| History of the World, updated historically |
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| REALLY REALLY REALLY OLD Universe began (Big Bang)...............14,000,000,000 to 12,000,000,000 years ago Birth of our sun....................................4.6 billion years ago Solar planets formed...........................4.5 billion years ago Birth of earth..........................................4.5 billion years ago PRECAMBRIAN AGE...........................4500 million years ago -- 542 million years ago Hadean Eon...........................................4500 million years ago -- 3800 years ago; solar system was forming; accretion disc around the sun (gas and dust cloud), derived from the explosion of an old massive star; Earth's surface changed from liquid to solid. Archean Eon..........................................3800 million years ago -- 2500 million years ago; atmosphere was methane, ammonia, other gasses; Earth's crust cooled enough so rocks and continental plates began to form; our oldest fossils date to roughly 3.5 billion years ago, consisting of bacteria microfossils. Eoarchean Era......................................4000 -- 3600 million years ago; prokaryote formed which evolved from protobionts; Isua Greenstone Belt. Paleoarchean Era.................................3600 -- 3200 million years ago; oldest ascertained life form (bacteria). Mesoarchean Era.................................3200 -- 2800 million years ago; stromatolites, first supercontinent Vaalbara broke up. Neoarchean Era....................................2800 -- 2500 million years ago; oxygenic photosynthesis first evolved. Proterozoic Eon...................................2500 -- 543 million years ago; stable continents first appeared and began to accrete; first abundant fossils of living organisms (bacteria and archeans); eukaryotic cells; oxygen build-up in atmosphere. Paleoproterozoic Era..........................2600 -- 1600 million years ago Siderian Period.............................2500 -- 2300 million years ago; banded iron formations; anaerobic algae. Rhyacian Period..........................2300 -- 2050 million years ago Orosirian Period..........................2050 -- 1800 million years ago; atmosphere changed to oxygen-rich due to photosynthesis of cyanobacteria. Slatherian Period.........................1800 -- 1600 million years ago; first complex single-cell life; fold belts; supercontinent Columbia was formed. Mesoproterozoic Era..........................1600 -- 1000 million years ago Calymmian Period........................1600 -- 1400 million years ago; platform covers Ectasian Period............................1400 -- 1200 million years ago; first sexually reproducing organism -- earliest complex multicellular organism. Stenian Period..............................1200 -- 1000 million years ago; polymetamorphic belts; supercontinent Rodinia assembled. Neoproterozoic Era.............................1000 -- 542 million years ago Tonianian Period.........................1000 -- 850 million years ago; breakup of Rodinia; radiation of acritarchs. Cryogenian Period.......................850 -- 635 million years ago; greatest ice ages ever; all of earth covered in ice "Snowball Earth" events; very cold climate; Rodinia continuing to break up; supercontinent Pannotia formed; testate amoebas; sponges. Ediacaran Period........................635 -- 542 million years ago; end of global glaciation; soft-bodied fossils; segmented worms, fronds, disks, immobile bags Phanerozoic Eon.................................542 million years ago to present Paleozoic Era........................................543 -- 248million years ago Cambrian Period...........................542 -- 488 million years ago; "Cambrian explosion" -- life in oceans, land still barren; includes Terreneuvian (542 -- 521 my) (Fortunian and Stage 2 Ages), Series 2 (521--510 my) (Stage 3 and Stage 4 Ages), Series 3 (510-- 499 my) (Stage 5, Drumian, and Guzhangian Ages), and Furongian (499 -- 488 my) (Paibian, Stage 9 and Stage 10 Ages) Epochs. Ordovician Period........................488 -- 443.7 million years ago; first land plants; trilobites; includes Early (488 - 472 my) (Tremadocian and Floian Ages), Middle (472 -- 461 my) (Dapingian and Darriwilian Ages), and Late (461--444 my) (Sandbian, Katian, and Hirnantian Ages) Epochs. Silurian Period...............................443.7 -- 416 million years ago; long, warm greenhouse phase; glaciers only at South Pole; coral reefs first appeared; first bony fishes; includes Llandovery (444--428 my) (Rhuddanian, Aeronian, Telychian Ages), Wenlock (428--423 my) (Sheinwoodian and Homerian Ages), Ludlow (423 -- 419 my) (Gorstian and Ludfordian Ages), and Pridoli (419-- 416 my) (Pridolian Age) Epochs. Devonian Period...........................416 -- 359.2 million years ago; fish evolved legs and started to walk on land as tetrapods (365 million years ago); includes Early (416 -- 398 my) (Lockhovian, Praghian, and Emsian Ages), Middle (398-385 my) (Eifelian and Givetian Ages), and Late (385-359 my) (Frasnian and Famennian Ages) Epochs. Carboniferous Period..................359 -- 299 million years ago; rich deposits of coal-bearing layers of northern Europe, Asia, and midwestern and eastern North America, and limestone layers in later Carboniferous; amniote egg, tetrapods, milder temperatures, lycopods, insects, tree ferns; collision of Laurussia [Laurasia] (present day Europe and North American) into Godswanaland [Gondwana] (present day Africa and South America) produced the Appalachian mountains in USA and the Hercynian mountains in UK; a further collision of Siberia and easter Europe created the Ural mountains; marine life caused limestone minerals; glaciations; includes Mississippian (359-318 my) (Tournaisian, Visean, and Serpukhovian Ages) and Pennsylvanian (318-299 my) (Bashkirian, Moscovian, Kasimovian, and Gzelian Ages) Epochs. Permian Period.............................299 -- 251 million years ago; Pangea supercontinent; ocean called Panthalassa; includes Cisuralian (299 -- 271 my) (Asselian, Sakmarian, Artinskian, and Kungurian Ages), Guadalupian (271-260 my) (Roadian, Wordian, and Capitanian Ages), and Lopingian (260-251 my) (Wuchiapingian and Changhsingian Ages) Epochs; between Permian and Triassic (first period of Mesozoic), there was the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event: 90 -- 95% of all marine species and 70% of all land organisms became extinct; trilobites extinct. Theories on cause of Extinction Event: a) magma eruptions (flood basalt eruption theory); b) ocean venting hydrogen sulfide; c) flood basalt, warming, methane released from ocean; d) radiation from a nearby supernova; e) meteor. Mesozoic Era.......................................251 million years ago -- 65 million years ago Triassic Period.............................251 -- 199.6 million years ago; hot, no glaciation; marine dinosaurs; amphibians, land dinosaurs, mammals, turtles; includes Early (251-245 my) (Induan and Olenekian Ages), Middle (245-235 my) (Anisian and Ladinian Ages), and Late (235-200 my) (Carnian, Norian, and Rhaetian Ages) Epochs; at end of Triassic: Triassic-Jurassic Extinction Events: wiped out 50% of all species; occurred over 10,000 years; particularly severe in the oceans; onland, all large crurotarsans, some remaining therapsids, and many large amphibians were wiped out Theories on cause of Extinction Event: a) volcanic eruptions; b) global cooling; c) meteor. Jurassic Period............................199.6 -- 145.5 million years ago: Age of Reptiles; warm, no glaciation, fish, marine reptiles, dinosaurs; includes Early (200-176 my) (Hettangian, Sinemurian, Pliensbachian, and Toarcian Ages), Middle (176-161 my) (Aalenian, Bajocian, Bathonian, and Callovian Ages), and Late (161-145 my) (Oxfordian, Kimmeridgian, and Tithonian Ages) Epochs. Cretaceous Period.......................145.5 to 65.5 million years ago; warm climate; high sea levels; marine reptiles, dinosaurs, insects diversified; marsupials; new mammals and birds; flowering plants appeared; includes Early (145-100 my) (Berriasian, Valanginian, Hauterivian, Barrelmian, Aptian, and Albian Ages), and Late (100-66 my) (Cenomanian, Turonian, Coniacian, Santonian, Campanian, and Maastrichtian Ages) Epochs; KT extinction period (Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction Event) (K = Kreidezeit; T = Tertiary); end of dinosaurs. Theories on cause of Extinction Event: a) massive asteroid impacts; b) volcanic eruptions; c) changes in sea level and climate. Cenozoic Era.........................................65 million years ago to present Paleogene Period...........................65.6 -- 23.03 million years ago; mammals and birds evolved; includes Paleocene (66-56 my) (Danian, Selandian, and Thanetian Ages), Eocene (56-34 my) (Ypresian, Lutetian, Bartonian, and Priobonian Ages) and Oligocene (34-23 my) (Rupelian and Chattian Ages) Epochs Neogene Period..............................23.03 -- 2.588 million years ago; evolution continues; includes Miocene (23-5.3 my) (Aquitanian, Burdigalian, Langhian, Serravallian, Tortonian, and Messinian Ages) and Pliocene (5.3-2.6 my) (Zanclean and Piacenzian Ages) Epochs. Quarternary Period.....................2.588 million years ago to present; glaciations; humans first appear; extinction of large mammals such as the saber-toothed cats, mammoths, mastodons, long-horned bison, giant ground sloths, teratorn birds with 25-foot wingspans, etc.; includes Pleistocene (2.6-1.8 my) (Gelasian and Cambrian Ages) and Halocene (0.01 my to present) Epochs. Birth of our moon.................................when Earth was about 50 million years old Fish first evolved into land walking tetrapods..........365,000,000 years ago Dinosaurs on earth..............................230,000,000 years ago End of the dinosaurs..........................65 million years ago Australopithecus anamensis man......approximately 4 million years ago Australopithecus africanus (Ethiopia)........approximately 3.5 million years ago Earliest biped footprints (Tanzania)............approximately 3.5 million years ago “Lucy” – A. afarensis – Afar Valley, Africa.........3 million years ago Invention of stone tools......................approximately 2.6 million years ago Stone Age..............................................~2.5 million years ago to 10,000 BCE, the earliest use of tools made of chipped stone; Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) (600,000 -- 700,000 years ago); hammerstones and simple core tools such as hand axes and cleavers; Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) (10,000 -- 8,000 BCE); Neolithic (New Stone Age) (8,000 -- 5,000 BCE): beginning of farming, domestication of animals, pottery, weaving, polished stone tools. Homo habilus........................................approximately 2 million years ago Homo Erectus and Homo Ergaster man....