraud, and federal oil reserves. He suffered a heart attack  -presumably after meeting the loony residents of San Francisco - and died while visiting the city  in 1923. He was the sixth president to die in office.

            1880 – So, in November we have the birthdays of “dark horses” James Polk and Warren Harding.  This day saw the election of another “dark horse” – James Garfield  who won by a margin of only 10,000 popular votes, (although the electoral vote was 214 to 155) Garfield defeated the Democratic nominee, Civil War hero, Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock. Garfield would be assassinated in 1881 (making him the second President to be assassinated)  and succeeded by Vice President, Chester A. Arthur. He also had the distinction of being the first left handed President.

 1889 - North and South Dakota were admitted to the Union; the first time that two states simultaneously became a part of the United States.  Earlier that year, after controversy over the location of a capital, the Dakota Territory was split in two and divided into North and South. Presumably, the North didn’t want a capitol named Pierre (perhaps they preferred Yves?) so they chose Bismarck (naming it after the German Chancellor).   President Benjamin Harrison (the president who came between Grover Cleveland's two terms) had a concern about admitting the two states on the same day. Which one would be first? He decided it was easier to mix up the admissions papers so no one would know and just list the states alphabetically. That’s why North Dakota is the 39th and South Dakota is the 40th of the United States of America.

         1897- Happy Birthday Jacob Bjerknes, born in Stockholm, Sweden, his  the father, meteorologist Vilhelm Bjerknes was the “father” of modern weather forecasting. When the science of meteorology entered the computer and space ages during the 1950s. Bjerknes, then head of the department of meteorology at UCLA, was an early advocate of using photography from rockets to image atmospheric weather patterns, and he would later help usher in the use of satellites for the same purpose. Bjerknes' cyclone model was a key element in the Princeton atmospheric program used to obtain the first accurate computer-aided weather forecast in 1952. Bjerknes' later research focused on the energy exchange of the atmosphere and oceans and, specifically, the El Niño effect He discovered that cyclones (low-pressure centers) originate as waves associated with sloping weather fronts that separate different air masses proved to be a major contribution to modern weather forecasting.

       1913 – Happy Birthday, actor Burt Lancaster, born in East Harlem, New York City. Among his films were; The Crimson Pirate (1952), From Here to Eternity (1953), Elmer Gantry (1960), for which he won the academy award as best actor and Atlantic City (1980).

            1917 – The Balfour Declaration - British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour expressed support for a national home for the Jews of Palestine in what would become known as the Balfour Declaration. Over ninety years later this declaration still affects the Middle East.

            1920 - In the United States, KDKA of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania starts broadcasting as the first commercial radio station. The first broadcast was the results of the U.S. presidential election, 1920 (Harding beat Davis) from a Westinghouse Electric Company  building in East Pittsburgh. The KDKA claim to be first is complicated by the fact that radio prior to 1920 was mostly experimental and good records are not kept for all "experimental" signals of contesting stations.

             1932 – Happy Birthday, Melvin Schwartz, American physicist who, along with Leon M. Lederman and Jack Steinberger, received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1988 for their research concerning neutrinos. Neutrinos are not a vitamin supplemented breakfast cereal, they are subatomic particles that have no electric charge and virtually no mass. Using a beam of neutrinos, the team discovered a new kind of neutrino called a muon, and new information about the structure of particles called leptons. Turning on the TV they watched the news and learned about morons. Neutrinos are produced when unstable atomic nuclei or subatomic particles disintegrate.

             1931, The DuPont company, of Wilmington, Delaware, announced the first synthetic rubber. It was known as DuPrene, and is now known as neoprene. You’ll find neoprene in automobile tires, wetsuits, soft coatings on exercise weights and the lips of most women in Hollywood……no, no, no not really – Professor Sy Yentz has his Angelina Joliesque sense of humor. The technical name for this synthetic rubber is polychloroprene. Polychloroprene is an organic compound, which means it is mostly composed of carbon (the “duct tape” of organic things – it holds everything together) and hydrogen atoms. And it is a polymer, or long-chained molecule, formed by linking together, end-on-end, many smaller molecules known as monomers.