~1.6 million years ago Homo Neanderthalensis....................approximately 200,000 years ago Discovery of fire...................................approximately 500,000 years ago Homo Sapiens .....................................approximately 40,000 years ago Cro-Magnon man.................................about 30,000 to 32,000 years ago Ice Age....................................................happens about every 100,000 years BCE OR BC THINGIES Copper Age.........................................5,000 -- 3,500 BCE Biblical date of creation (Christianity)........October 23, 4004 BCE, 9:00 am (6006 years ago) Biblical date of creation (Judaism)...........October 7, 3761 BCE (5763 years ago) Biblical date of “Noah’s flood”.......4,400 years ago Invention of the wheel......................as early as 3500 BCE (in Ur of Mesopotamia) Sumerian Civilization........................Between 3500 and 2000 BCE; lived between the Tigris and the Euphrates in what is now Iraq; developed cuneiform writing (on lumps of clay). Invention of the sundial....................as early as 3500 BCE (obelisks and shadows used in Egypt); around 1500 the Egyptians improved the clock to measure hours. (Anaximander, 511 -- 547 BCE, introduced the sundial to Greece.) Egyptian Civilization.........................between 3100 -- 525 BCE; lived along the Nile River; built huge temples and pyramids out of stone; developed writing system called hieroglyphics; conquered by Kushites. Minoan Civilization............................between 3000 -- 1100 BCE; made pottery and wall paintings with bright colors; fell as Greece grew in power. Bronze Age..........................................3000 BCE -- 1000 BCE Invention of the abacus....................3000 BCE (China) Invention of glass...............................about 3000 BCE; Egyptian beads date back to ~2500 BCE. Indus Valley Civilization...................between 2500 -- 1500 BCE; lived in what is now Pakistan; famous for well-planned cities with neat blocks of buildings facing paved streets; vast floods damaged the city. Hittite Civilization...............................between 1900 -- 1200 BCE; lived along the Halys Rivers; probably the first people to make things out of iron. Babylonian Civilization.....................between 1900 -- 538 BCE; lived between the Tigris and Euphrates; great lawmakers; Code of Hammurabi (King Hammurabi) carved on a stone column; first to count seconds and minutes by 60s; conquered by the Persians in 538 BCE. Ramses II (Ramesses II)...................c. 1303 BCE -- 1213 BCE; referred to as Ramesses the Great; 3rd Egyptian pharaoh (reign, 1279 -- 1213 BCE); consider the greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh of the Egyptian Empire. Abu Simbel built.................................1250 BCE; two ancient temples on the Nile carved into a sandstone cliff by order of Ramses II, an Egyptian pharaoh. The Great Temple was over 180 feet tall, guarded by 4 statues of Ramses II. The temple was built so that the sun's early morning rays shone through the halls and touched the carved figure of the sun god deep inside. The smaller temple had six figures, each 33 feet high. Four were Ramses II and two were his queen, Nefertari. Phoenician Civilization.....................between 1100 -- 842 BCE; lived along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean; invented an alphabet improved by the Greeks; skillful with cloth and other goods; Assyria grew in power and took over most of the region. Iron Age................................................1050 -- 850 BCE Chou Dynasty.....................................Between 1027 -- 256 BCE; lived in China; iron tools replaced bronze; literature and visual arts; Confucius, Lao-tse; architectural style palaces, pagodas, Great Wall of China; China broke into small, warring states. Hebrew Civilization...........................between 1000 -- 587 BCE; nomadic; Israel and Jordan; created great literature, including Old Testament (probably written about 900 BCE and 150 BCE); King Solomon; Babylonians conquered Hebrews and destroyed the great temple in Jerusalem. Assyrian Civilization.........................between 800 -- 612 BCE; lived along the Tigris River; formed the first great army with iron weapons; conquered by Babylonians. Greek Civilization...............................between 800 -- 197 BCE; lived in southern Greece; built fine buildings and sculptures (graceful pillars and columns, temples, theaters); great poetry and drama; wise scientists and philosophers; Hippocrates, Euclid, Archimedes, Homer, Sophocles, Aeschulys, Euripedes, Aristophanes, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle; conquered by Rome. Invention of eyeglasses...................8th century BCE; Egyptian hieroglyphs depicted "simple glass meniscus lenses;" Seneca the Younger (4 BCE -- 65 CE), in the 1st century, a tutor of Emperor Nero (37 -- 68), wrote "Letters, however small and indistinct, are seen enlarged and more clearly through a globe or glass filled with water." Homer...................................................8th century BCE; author of the Iliad and the Odyssey; considered the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. Olympic Games..................................at least 776 BCE until 393 CE when Emperor Theodosius I banned them. Roman civilization.............................between 735 BCE -- 476 CE; spread from Rome to England and Mesopotamia, including all the lands around the Mediterranean; Ovid, Horace, Virgil; architectural arches, aqueducts, amphitheaters, roads, villas with central heating; civil war and political assassinations tore the Roman Empire apart; split in half in 385 BCE. Kushite Civilization............................between 725 BCE -- 350 CE; lived along the Nile River, south of Egypt; expanded through much of Africa below Sahara desert; iron-making center; beautiful pottery, pyramids, temples, palaces, developed a written language not yet deciphered; conquered by Ethiopians. Persian Civilization............................between 720 -- 331 BCE; lived between the Indus River and the Aegean Sea; built huge palaces of mud, brick, and stone; wall paintings; mail was delivered by "Pony Express"; crumbled before the army of Alexander the Great in 331 BCE. Aesop....................................................About 620 -- 562 BCE; a storyteller that lived in Greece; a young slave on the island of Samos. He told stories of animals that acted like humans. His stories are called fables. Examples of his stories are: the turtle and the hare have a race; the goose that laid the golden egg; grasshopper and ant; lion and mouse ... Pythagoras of Samos........................580 -- 572 -- 490 -- 500 BCE; Greek mathematician; "Father of Numbers;" Pythagorean Theorem: a² + b² = c² Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama).........~563 BCE -- 483 BCE; Supreme Buddha (Sammasambuddha); founder of Buddhism. Confucius............................................September 28, 551 BCE -- 479 BCE; Chinese thinker and social philosopher. Aeschylus............................................525 -- 456 BCE; the first Greek writer of tragedy: The Persians, Prometheus Bound; Oresteia (Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides). Sophocles...........................................~497/6 BCE -- winter 406/5 BCE; Greek tragedian playwright; wrote 123 plays but only 7 have survived in complete form: Ajax, Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus. Euripides..............................................~480 -- 406 BCE; last of the three great tragedians of classical Athens. Socrates...............................................469 BCE -- 299 BCE; Classical Greek philosopher; one of the founders of Western philosophy; Socratic method; mentor to Plato (428/427 -- 348/347 BCE). Hippocrates.........................................460 BCE -- 377 BCE; Greek physician; "Father of Medicine;" Hippocratic Oath Aristophanes.......................................446 BCE -- 386 BCE; Greek comic playwright of ancient Athens; "Father of Comedy;" "Prince of Ancient Comedy"; Lysistrata, 411 BCE. Xenophon............................................~430 -- 354 BCE; Greek soldier, mercenary, and contemporary and admirer of Socrates; preserved his quotes and the history of that time; the original "horse whisperer." Plato......................................................428/427 BCE -- 348/347 BCE; Greek philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, founder of the Academy in Athens; helped lay the foundation of Western philosophy, natural philosophy, and science. Discovery of the atom.......................suggested in 400 BCE by Democritus (460 -- 370 BCE); soundly rejected by Aristotle (384 -- 322 BCE); John Dalton (1766 -- 1844) 1803 -- atomic theory. Alchemy................................................~3rd century BCE until 1700s; study of metals and elements in a strange blend of science, magic, and religion. All matter is a mixture of four basic elements -- air, earth, fire, and water. The three main goals of alchemy were: to change base metals (such as lead) into gold; to find a medicine that would cure all diseases: and to make a substance that would make old people young and allow them to live forever. Aristotle................................................384 BCE -- 322 BCE; Greek philosopher; student of Plato. Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon).........356 BCE -- 323 BCE; Greek king of Macedonia; military commander; father was King Philip II; became king when he was 20; conquered Greece, southeastern Europe, Asia Minor, Egypt, and India; crushed Persian Empire and became king of Egypt and Asia; died of "fever" in Babylon, age 33. Euclid of Alexandria..........................325 -- 212 BCE; Greek mathematician, "Father of Geometry." Archimedes of Syracuse..................~287 BCE -- 212 BCE; Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. Shih Huang-ti (Qin Shi Huang).......259 -- 210 BCE; first emperor of China. Invention of the compass................221 -- 206 BCE; (probably made in China in the Qin Dynasty); first used as a navigational aid by Zheng He (1371 -- 1433) from China, 1405 -- 1453. Rosetta Stone written.......................196 BCE; granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis Egypt on behalf of King Ptolemy V. It is written in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, demotic scripts, and ancient Greek. Julius Caesar......................................July 13, 100 BCE -- March 15, 44 BCE (Ides of March); reign 49 BCE -- 44 BCE; Roman military and political leader; child with Cleopatra (69 -- 30 BCE): Caeserion (47 -- 30 BCE); in 46 BCE, he made a calendar that instituted a solar year of a dozen 30 day months, with five days left over and a leap year every four years. Mark Antony........................................January 14, 83 BCE -- August 1, 30 BCE; Roman politician and general; children with Cleopatra (69 -- 30 BCE). Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro).........October 15, 70 BCE -- September 21, 19 BCE; Roman poet best known for the Eclogues, the Georgics, and Aeneid. Cleopatra VII Philopater....................January 69 BCE -- August 12, 30 BCE; Egyptian pharaoh. Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)....December 8, 65 BCE -- November 27, 8 CE; Roman lyric poet; "He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words." (Augustus about Horace). Caesar Augustus...............................September 23, 63 BCE -- August 19, 14 CE; reign 27 BCE -- 14 CE; first emperor of the Roman Empire. Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)............March 20, 43 BCE -- 17/18 CE; Roman poet best known for Heroides, Amores, Ars Amatoria, and Metamorphoses, among many more. Tiberius.................................................November 16, 42 BCE -- March 16, 37 CE; reign 14 -- 37; Roman emperor. Claudius...............................................August 1, 10 BCE -- October 13, 54 CE; reign 41 -- 54; Roman emperor. Jesus of Nazareth..............................4 BCE -- 30 CE; central figure of Christianity. Most Christian denominations consider him a Messiah. Born ~7 to 2 BCE in Bethlehem, died 30 -- 36 CE in Calvary; Jewish. Father: God; mother: Mary; stepfather: Joseph; name: Joshua. 0 TO 1000 CE OR AD Gaius (Caligula)..................................August 31, 12 -- January 24, 41; reign 37 -- 41; Roman emperor. Nero.......................................................December 15, 37 -- June 9, 68; reign 54 -- 67; Roman emperor. Ts’ai Lun...............................................50 -- 121; Chinese; conventionally regarded as the inventor of paper and papermaking processes Galen of Pergamum...........................130 -- 216; Roman physician and philosopher of Greek origin; most accomplished medical researcher of the Roman period. Byzantine.............................................300 -- 1400; built ornate churches with domes rising from a square base; brickwork, pillars, mosaics. Fall of Rome........................................September 4, 476 Muhammad..........................................570 -- 632; founder of the religion of Islam; messenger and prophet of God; diplomat, merchant, philosopher, orator, legislator, reformer, military general Invention of gun powder..................~800s; China Lief Erikson.........................................970 -- 1020; Norse explorer, probably first European to land in North America. Guido of Arezzo.................................c. 991 -- 1033; musical theorist and teacher; devised a system of musical notation that has evolved into the 5 line staff; used syllables that began a hymn (ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la) and the notes on which they were sung to teach sight-singing. 1000 TO 1500 AD OR CE The First Novel.....................................1008; The Tale of Genji, Japanese literature; regarded as the world's first fully realized novel; written by Murasaki Shikubu (a woman), a Kyoto aristocrat; about the colorful life of the royal court. William the Conqueror.......................c. 1027 -- 1087; as Duke of Normandy, he crossed the English Channel and won the Battle of Hastings in 1066; dispossessed Anglo-Saxon nobles and divided their land among his followers; reigned for 21 years as King. Battle of Hastings................................1066; Norman victory in the Norman conquest of England; fought between the Norman army of William the Conqueror (1027 -- 1087) and the English army under the command of Harold Godwinson (1022 -- 1066) (Harold II, King of England); "the last successful invasion of England." First university.....................................1088 in Bologna, Italy; law school first, soon professors needed a license to teach (the earliest academic degree); soon University of Paris in 1150; Oxford University in 1187; Cambridge University in 1209; Harvard University in 1636; Moscow University in 1755; University of Berlin in 1810; University of Tokyo in 1877; Beijing University in 1898 (among lots of others ...) Crusades...............................................1095 -- 1291; religiously sanctioned military campaigns waged by much of Latin Christian Europe to restore Christian control of the Holy Land, particularly the Franks of France and the Holy Roman Empire; mainly against Muslims, pagan Slavs, Jews, Russian and Orthodox Christians, Mongols, Cathars, Hussites, Waldensians, Old Prussians, and enemies of the Pope; purported relics from the era of Jesus, unearthed in Jerusalem (the Holy Lance, John the Baptist's remains); Pope Urban II launched the first Crusade in 1095; 1099 the Christians took Jerusalem; 1244 Muslims regained the city; (some things that Europe got from the Crusades: apricots, artichokes, brocades, cinnamon, cloves, cotton, ginger, glass mirrors, henna, ivory, muslin, opium, pepper, Persian carpets, pistachio nuts, rhubarb, silk, slippers, steam baths, sugar, watermelon, windmills). Middle Ages..........................................lasted roughly a millennium (Medieval) 5th century (fall of Western Roman Empire) to 16th century (Early Modern Period). Dark Ages (early Middle Ages).........between the Fall of Rome and the Renaissance. Gunpowder weapons first used......1100; in the 9th century by Chinese alchemists -- saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal -- Song Dynasty was besieged by the Jurchen Jin Tatars -- arms race from bamboo flamethrowers to metal-barreled guns; paper incendiary grenades to iron bombs; first used in Europe at the siege of Metz (in France) in 1324. First sea-going compass...................1117; in ZhuYu's P'ingchow Table Talk: "In dark weather, sailors look at the south-pointing needle.", reached Europe about 1190; invented in China in the 4th century BCE. Angkor Wat built..................................~1150 for King Suryavarman II (in what is now Cambodia); the largest religious monument in the world; built without mortar, held together by weight and friction. It is roughly a square mile large; has sandstone relief carvings of Hindu legends and Khmer battle scenes; now a Buddhist temple. Genghis Khan......................................probably 1155 or May 31, 1162 -- August 25, 1227; founder of Mongol Empire; became chief of a small tribe of Mongol herdsmen in 1175 when he was 13; began conquest of China in 1211. Pope Innocent III..................................1160 -- July 16, 1216 (Lotario di Segni); 38 years old when elected Pope Innocent III in 1198; 18 years as Pope; dominated Middle Ages; claimed right to the Holy Roman Empire; launched two crusades to assert the church's power; Fourth Lateran Council shaped the Catholic Church of today. Kublai Khan..........................................September 23, 1215 -- February 18, 1294; ruler of the Mongols from 1260; completed the conquest of China started by his grandfather Genghis Khan; became first emperor of the Yüan Dynasty in 1271; established Beijing as the capital; boosted agriculture and business, fostered scholarship, encouraged arts, retained many Chinese institutions, promoted religious tolerance. Magna Carta.........................................1215; King John of England was forced by barons to sign; held him to his feudal obligations; no free man would be imprisoned without the lawful judgment of his peers; justice was not to be sold or impeded; no property seized without compensation; if king reneged, the barons would revolt; he reneged and died fighting in 1216. Saint Thomas Aquinas......................~1225 -- March 7, 1274; Dominican priest from Italy; began to study religion under Albertus Magnus; Summa Theologica; declared a saint in 1323; proclaimed a doctor of the Church by Pope Pius V in 1567; the patron saint of Catholic schools; declared that faith and reason do not conflict, but man is rational and can find the highest happiness in contemplation of God. Marco Polo............................................1254 -- January 8, 1324; merchant from Venetian republic; wrote Il Milione which introduced Europeans to Central Asia and China. Chartres, cathedral in France, dedicated.............1260; a soaring feat of agriculture; vaults 116 feet high; stained glass windows considered the most magnificent in Europe; T.S. Eliot said of Chartres, "prayer has been valid." Holy Pilgrimage to Mecca..................1324 by Mansa Musa across Sahara with ~60,000 men and 12,000 slaves; also 80 camels loaded with 300 pounds of gold each; gave away gold freely in Cairo, causing the price of gold to plummet. Tenochtitlán founded.........................1325 by Aztecs; on Mexico's Lake Texcoco; palaces, pyramids, grand plazas, canals, dikes, bridges; conquistadores arrived in 1519 and slaughtered most of its inhabitants; today it is Mexico City. Hundred Years’ War............................1337 -- 1453; between two royal houses (House of Valois and House of Plantagenet) vying for the French throne; the House of Valois won the throne of France and the Plantagenets claimed the English throne, calling themselves Kings of France and England. Bubonic Plague...................................1347 -- 1351 (Europe); also called Black Plague and pestilence; killed a third of Europe's inhabitants (25 million people); named for the buboes or boils that formed on the neck, groin, and armpits; transmitted by fleas carried by rodents on ships from Asia; seen as God's punishment for sinners. In 542, the plague ravaged the Roman empire of Justinian and may have been responsible for devastating Athens in 430 BCE. Plague also hit Asia in 1894. A French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yershin identified the Yersinia pestis bacteria as the cause. Cases of plague still occur on earth, but there are ready treatments, such as tetracycline. First hand cannon...............................1350 Zheng He................................................1371 -- ~1435; admiral of huge Chinese treasure ships; each five times as large as a typical European caravel; a court eunuch turned diplomat; he led seven naval expeditions for Ming Emperor Yongle between 1404 and 1433; sailed to Africa, Mecca, and India, picking up exotic souvenirs. Donatello (Donato di Nicolò di Betto Bardi).........1386 -- December 13, 1446; early Renaissance Italian artist and sculptor; basso rilievo. Henry V...................................................September 16, 1386 -- August 31, 1422; reign 1413 to 1422 (England; Plantagenet, Lancastrian line). He was married to Catherine of Valois (October 27, 1401 -- January 3, 1422), the daughter of Charles VI of France. Henry and Catherine had one son, Henry VI (December 6, 1421 -- May 21, 1471). Johannes Gutenberg..........................1398 -- February 3, 1468; German goldsmith and printer; invented the printing press. Joan of Arc............................................1412 -- May 30, 1431; national heroine of France and Catholic saint; led French army to many victories in the Hundred Years' War, defeated English at Orléans in 1429; burned at the stake when she was 19; named a saint in 1920. First musket..........................................1425 Sandro Botticelli..................................March 1, 1445 -- May 17, 1510; Italian painter in early Reanaissance; Birth of Venus, 1486. Printing press invented.....................around 1450; by Johannes Gutenberg (1398 -- 1468). Christopher Columbus......................1451 -- May 20, 1506; Genoese navigator, colonizer, explorer; 1492 landed in "America". Leonardo da Vinci...............................April 15, 1452 -- May 2, 1519; Italian polymath, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician, writer, illustrator, mapmaker, optician, Renaissance man; Last Supper, 1498; Mona Lisa, 1503 -- 1505/1507; Vitruvian Man, ~1485. Collapse of Byzantine Empire and rise of Ottoman Empire.............1453; Mehmed II Khan Ghazi captured Constantinople. Amerigo Vespucci...............................March 9, 1454 -- February 22, 1512; Italian explorer, navigator, cartographer. Gutenberg printed the Bible..............1455; German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg; printing emerged in 8th century China; movable type invented by Pi Sheng in China around 1040; movable metal type invented by Koreans in 14th century; Gutenberg's press was based on those used to squeeze olives. Vasco da Gama....................................