   1947- Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose, at the time the world's largest plane – a huge seaplane in fact- , flew for the first and last time with Howard Hughes himself at the controls off Long Beach Ca..  It flew for just under a mile at a height of 70 ft. and a speed of 80 mph. The plane was 218 ft. long, had a wingspan of 319 ft. and was 79ft. high. It was built from wood due to WW II  raw material restrictions on the use of aluminum, and it’s name was actually H-4 Hercules.  After passing through several ownerships since Hughes’ death, the aircraft was acquired by the Evergreen Aviation Museum in 1995, who moved it by barge to its current home in McMinnville,Oregon  where it has been on display since.

   1948 - Election Day. When Harry S Truman went to bed thinking he was losing the election for president of the United States (to New York Governor, Thomas E. Dewey, southern Democrat – “dixiecrat” Strom Thurmond, and “Progressive” Henry Wallace). The Chicago Daily Tribune printed the famous headline, “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN”. President Truman managed to carry 24,105,812 popular votes to Dewey's 21,970,065. Carrying 28 states and 303 electoral votes, Truman easily defeated Dewey, who had only 189 electoral votes from 16 states  

        1959 – The “Fifties Quiz Show Scandals”…. Charles Van Doren, whose success on the show Twenty One had made him a national hero (sort of like Ken on Jeopardy)  admitted to a House subcommittee that he had the questions and answers in advance of his appearances on the TV game show which, as we know, makes it a lot easier to answer the questions.

            1960 -  On a salacious note, Penguin Books was found not guilty of obscenity in the Lady Chatterley's Lover case. This was the first test of the Obscenity Act of 1959. A jury unanimously found the publishers not guilty after just three hours' deliberation.  What is now Lawrence's best-known book was  unknown during his lifetime. Privately printed in 1928 (two years before Lawrence's death), this subversive tale of adultery between a rich woman and her husband's servant went unnoticed until U.S. and UK publishers brought it to press in 1959 and 1960, respectively. Both publications inspired pulsating, throbbing, sweaty, high-profile obscenity trials--and in both cases, the publisher won. In case  you were wondering, Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749) by John Cleland holds the distinction of being the longest-banned book in U.S. history. It was initially declared obscene in 1821, a ruling that was not overturned until the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Memoirs v. Massachusetts (1966) decision. During those 145 years, the book was forbidden fruit--but in recent decades, it has attracted little interest from non-scholars since it is basically unreadable.

            1964- The fastest single engine, wheel driven car, the Autolite 999 driven by Bob Herda received a ticket for doing 357 mph in a 30 mph zone.  Costing over $50,000 – less than a well equipped Hummer nowadays- the car actually broke four land speed records.

          1976 - Former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter became the first president elected from the Deep South since 1844.  Carter beat the hopelessly confused, slapstick President, Gerald Ford who had assumed the Presidency replacing the odiously criminal Spiro Agnew as Vice President and then Richard Nixon. The general election campaign began with Ford trailing by over 30 points in the polls. In the second candidate’s debate Ford made a major mistake in the second debate by saying that Eastern Europe was free from Soviet domination.  This came as news to the Eastern Europeans currently under Communist domination. Not to be outdone, Carter gave an interview in Playboy Magazine (his advisors had told him to keep in the news, which Carter confused with nudes) in which he talked candidly about lust in his heart. Carter campaigned as an outsider intent on cleaning up Washington. Carter won a very narrow victory over Ford, due to his support from the south, labor, blacks and white ethnics

        1982 – A truck exploded in the Salang Tunnel in Afghanistan, killing an estimated 3,000 people, mostly Soviet soldiers traveling to Kabul. It is believed, the lead truck of a Soviet military convoy collided with an oncoming fuel truck. The resulting blast and burning gasoline ignited other vehicles, and most of the deaths are believed to have been caused by asphyxiation from the smoke and fumes that filled the tunnel. The Salang Tunnel is is 1.7 miles long, 25 feet high and approximately 17 feet wide

        1988- “Oops!” A  Cornell University graduate student named Robert T. Morris, created a computer "worm"  and it began replicating wildly, clogging thousands of computers around the country. When Morris realized what was happening he sent an anonymous message, instructing programmers how to kill the worm and prevent re-infection. However, because the network route was clogged BY HIS WORM!!!!, this message did not get through until it was too late. Morris, was later arrested, tried, found guilty (of technological stupidity?), fined and given probation.