~1460 -- December 24, 1524; first voyage in 1497, rounded Africa's Cape of Good Hope and sailed to India, opening an all-water route from Asia to Europe. Nicolaus Copernicus..........................February 19, 1473 -- May 24, 1543; Polish polymath, mathematician, astronomer, physician, quadrilingual polyglot, classical scholar, translator, artist, Catholic cleric, jurist, governor, military leader, diplomat, and economist; displaced the earth as the center of the universe in On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres published in 1543 just before his death. Juan Ponce de Leon...........................1474 -- July, 1521; Spanish explorer; first European expedition to Florida (which he named); "Fountain of Youth." Vasco Nunez de Balboa....................1475 -- January 15, 1519; Spanish governor, explorer, conquistador; first to cross Isthmus of Panama to reach the Pacific Ocean from the New World. Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni............March 6, 1475 -- February 18, 1564; Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, engineer; Creation of Adam, 1511; La Pieta, 1499; David, 1504; Sistine Chapel, 1508 -- 1512. Spanish Inquisition.............................1478 by Ferdinand II of Aragon (1452 -- 1515) and Isabella I of Castille (1451 -- 1504); definitively abolished 1834 during the reign of Isabella II (1830 -- 1904). Ferdinand Magellan............................Spring 1480 -- April 27, 1521; Portuguese explorer; his 1519 -- 1522 expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe; he died in the Philippines; his crew finished the circumnavigation. Raphael Sanzio....................................April 6 or March 28, 1483 -- April 6, 1520; Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. Martin Luther.........................................November 10, 1483 -- February 15, 1546; initiated Protestant Reformation with The Ninety- Five Theses "for the purpose of eliciting truth" in 1517; German priest and theology professor; gave rise to Protestantism. “Sweating sickness”..........................1485; first breakout; also known as "English sweating sickness" or "English sweate"; mysterious and highly virulent disease that struck England and later continental Europe; last outbreak 1551; onset was sudden and dramatic with death occurring within hours; cause remains unknown; in 1502, said to have caused the death of Arthur, Prince of Wales who was the older brother of Henry VIII; Arthur's wife Catherine of Aragon subsequently married Henry VIII; 1528 outbreak was of the greatest severity; many thousands died. Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro...........1485 -- December 2, 1547; set out in 1519 for Mexico in search of gold; landed in Vera Cruz and burned his ships; gained Tenochtitlán, seat of Aztec emperor Montezuma; seized vast amounts of gold; returned in 1521. Henry VIII...............................................June 28, 1491 -- January 28, 1547; reign 1509 -- 1547 (England); House of Tudor; Protestant Reformation; Supreme Head of the Church of England; six wives, two beheaded. Columbus set sail................................August, 1492; in ships Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria; looking for a route to Asia by sailing west across the Atlantic; first landfall was likely what is today San Salvador; found native people "easy to conquer" but they resisted; governorship of Haiti; gold fever, enslavement and slaughter of native people; arrested December 1500 and sent home in chains. Things the New World got from Europe: apples, guns, hogs, horses, oranges, rice, roses, smallpox, wheat. Things Europe got from the New World: avocados, cacao beans, corn, cod, peanuts, pineapple, potatoes, tobacco. Syphillis epidemic in Europe............1493 -- 1543; estimated 10 million deaths. Süleyman the Magnificent (I)............~1494 -- 1566; greatest sultan of the Ottoman Empire; military campaigns, expanded realm; known as the Lawgiver, built fortresses, bridges, aqueducts, mosques (including Istanbul's grand Suleymaniye Mosque); art, literature flowered ... Hernando de Soto...............................1496 -- 1542; Spanish explorer and conquistador; first European to discover the Mississippi River. Renaissance.........................................end of the 13th century to about 1600s. 1500s Anne Boleyn.........................................1501/1507 -- May 19, 1536; married to Henry VIII; queen May 28, 1533 -- May 17, 1536 (beheaded); daughter Elizabeth I of England with Henry VIII. Jane Seymour......................................1508/1509 -- October 24, 1537; married to Henry VIII, queen May 30, 1536 -- October 24, 1537; son Edward VI of England with Henry VIII. John Calvin..........................................July 10, 1509 -- May 27, 1564; French born; wrote one of the most significant works of the Reformation; trained ministers who spread Protestant faith through Europe and New England; Calvinist movement, which included the concept of an elected, representative church government. Mary I......................................................February 18, 1516 -- November 17, 1558; reign 1553 -- 1558; (Bloody Mary; daughter of Henry VIII, 1492 -- 1437, and Catherine of Aragon, 1485 -- 1536; restored England to Roman Catholicism. Martin Luther nailed his theses to All Saints Church..........October 31, 1517; Ninety-Five Theses on the church at Wittenberg, Germany; fighting against forgiveness of sins in exchange for donations (Catholic Church); Vatican excommunicated him in 1512; Edict of Worms declared him a political outlaw; began Reformation. Smallpox epidemic in Mexico..........1519 -- 1522; estimated 2 million deaths. Catherine de Médici...........................April 13, 1519 -- January 5, 1589; Italian born queen of France; mother of Francis II of France; Elisabeth, Queen of Spain; Claude, Duchess of Lorraine; Louis of Valois; Charles IX of France; Henry III of France; Margaret, Queen of France; Joan of Valois; Victoria of Valois; called "Madame la serpente"; introduced fork to France; commissioned the first court ballet in 1581. Circumnavigation of the globe........1519 -- 1522 (Ferdinand Magellan, 1480 -- 1521; (he died en route.) Elizabeth I.............................................September 7, 1533 -- March 24, 1603; reign 1558 -- 1603; (daughter of Henry VIII, 1491 -- 1547, and Anne Boleyn, 1501 or 1507 -- 1536); called Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess; built up England's navy which defeated the Spanish Armada in the English Channel in 1588; supported Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, and Sir Walter Ralieigh; Elizabethan era. Edward VI.............................................October 12, 1537 -- July 6, 1553; reign 1547 -- 1553; (son of Henry VIII, 1491 -- 1547, and Jane Seymour, 1509 -- 1537); succeeded by Lady Jane Gray (1536/1537 -- 1554), his cousin, who was queen for only 9 days before she was executed. Potato gained popularity in Europe......1537 due to its "discovery" by Jiménez de Quesada; potato was first thought to be poisonous (confused for other poisonous members of the nightshade family); thought to be the cause of leprosy or flatulence; cultivated by Peruvians since 8000 BCE; Marie Antoinette wore potato flowers in her hair in 1785. Sir Francis Drake................................1540 -- January 27, 1596; English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, pirate, and politician; knighted by Elizabeth I (1533 -- 1603) in 1581; second in command of the English fleet in the defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588). First pistol.............................................1540 El Greco.................................................1541 -- April 7, 1614; Greek painter, sculptor, and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. Mary I, Queen of Scots.......................December 8, 1542 -- February 8, 1587; Queen of Scotland 1542 -- 1567 (only 6 days old when her father died and she became Queen); executed for treason (trying to have Elizabeth I, 1533 -- 1603, assassinated). On the Structure of the Human Body.........1543; a seven-volume work detailing the structure of the human body, written by Andreas Vesalius and illustrated by Jan Calcar. Silver Fever – Andes Mountains.....1545; discovery of silver in Andes mountains; entrepreneurs conscripted native to unearth the precious ore; thousands perished each year; estimated to be 8 million over three centuries; between 1550 and 1650, up to 60% of the world's silver came from here; area is now mined primarily for tin. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra........October 9, 1547 -- April 23, 1616; writer of Don Quixote, considered to be the first modern novel; the first part of Don Quixote was published in 1605; Man of La Mancha, 1965. Sir Walter Raleigh................................1552 -- October 29, 1618; English writer, poet, soldier, courtier, explorer; knighted by Elizabeth I (1533 -- 1603) in 1585. William Shakespeare..........................1564 -- April 23, 1616; English poet, actor, and playwright; "Bard of Avon;" wrote 38 plays and 154 sonnets. Galileo Galilei........................................February 16, 1564 -- January 8, 1642; Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, philosopher; "Father of Modern Physics;" "Father of Science;" "Father of Modern Science;" "Father of Modern Mechanics;" worked on laws of motion; said that the sun was the center of the "world" and the earth was not and moved around the sun; Pope Urban VIII challenged him and under the threat of torture, at age 69, Galileo recanted and was placed under house arrest until he died nine years later; after recanting it is believed that he said, "And yet it does move." Pope John Paul II said 300 years later that he was right after all. Johannes Kepler.................................December 27, 1571 -- November 15, 1630; German mathematician, astronomer, astrologer; eponymous laws of planetary motion. The Vatican’s Tower of the Winds.......built 1576; designed so that a shaft of light would hit the center of the meridian on the vernal equinox. Peter Paul Rubens..............................June 28, 1577 -- May 30, 1640; Flemish Baroque painter. Gregorian (present day) calendar created...........1582 by Pope Gregory XIII; New Year's Day on January 1; no leap years in centesimal years except those divisible by 400; on October 4, 1582, people went to bed and woke up the next morning October 15 -- ll days later. Defeat of Spanish Armada................August 8, 1588; the fleet, under the command of the 7th Duke of Medina Sedonia (1549 -- 1616); sailed against England with the intent of overthrowing Elizabeth I. Invention of microscope...................1590 by Dutch spectacle makers Sacharian Jansen (~1580 -- 1638) and his son Hans; improved 1600 by Galileo (1564 -- 1642); father of microscopy Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1623 -- 1723) of Holland. John Amos Comenius.......................March 28, 1592 -- November 4, 1670; Czech teacher, educator, writer, bishop; advised in The School of Infancy that babies should have their spirits stirred "by kisses and embraces"; wrote that children need to play to learn; if children were not loved, not educated early and well, their souls would be lost; wrote Janua Linguarum Reserata (The Gate of Languages Unlocked) in 1631 and Orbis Pictus: The World Illustrated in 1658. Orbis Pictus is considered the first children's picture book. Pocahontas..........................................1595 -- March 21, 1617; Virginian Native American; married Englishman John Rolfe (1585 -- 1622); her father was Wahunsenacawh (1545 -- 1618) who ruled all the tribes in the Tidewater region of Virginia; supposedly saved the life of John Smith (1580 -- 1631) and eased relationships between her tribe and the Jamestown settlement. René Descartes...................................March 31, 1596 -- February 11, 1650; French philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and writer; "Father of Modern Philosophy;"Father of Analytic Geometry;" player in the Scientific Revolution; Cartesian Coordinate System (geometric shapes expressed in equations); optics, physiology; "I think, therefore I am" ("Cogito ergo sum"). 1600s Poor Law...............................................1601; in England, able-bodied people who needed financial assistance were obligated to labor in workhouses; children assigned apprenticeships; sick and infirm in poorhouses had to do piecework; if not the aforementioned would be whipped, imprisoned, or put to death. Germany, in the 1880s, created a national insurance plan for dealing with illness and old age; 1900s Britain had public-housing policies; America's Social Security Act of 1935 all were descendants of the Poor Law. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn............July 15, 1606 -- October 4, 1669; Dutch painter and etcher; Dutch Golden Age. Founding of Jamestown Colony....1607; the first permanent British settlement in the New World. Invention of telescope.......................1608 by Dutch spectacle maker Johannes Lippershey (1570 -- 1619). Proof that planets orbit the sun......1609 by Johannes Kepler. First newspaper..................................1609; weekly four-page Relation in Strassburg, Germany. Telescope improved to view planets..........1610 by Galileo Galilei; could see the moons of Jupiter; said that both Jupiter and the Earth revolve around the sun; this telescope allowed him to see objects 100 times fainter than those visible to the naked eye. Hudson Bay discovered...................1610 by Henry Hudson. Slaves first brought to America......1619; a Dutch trader exchanged his cargo of Africans for food. Mayflower landed on the coast of Massachusetts.........1620; set up Plymouth Colony. Blaise Pascal.......................................June 19, 1623 -- August 19, 1662; French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher; construction of mechanical calculators; study of fluids, vacuums, pressure, economics, social science; Pascal's Triangle. Circulation of the blood explained.....1628; in the book An Anatomical Study of the Motion of the Heart and of the Blood in Animals by William Harvey, a British physician; described how blood flows away from the heart in arteries and then back to the heart in veins; scorned by many of the time. Anton van Leeuwenhoek..................October 24, 1632 -- November 4, 1723; Dutch tradesman and scientist from Delft; "Father of Microbiology;" improved the microscope, and the first to observe single-cell organisms in his hand-crafted microscopes. He called the microorganisms "animalcules." He also was the first to record observations of muscle fibers, sperm, bacteria, and blood flow in capillaries. He discovered infusoria in 1674, bacteria in 1676, spermatozoa in 1677, and the banded patterns of muscle fibers in 1688. Louis XIV..............................................September 5, 1638 -- September 1, 1715; crowned King of France in 1643 when he was 4 years old; declared himself a divine monarch -- the Sun King; constructed Versailles. Isaac Newton.......................................January 4, 1643 (? or 1642?) -- March 20, 1727; English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian; Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica published in 1687 is considered one of the most influential books of science ever; classical mechanics, universal gravitation; three laws of motion created a foundation for physics; Newton's Theory of Color (white light is a mixture of all colors); calculus which can be used to compute trajectories of rocket, medication dosage, movement of hurricanes, predict economic cycles, growth of cities, extinction of species ... "I seem to have been only like a boy, playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself, in now and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me." Edmund Halley....................................November 8, 1656 -- January 14, 1742; English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, physicist, computed the orbit of Halley's Comet, built a diving bell; 1693 -- suggested that the earth was hollow; several concentric rings with their own atmospheres and their own magnetic poles, and that the Aurora Borealis was the result of gas escaping from one of the levels. Law of Gravitation...............................1666 by Isaac Newton: his greatest discovery; watched an apple fall from a tree and realized that the same force pulling the apple earthward was also tugging steadily at the moon; made a mathematical formula defining gravitational pull between two objects. Peter the Great.....................................June 9, 1672 -- February 8, 1725; Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov; willed Russia to be a modern world power; built roads, canals, schools, new industries, a navy; despot as well as reformer; executed his son Alexis for opposing him. First bacteria seen through a microscope..........1674 by Anton van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch linen merchant, who made lenses out of grinding glass; her first saw a stinger of a honeybee, the leg of a louse, the brain of a fly, bacteria, and spermatozoa; when he examined a drop of lake water, he saw "animalcules" with tiny heads, limbs, and fins, later called protozoa. First museum opened.......................1683; Ashmolean in England; John Tradascant, a gardener to royalty, deeded his family treasures to Elias Ashmole who then donated them to Oxford University with the stipulation that they be housed in a separate building. Johann Sebastian Bach...................March 21, 1685 -- July 28, 1750; German composer and organist; wrote in every known musical genre except opera; The Well-Tempered Clavier in each of the 12 major and 12 minor keys; he preferred the clavichord. Law of gravity published..................1687 by Sir Isaac Newton. First American newspaper...............1690 in Boston. Salem Witch Trials.............................1692 -- 1693 John Harrison......................................March 24, 1693 -- March 24, 1776; British clockmaker; made the marine chronometer, which allowed seamen to calculate latitude; the chronometer was used by Captain James Cook in 1775 to chart the South Sea Islands. 1700s Piano-forte created............................around 1700 by Bartolomeo Cristifori to allow variation in dynamics that the clavichord could not produce; "soft-loud." Benjamin Franklin.............................January 17, 1706 -- April 17, 1790; American; Founding Father; polymath, author, printer, satirist, political theorist, politician, scientist, inventor, civil activist, statesman, soldier, diplomat; Enlightenment, physics, electricity; first public lending library, first fire department; in American Revolution as a diplomat, worked with French to gain US independence; first US postmaster general. Carolus Linnaeus..............................May 23, 1707 -- January 10, 1778; Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist; laid foundation for the modern-day scheme of binomial nomenclature; Father of Modern Taxonomy; one of the Fathers of Modern Ecology; real name Carl von Linné (used Linnaeus when writing in Latin); devised a system for naming the genus and species of plants and animals. Jean Jacques Rousseau.................June 28, 1712 -- July 2, 1778; educational theorist; ranked emotional development and experience above book learning; abandoned his own 5 children at a Paris orphanage; children are born "noble savages." Immanuel Kant....................................April 22, 1724 -- February 12, 1804; spent life in Königsberg, East Prussia; wrote Critique of Pure Reason in which he examined the nature and limits of human ethics; wrote about aesthetics and ethics; established the direction of modern philosophy. James Cook........................................November 7, 1728 -- February 14, 1779; British explorer, navigator, cartographer; mapped Newfoundland; visited Australia and Hawaii; first circumnavigation of New Zealand. Bering Strait discovered..................1728 by Vitus Bering. Catherine the Great (Catherine II of Russia)...........May 2, 1729 -- November 17, 1796; Sophie Friedericke Auguste von Anhalt- Zerbst-Domburg; reign (Russia) 1762 -- 1796; married to Peter III (February 21, 1728 -- July 16, 1762) who was deposed in 1762 (and was killed 3 days later) when she took power. Peter had only been emperor for 6 months. George Washington..........................February 22, 1732 -- December 14, 1799; 1st president of the United States from 1789 -- 1797; no party but favored Federalist; Virginia; vice president John Adams; married to Martha Dandridge Custis (June 2, 1731-- May 22, 1802); raised her two children from