        2000 -An American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts became the first permanent residents of the international space station, at the start of their four-month mission. After their Soyuz spacecraft linked up, William Shepherd, Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko entered the station, turned on the lights and life support systems, and proceeded to set up a live television link with the Russian mission control to confirm that the move-in was going well, although the movers had broken some china, damaged a couch and left scratches on an antique mahogany table.  The station is in a low Earth orbit and can even be seen from Earth with the naked eye: its altitude varies from 319.6 km to 346.9 km above the surface of the Earth (198.6 to 215.6 mi).  They were confined to two of the space station’s three rooms until space shuttle Endeavor arrived in early December with giant solar panels that would provide all the necessary power. But not before an arachnid looking alien popped out of Gidzenko's stomach and left Sigourney Weaver in her underwear...no, no, no....that's not true! Professor Sy Yentz gets a little carried away now and then

3.      1633 - Happy Birthday, Bernardino Ramazzini, Italian physician, born in Capri, Italy, who first recorded  relationships between occupational environment and workers' illnesses and is considered a founder of occupational medicine.  In 1700 he wrote the first important book on occupational diseases and industrial hygiene, De morbis artificum diatriba(Diseases of Workers), it focused on such diseases as “Co- worker halitosis”, Co-worker lack of bathing”, “Boss Tantrums”, and “Copy Machine is Brokenitis”.

         1718- Happy Birthday, John Montagu, the 4^th Earl of Sandwich, who invented the Montaguwich, no, no no Professor Sy Yentz has his culinary sense of humor, actually it was the sandwich. It is said he invented the sandwich in 1762, because he often spent excessive amounts of time gambling and he didn't want to get up from the gambling table, so he told his servants to bring him meat sandwiched in between two slices of bread. Another version has him working long hours and not wanting to leave his desk so his servants brought him what would be called sandwiches.  The explorer, Capain James Cook named the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) for him.

         1749 – Happy Birthday, Daniel Rutherford, English chemist who found – but did not name – nitrogen.  Rutherford kept a mouse in a confined quantity of air till it died. He then burned a candle in what was left until the candle went out. He then burned phosphorus in what was left after that, until the phosphorus would no longer burn. Next, the air was passed through a solution that had the ability to absorb carbon dioxide. The air remaining now would not support combustion; a mouse would not live in it and a candle would not burn.  He called what was left “phlogiston”. Antoine Lavoisier, the French chemist named nitrogen azote meaning without life. The name nitrogen was introduced by J. A. C. Chaptal in 1790.

 1854- Jokichi Takaminea Japanese-born biochemist whocame to live and work in the United States. He was one of the prime movers in the effort to send Japanese Cherry Trees to Washington D.C as a symbol of good will from the Mayor of Tokyo.
In 1901, Takaminea isolated the hormone adrenalin – now supposedly called epinephrine but everyone still calls it adrenalin -produced in the adrenal gland that causes the body to respond to emergencies. This was the first pure hormone to be isolated from natural sources. This means he would be “gland” to meet you.

1863 – Yeast is Yeast and west is west….. J.T Alden  of Cincinnati, was issued a yeast preparation patent for "an improvement in the preparation of yeast" which reduced concentrated yeast from a plastic or semi-fluid state to a dry granular form, a convenient way of preservation for future use. Why yeast?  Yeast is a living, microscopic, single-cell organism that, as it grows, converts its food – through the  process known as fermentation- into alcohol and carbon dioxide. We love yeast because fermentation is what endears it to winemakers, brewmasters and breadbakers.