her previous marriage and then two of her grandchildren; Church of England/Episcopal; military rank: General. Before politics, he was a soldier and a planter. He was the only president to be elected unanimously. When he was elected, there were 7 states and about 4 million people. Richard Arkwright..............................December 23, 1732 -- August 3, 1792; invented a water-powered spinning frame to make all- cotton cloth; inadvertently became the founder of the modern factory system, a system in which specialized workers, using specialized machinery, work together in one place -- very quickly. Thirteen colonies established........1733: Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia John Adams........................................October 30, 1735 -- July 4, 1826; second president of the USA from 1797 -- 1801; Federalist party, Massachusetts; vice president Thomas Jefferson. He was a lawyer, educated at Harvard College, Unitarian, married to Abigail Smith (1744 -- October 28, 1818), and had 3 sons and 2 daughters (son John Quincy Adams became the 6th president of the US). Before politics, he was a teacher, lawyer, surveyor, and selectman. He was the first president to live in the White House. He and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day (July 4, 1826). James Watt..........................................January 19, 1736 -- August 25, 1819; Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer; worked on the steam engine. Uffizi Gallery opened.........................1737 in Florence, Italy. Sir Frederick William Herschel........November 16, 1738 -- August 25, 1822; German born British astronomer, technical expert, and composer; discovered Uranus in 1781; discovered infrared radiation in 1800; discovered two moons of Saturn: Mimas and Enceladus; discovered two moons of Uranus: Titania and Oberon; studied binary stars and ice caps on Mars; said that our solar system is moving through space, and described our galaxy as disc shaped; coined the word "asteroid." Thomas Jefferson..............................April 13, 1743 -- July 4, 1826; 3rd president of the US from 1801 -- 1809; vice presidents Aaron Burr, George Clinton; Democratic-Republican party; Virginia; lawyer; studied at College of William and Mary; pioneer of American architecture; spurred western expansion; slave owner who opposed slavery; "It is a self-evident truth that all Men are created equal;" "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" married to Martha Wayles Skelton (October 30, 1748 -- September 6, 1782), 5 daughters; his daughter Martha "Patsy" Randolph served as "First Lady". He authorized the Lewis and Clark expedition. He was a Deist. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier...............August 26, 1743 -- May 8, 1794; French chemist and biologist; Father of Modern Chemistry; recognized and named oxygen and hydrogen; helped form the metric system; wrote the first extensive list of elements. Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes..........March 30, 1746 -- April 16, 1829; Spanish painter and printmaker; regarded as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the modern; Saturn Devouring His Son, 1819. Edward Jenner...................................May 17, 1749 -- January 26, 1823; English scientist; considered the pioneer of the smallpox vaccination; Father of Modern Immunology. James Madison..................................March 16, 1751 -- June 28, 1836; 4th US president, 1809 -- 1817; vice presidents George Clinton and Elbridge Gerry; Democratic-Republican party; Virginia; attended Princeton University; Father of the Constitution; supported checks and balances among the government's branches and clear divisions between federal and state authority; drafted the Bill of Rights; military rank: Colonel; married to Dolley Payne Todd (May 20, 1768 -- July 12, 1849), 1 stepson; Episcopalian. Before politics, he was a farmer and a planter. Both of his vice presidents died in office. He was 5'5" tall and weighed about 100 pounds. Marie Antoinette.................................November 2, 1755 -- October 16, 1793; Maria Antonia Josephina Johanna; reign (France) 1774 -- 1793; married to Louis-Auguste, dauphin of France (Louis XVI) (August 23, 1754 -- January 1, 1793) (reign as king of France, 1791 -- 1792); executed by guillotine 9 months after her husband. The Vatican Museum opened.........1756 in Rome, Italy. James Monroe....................................April 28, 1758 -- July 4, 1831; 5th US president 1817 -- 1825; vice president Daniel Tompkins; Democratic-Republican party; Virginia; married to Elizabeth Kortright (June 30, 1768 -- September 32, 1830), 2 daughters, one son; Episcopalian; attended College of William and Mary; military rank: Lieutenant Colonel. He issued the Monroe Doctrine. Before politics, he was a lawyer and a soldier. His presidency was known as "The Era of Good Feelings:" despite a recession in 1819. Mary Wollstonecraft..........................April 27, 1759 -- September 10, 1797; A Vindication of the Rights of Women, 1792; British author; challenged Rousseau arguing for equal education and employment for women and women's rights; mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein; influenced generations of feminists. Invention of modern steam engine..............1765 by James Watt (1736 -- 1819) Andrew Jackson................................March 15, 1767 -- June 8, 1845; 7th US president 1829 -- 1837; vice presidents John C. Calhoun and Martin Van Buren; "First Lady": Emily Donelson (niece of wife Rachel); Democratic; SC/NC/TN/FL; military rank: Major General; married to Rachel Donelson Robards (June 15, 1767 -- December 22, 1828), 2 adopted sons, guardians of 8 other children; Presbyterian. Before politics, he was a soldier. He was the first president to ride a train, to be born in a log cabin, and to be nominated by a political party. He survived the first attempt to assassinate a president. John Quincy Adams..........................July 11, 1767 -- February 23, 1848; 6th US president 1825 -- 1829; vice president John Calhoun; Federalist until 1808; Democratic Republican 1808 -- 1825; National Republican (Whig) 1826 -- 1848; Massachusetts. He was a lawyer, educated at University of Leyden and Harvard College, Unitarian; married to Louisa Catherine Johnson, (February 12, 1775 -- May 15, 1852), 3 sons and 1 daughter. He is the only president to hold office in the House of Representatives after his presidential term. Napoleon I (Napoleon Bonaparte)........August 15, 1769 -- May 5, 1821; reign 1804 -- 1814; soldier then Emperor of France; exiled to Elba, 1814; returned to power and then defeated at the Battle of Waterloo 1815; seized power in France in 1799; spent last 6 years in exile on St. Helena, a British isle. Industrial Revolution.........................1769 Ludwig Van Beethoven....................1770 -- March 26, 1827; German composer; deaf; expanded traditional sonata, quartet, concerto, and symphony into personal expressions both sublime and profound: "They are not for you, but for a later age." William Henry Harrison.....................February 9, 1773 -- September 9, 1841; 9th president of the US, 1841; vice president John Tyler; Whig (died on the 32nd day as president from pneumonia); daughter-in-law Jane Irwin Harrison acted as "First Lady" until Harrison's wife could arrive from Ohio (she had been ill); Virginia and Indiana; military rank: Major General; married to Anna Tuthill Symmes (July 25, 1775 -- February 25, 1864), 10 children; Episcopalian; attended Hampden-Sydney College. Before politics, he was in the military. He was the first president to die in office, and had the shortest term of any president. He gave the longest inauguration speech (8,445 words). His campaign slogan was "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too." Boston Tea Party................................December 16, 1773; Boston officials refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, colonists boarded the ships and threw the tea into the Boston Harbor. Paul Revere’s ride..............................April 1775; along with other Minutemen, rode for miles through darkness to warn colonists that British troops were planning to capture guns and ammunition. The American Revolution began the next day at the Battles of Lexington and Concord. American Revolutionary War..........1775 -- 1783 Johnny Appleseed.............................September 26, 1775 -- March 18, 1845; real name John Chapman. He was a nurseryman who introduced apple trees to Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. He was also a missionary for The New Church. Declaration of Independence..........July 4, 1776; penned by Thomas Jefferson. Martin Van Buren...............................December 5, 1782 -- July 24, 1862; 8th US president, 1837 -- 1841, vice president Richard M. Johnson; "First Lady": Angelica Singleton Van Buren, daughter-in-law; Democratic-Republican until 1825, Democrat 1828 -- 1848; Free Soil, 1848 -- 1854; New York; married to Hannah Hoes (March 8, 1783 -- February 5, 1819), 5 sons, 1 daughter; lawyer; Dutch Reformed. He was the first president born as a US citizen. He was known as a "dandy" -- known to be an exquisite dresser who enjoyed expensive wine and rich food. Simón Bolívar.....................................July 24, 1783 -- December 17, 1830; Simon Jose Antonio de la Santisima Trinidad Bolivar y Palacios Ponte y Yeiter; Venezuelan; El Libertador; fought for independence of northern South America; in 1819, chased Spanish out of what is now Columbia by staging one of the most daring attacks in military history: led 2500 men over terrain so rough that the Spanish thought it impassable, then surprised the imperial forces in the Battle of Boyacá; military leader, statesman, dictator, emancipator of Venezuela; key figure in the liberation of Ecuador and Peru. Sacajawea............................................~1784 -- December 20, 1812 or 1814; Shoshone; accompanied the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1803 -- 1806) (Merriwether Lewis, 1774 -- 1809; William Clark, 1770 -- 1838) in their exploration of the Louisiana Purchase to the Pacific Ocean. She was called "Janey" by Clark; has a dollar coin all about her. Zachary Taylor....................................November 24, 1784 -- July 9, 1850; 12th president of US 1849 -- 1850; vice president Millard Filmore; Whig; daughter Betty Taylor Bliss acted as "First Lady" (Taylor's wife was a semi-invalid and remained in seclusion on the second floor of the White House); died in office from gastroenteritis; Virginia; married to Margaret Mackall Smith (September 21, 1788 -- August 14, 1852), 6 children; Episcopal; military rank: Major General. His nickname was "Old Rough and Ready" since he was a sloppy dresser. He was the first president not previously elected to any other public office. John James Audubon......................April 26, 1785 -- January 27, 1851; French American ornithologist, naturalist, hunter, and wildlife artist; painted, catalogued, and described the birds of North America in great detail; wrote The Birds of North America (1827 -- 1839), a color-plate book. He identified 25 new species and a number of new sub-species. He didn't paint birds in their natural habitats: he killed them and then stuffed them, and then posed them with wires. Yuk. First three US states..........................Delaware (December 7, 1787); Pennsylvania (December 12, 1787); and New Jersey (December 18, 1787). Next 8 US states.................................Georgia (January 2, 1788); Connecticut (January 9, 1788); Massachusetts (February 6, 1788); Maryland (April 28, 1788); South Carolina (May 23, 1788); New Hampshire (June 21, 1788); Virginia (June 25, 1788); New York (July 26, 1788). French Revolution.............................1789 -- 1799; philosophers Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu called for social order based on law and reason rather than royal privilege; 1789 middle-class delegates formed their own National Assembly; thousands stormed Bastille Prison; 17,000 lost heads by guillotine including Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Bastille Day..........................................July 14, 1789 War Department established..........August 7, 1789 North Carolina became a state.......November 21, 1789 (12th) Age of Enlightenment.......................17th -- 18th centuries John Tyler, Jr.....................................March 29, 1790 -- January 18, 1862; 10th US president 1841 -- 1845; Democratic-Republican (before 1825), Democratic (1825 -- 1834); Whig (1834 -- 1841); Independent (1841 -- 1862); daughter-in-law Priscilla Cooper Tyler acted as "First Lady;" Virginia; military rank: Captain; married to Letitia Christian (1813 -- 1834); 8 children, and Julia Gardiner (1844 -- 1862); 7 children; Episcopal; attended College of William and Mary. He was nicknamed "His Accidency." Both the Whigs and Democrats threatened to impeach him. He was the first president to be widowed and remarried. Rhode Island became a state.........May 29, 1790 (13th) Vermont became a state..................March 4, 1791 (14th) Bill of Rights came into effect as Constitutional Amendments............December 15, 1791; the first 10 amendments to the Constitution; protect the natural rights of liberty and property including freedom of religion, speech, free press, free assembly, free association, right to bear arms, right to a speedy trial and trial by jury, etc. Michael Faraday.................................September 22, 1791 -- August 25, 1867; English chemist and physicist; electromagnetism and electrochemistry. Samuel Finley Breese Morse..........April 27, 1791 -- April 2, 1872; invented the first telegraph machine; staged a demonstration in 1837 by transmitting signals over 1,700 feet of wire; 1844 wired (in his Morse code) "what hath God wrought!" from Washington DC to Baltimore. James Buchanan...............................April 24, 1791 -- June 1, 1868; 15th US president, 1857 -- 1861; vice president John Breckinridge; neice Harriet Lane acted as "First Lady;" Democratic; Pennsylvania; was not married; no children; attended Dickinson College; Presbyterian. During his term, the Confederate States of America declared their independence. Kentucky and Tennessee became states..........June 1, 1792 (15th and 16th) The Louvre opened...........................1793 in Paris, France. James Knox Polk...............................November 2, 1795 -- June 15, 1849; 11th president of the US, 1845 -- 1849; vice president George Mifflin Dallas; Democrat; North Carolina, Tennessee; military rank: Colonel; married to Sarah Childress (September 4, 1893 -- August 14, 1891); Presbyterian; attended the University of North Carolina. He was the first "dark horse" nominee of a party. He was president during the California Gold Rush. Vaccination for smallpox.................1796 by Edward Jenner; general practitioner; extracted cowpox-infected lymph from pustules on a Gloucestershire milkmaid in 1796 and inserted a small amount in the arm of an eight-year-old boy; seven weeks later he injected the same little boy with smallpox and his immune system won; Latin word "vaccinus" means "of the cow;" last known case of smallpox happened in Somalia in 1977; by 1980, smallpox was officially declared eradicated; virus in laboratories. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley...........August 30, 1797 -- February 1, 1851; British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer; Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus, 1818; married to Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4, 1792 -- July 8, 1822). Napoleon seized power of France..............1799; vowed to bring order to France and to export its revolutionary ideals; by 1812 he had conquered most of Europe; three years later he was defeated and exiled; first modern dictator; Napoleonic Code. The Rosetta Stone.............................1799; Napoleon's soldiers found a slab of black basalt engraved in three languages -- Greek, demotic, and hieroglyphics in Rashid (Rosetta); in 1822 Jean-François Champollion discovered that hieroglyphics mixed phonetic and symbolic meanings and some should be read right to left, others top to bottom, others left to right, which led to different translations -- Egyptians knew medicine, astronomy, geometry, poetry, used weights and measures ... 1800s Millard Fillmore...................................January 7, 1800 -- March 8, 1874; 13th US president 1850 -- 1853; no vice president; Whig, American parties; New York; finished Taylor's term; married to Abigail Powers (March 13, 1798 -- March 30, 1853) and Caroline McIntosh (October 21, 1813 -- August 11, 1881), 2 children, Unitarian; military rank: Major. He ran for president again in 1856 on the Know-Nothing ticket. Invention of trains..............................1803, Samuel Homfray (1762 -- 1822) funded development of the steam-powered vehicle to replace the horse-drawn carriages on the tramway; achieved by Richard Trevithick (1771 -- 1833) who first made a trip on February 22, 1804, hauling 10 tons of iron, 70 men, and 5 extra wagons for 9 miles. It took 2 hours. Ohio became a state..........................March 1, 1803 (17th) Louisiana Purchase..........................1803; more than doubled the size of the country; paid 15 million dollars to France. Haiti became the world’s first free black republic........January 1, 1804; independence from France. Franklin Pierce...................................November 23, 1804 -- October 8, 1869; 14th US president 1853 -- 1857; Democratic; New Hampshire; vice president William R. King; married to Jane Means Appleton (March 12, 1806 -- December 2, 1863), 3 children; attended Bowdoin College; military rank: Brigadier General; Episcopalian. All three of his children died before reaching adolescence. He was the first president to memorize and then recite his inaugural address. Invention of the first modern, self-igniting match....1805 by K. Chancel, an assistant to Louis Jacques Thenard (1777 -- 1857) of Paris. Hans Christian Andersen................April 2, 1805 -- August 4, 1875; Danish author of fairy tales, first published in 1835. Some of his stories are The Steadfast Tin Soldier (1838), The Snow Queen (1844), The Little Mermaid (1848), Thumbelina (1835), The Little Match Girl (1848), The Ugly Duckling (1844), The Emperor's New Clothes (1837), The Princess and the Pea (1836), and a nonillion more. Louis Agassiz.....................................May 28, 1807 -- December 14, 1873; Swiss paleontologist, glaciologist, physician, zoologist, ichthyologist, and geologist, prominent in studying Earth's history; first to scientifically propose that the earth had gone through a recent Ice Age. Andrew Johnson...............................December 29, 1808 -- July 31, 1875; 17th US president 1865 -- 1869; no vice president; Democrat; Tennessee; married to Eliza McCardle (October 4, 1810 -- January 15, 1876), 5 children; daughter Martha Johnson Patterson acted as "First Lady" (due to his wife's poor health); military rank: Brigadier General. He was the first president to be impeached and was acquitted in the Senate by just one vote. Charles Robert Darwin.....................February 12, 1809 -- April 19, 1882; English naturalist; On the Origin of the Species (published 1859); Descent of Man (published 1871); went on the H.M.S. Beagle for 5 years; returned semi-invalid; married to Emma Wedgewood Darwin (May 2, 1808 -- October 7, 1896), 10 children. Abraham Lincoln................................February 12, 1809 -- April 15, 1865; 16th US president 1861 -- 1865; vice presidents Hannibal Hamlin, Andrew Johnson; Republican, Illionois; married to Mary Todd Lincoln (December 13, 1818 -- July 16, 1882), 4 children; no college; no specific denomination; military rank: Captain; assassinated in 1865; Civil War, Gettysburg Address. He was the first president to be assassinated. He was shot five days after the end of the Civil War. He issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 23, 1863. Phineas T. Barnum............................July 5, 1810 -- April 7, 1891; American Museum (of freaks and curiosities) attracted millions of visitors each year; circus dubbed the "Greatest Show on Earth." Harriet Beecher Stowe.....................June 14. 1811 -- July 1, 1896; American abolitionist, author, Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852. Louisiana became a state................April 30, 1812 (18th) War of 1812..........................................1812 -- 1815 between US and Britain over the freedom of US ships at sea; at the battle of Fort McHenry, American writer Francis Scott Key penned a poem that would become the Star Spangled Banner. First canned food appeared............1812; French brewer Nicolas Appert spent several years of preserving and sealing food by heating it in airtight jars as a result of a reward offered by Napoleon to anyone who could supply his troops with food that would keep; London company Donkin, Hall, and Gamble applied his methods to tin cans in 1812. Otto von Bismarck.............................April 1, 1815 -- July 30, 1898; Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg; Prussian statesman; took 9 years, 3 wars, and cunning to unify Prussia and other German states and make a powerful nation; Iron Chancellor; initiated welfare system; seen by some as a ruthless conservative who set the stage for fascism. Brontë sisters Charlotte:..........................................April 21, 1816 -- March 31, 1855; English author; pseudonym Currer Bell for a book of poetry; Jane Eyre, 1847; Emma, 1860. Emily:.................................................July 30, 1818 -- December 19, 1848; English author; pseudonym Ellis Bell for a book of poetry; Wuthering Heights, 1847. Anne:..................................................January 17, 1820 -- May 28, 1849; English author; pseudonym Acton Bell for a book of poetry; Agnes Grey, 1847; The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, 1848. Indiana