1868 – Union Civil War hero, Ulysses Simpson Grant – running as a Republican with Schyler Colfax as his running mate defeated Democrat Horatio Seymour, of New York, (with running mate Francis P. Blair)  for the Presidency. Grant had not campaigned and made no promises. He won 214 Electoral votes to Seymour’s 80

1879- Happy Birthday, Vilhjalmur Steffanson, Canadian explorer, born in Ames, Manitoba. He went on three expeditions into the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic, each of which lasted between sixteen months and five years. He was 41 years old before he learned to pronounce his first name and by that time he had changed it to Bob.  

    1892-  The first automatic telephone exchange, using the switching device invented by Almon B. Strowger, was opened. While an undertaker in Kansas City. Strowger had developed a system of automatic switching using an electromechanical switch based on electromagnets. The Strowger exchange opened the public in LaPorte, Indiana,  Strowger’s hometown with about seventy-five subscribers, who were now able to bypass operators.

            1941 -  The order was issued to attack the U.S Naval Base at  Pearl Harbor .The Combine Japanese Fleet received Top-Secret Order No. 1: In 34 days, Pearl Harbor was to be bombed, along with Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, and the Philippines. The Japanese had earlier practiced the art of the sneak attack on the Russians in beginning the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.

             1954- Linus Pauling (part of the famous singing group of Peter, Pauling and Mary), won the first of his two Nobel Prizes- in Chemistry for his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the elucidation of the structure of complex substances". Later, he was awarded a second Nobel Prize, this one for Peace for his efforts in creating the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

             1957- Laika, the dog (a Siberian husky), became the first living creature to orbit the Earth aboard Sputnik II.- Sputnik I having been launched a month earlier on October 4.  Since the supply of food and air was limited and the Russians had no intention of bringing her back, Laika also became the first animal to die in space. She died after a few days in orbit when the batteries of her life-support system eventually wore down.

           1964 - Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater for the presidency. Johnson had become the 36th president of the United States on the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963.  He won 44 states and the District of Columbia with 486 votes. Senator Goldwater took just six states with 52 electoral votes.

            1971- Mariner 10 was launched for the first flight to Mercury.  Mariner 10 was the seventh successful launch in the Mariner series, the first spacecraft to use the gravitational pull of one planet (Venus) to reach another (Mercury), and the first spacecraft mission to visit two planets.  The primary scientific objectives of the mission were to measure Mercury's environment, atmosphere, surface, and body characteristics and to make similar investigations of Venus. Also on it’s arrival at Mercury, it was attacked by a mysterious object later identified as a Martha Stewart Flying Apron which attempted to redecorate its interior an almost bored it to death.    

            2007 – Aboard and outside the Space Shuttle Discovery (launched Oct. 23), A physician astronaut, Scott Parazynsky, a medical doctor by profession, successfully stitched a torn solar panel Saturday, in a risky and unprecedented space walk to ensure an adequate power supply at the International Space Station. Parazynsky  spent more than four hours attaching the end of a robotic boom knitting together the damaged solar panels of the space station with makeshift wire "cufflinks" to fix the problems caused by a snagged wire when the panels unfurled. "It appears you have some kind of surgery to do Dr. Parazinsky," shuttle commander Pamela Melroy told the experienced spacewalker as she watched his every move through binoculars from inside the Discovery probe, currently docked at the station (ISS). The mission carried significant danger as touching the panels risked a shock from the 300-volt current they carried. Afterwards, Parazynsky told the ISS crew that they should “give it two aspirin and call me in the morning”.  Before work began everyone made sure that the solar panels were covered under the space station HMO and that Parazynsky had a referral letter from the primary physician.

4.          1677- A social note - The future Mary II, daughter of King James II of England married William, Prince of Orange. The bride, wore a miniskirt by Mary Quant of Carnaby Street.  The groom, a big crown. They would later be known as William and Mary