became a state....................December 11, 1816 (19th) Mississippi became a state.............December 18, 1817 (20th) Karl Marx..............................................May 5, 1818 -- March 14, 1883; renounced his bourgeois roots; political journalist; patron and writing partner Friedrich Engels; vision of postcapitalist world where the working class owns the means of production. Frederick Douglass...........................February 1818 -- February 20, 1895; son of a slave woman and an unknown father, escaped in 1838 disguised as a sailor and fled north; aided in freeing slaves; autobiography; North Star newspaper. Illinois became a state......................December 3, 1818 (21st) James Prescott Joule.......................December 24, 1818 -- October 11, 1884; English physicist and brewer; studied heat and its relationship to mechanical work; led to theory of conservation and energy and the First Law of Thermodynamics ("The increase in the internal energy of a system is equal to the amount of energy added by heating the system, minus the amount lost as a result of the work done by the system on its surroundings."); SI derived unit of energy = joule; worked with Lord Kelvin (1824 -- 1907) to develop the absolute scale of temperature; found a relationship between the current through a resistance and the heat dissipated (Joule's Law). Simón Bolivar freed Colombia.......1819; he went to Europe in 1799; inspired by Voltaire, Locke, and Rousseau; resolved to liberate his homeland from 300 years of Spanish rule; embarked on a series of bloody campaigns in 1810; freed Columbia and banished Spaniards from Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Jean Bernard Léon Foucault..........September 18, 1819 -- February 11, 1868; French physicist, invented the Foucault pendulum, a device demonstrating the earth's rotation; made an early measurement of the speed of light; discovered eddy currents; has Foucault crater on the Moon named for him. George Eliot........................................November 22, 1819 -- December 22, 1880; Mary Anne Evans; English novelist, journalist, and translator. She published seven novels: Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1863), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1871), and Daniel Deronda (1876). Alabama became a state..................December 14, 1819 (22nd) Florence Nightingale.......................May 12, 1820 -- August 13, 1910; nurse; served with the British army in the Crimean War; gained Queen Victoria's support for health care reform in the military; established first school for nurses; spent last 40 years of her life as an invalid. Susan B. Anthony.............................February 15, 1820 -- March 13, 1906; leader in the first wave of women's suffrage; daughter of Quakers; barnstormed for equality and was insulted, vilified, and pelted with rotten eggs; cast a vote in 1872 and then arrested and fined $100.00; credo: "Failure is impossible." There was a dollar coin all about her minted in 1979 -- 1981 and then again in 1999. It was REALLLY unpopular because it was easily mistaken for a quarter. Harriet Tubman...................................1820 or 1821 -- March 10, 1913; Araminta Harriet Ross; an abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the Civil War. She escaped slavery and then worked for the Underground Railroad to free more slaves. She was hit in the head with a heavy metal weight when she was young, which caused disabling seizures, headaches, powerful visionary and dream activity, and narcolepsy. Maine became a state.......................March 15, 1820 (23rd) Clara Barton........................................December 25, 1821 -- April 12, 1912; Clarissa Harlowe Barton; an American teacher, patent clerk, nurse, and humanitarian. She organized the American Red Cross. Missouri became a state..................August 10, 1821 (24th) Rutherford B. Hayes.........................October 4, 1822 -- January 17, 1893; 19th US president 1877 -- 1881; vice president William Wheeler; Republican, Ohio; married to Lucy Ware Webb (August 28, 1831 -- June 25, 1889), 8 children; attended Kenyon College and Harvard Law School; military rank: Major General; Methodist. He was nicknamed "His Fraudulency" because he allegedly stole the election of 1876. Ulysses S. Grant................................April 27, 1822 -- July 23, 1885; 18th US president 1869 -- 1877; vice presidents Schyler Colfax and Henry Wilson; Republican, Ohio; married to Julia Dent (January 26, 1826 -- December 14, 1902), 4 children; attended United States Military Academy; military rank: full General; Methodist. He once got a speeding ticket riding on his horse. Gregor Johann Mendel....................July 20, 1822 -- January 6, 1884; Austrian monk who spent a decade crossbreeding pea plants in his monastery garden and aired his discovery of the basic laws of heredity in 1866; theses stated that traits handed down from parent plants to offspring were mathematically predictable. First accordion (like) instrument made..........1822 by Friedrich Buschmann in Germany. Louis Pasteur.....................................December 27, 1822 -- September 28, 1895; French chemist and microbiologist; pasteurization, rabies vaccine; germ theory; anthrax; "the most perfect man who has ever entered the kingdom of Science." First photograph................................1826 by Joseph-Nicéphore Niépce; a ghostly picture of a courtyard and granary framed by a pigeon house and a bread oven's chimney; called it a "heliograph", the picture being the result of an 8-hour exposure; soon he joined forces with Louis Mandé Daguerre, and the first fixed image on metal (daguerrotype), which took only 20 minutes' exposure. Joseph Lister......................................April 5, 1827 -- February 10, 1912; British surgeon and pioneer of antiseptic surgery; introduced carbolic acid to sterilize surgical instruments. Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy................September 9, 1828 -- November 20, 2010; Russian writer, War and Peace; Anna Karenina; married, 13 children; excommunicated from Russian Orthodox Church; rejected divinity of Jesus, renounced violence, condemned private property. First water purification system invented........1829 in London at the Chelsea Water Works, who used a slow-sand filter on water from the Thames River; in 1854 physician John Snow began filtering his water as the result of an outbreak of cholera (epidemics of cholera and typhoid were common); and the use of chlorine was introduced in 1909. LDS church organized.....................April 6, 1830; Fayette, New York. First sewing machine patented......1830 by French tailor Barthélemy Thimonnier; stolen; later improved by German immigrant Isaac Merritt Singer in 1851. Chester A. Arthur...............................October 5, 1830 -- November 17, 1886; 21st president of the US, 1881 -- 1885; no vice president; Republican, New York; Episcopalian; teacher, principal, and lawyer educated at Union College, State and National Law School; married to Ellen Lewis Herndon (August 30, 1837 -- January 12, 1880), 2 sons, 1 daughter; his sister Mary Arthur McElroy acted as "First Lady" (or "White House hostess"). Military rank: brigadier general. He was known for his Civil Service reform, honesty and efficiency; nicknamed "Elegant Arthur." Invention of telegraph.......................1830; Joseph Henry; commercially by Samuel F. B. Morse 1838; Morse Code 1840s. First fully-steam driven railway......September 15, 1830 between Liverpool and Manchester in England; designed by George Stephenson and his son Robert; this train ran down a member of the Parliament at the opening ceremony, causing his death; train went 30 miles per hour. James A. Garfield...............................November 19, 1831 -- September 19, 1881; 20th US president 1881 -- 1881; vice president Chester A. Arthur; Republican, Ohio; married to Lucretia "Crete" Rudolph (April 19, 1932 -- March 14, 1918), 7 children; military rank Major General; Disciples of Christ. He was assassinated after serving for only a few months in office. He was considered a great orator. Louisa May Alcott..............................November 29, 1832 -- March 6, 1888; American novelist; wrote Little Woman (1868); used the pen name A. M. Bernard for a series of novels including Behind a Mask, or a Woman's Power (1866). Besides being a novelist, she was an abolitionist and a feminist. She contracted typhoid fever and was treated with a medicine containing mercury, which was considered to have caused her death. However, recently it has been shown that she might have had lupus. She died at age 55 two days after her father. Her last words were, "Is it not meningitis?" Édouard Manet...................................January 23, 1832 -- April 30, 1883; French painter; Realism to Impressionism. Some of his works were: Music in the Tuileries (1882), The Luncheon on the Grass (1863), Olympia (1863), A Bar at the Folies-Bergere (1882), Young Flautist (1866); and lots more. He died of syphilis and rheumatism. His left foot had been amputated due to gangrene, and he died 11 days later, age 51. Electron microscope developed............1833 by German engineer Ernst Ruska; used electrons instead of light. Refrigerators invented......................1834 by Jacob Perkins in London; patent for "compressor"; could make ice artificially; first commercial refrigerators installed in an Australian brewery 17 years later; first safe and quiet refrigerator appeared in kitchens in the early 1930s. Edgar Degas.......................................July 19, 1834 -- September 27, 1917; French painter, sculptor, printmaker, draughtsman; regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism, though he preferred to be called a realist. He was born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas. Some of his art works are: A Cotton Office in New Orleans (1873); The Dance Class (1873 -- 1876); L'Absinthe (1876), Musicians in the Orchestra (1872), La Toilette (1884 -- 1886), and lots more. James Abbott McNeill Whistler.......July 10, 1834 -- July 17, 1917; American painter; founder of Tonalism; attended the United States Military Academy (West Point, NY); called many of his paintings "arrangements" or "harmonies" or "nocturnes." Some of his works are: La Mere Gerard (1858), Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl (1862), Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother (Whistler's Mother) (1871), Arrangement in Pink, Red, and Purple (1883 -- 1884), and many more ... Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)........November 30, 1835 -- April 21, 1910; American author and humorist; married to Olivia Langdon (November 27, 1845 -- June 5, 1904), 3 daughters, 1 son. He held patents for 3 inventions: "Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments," a history trivia game, and a self-pasting scrapbook. A few books: Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). He said that he "came in" with Halley's Comet in 1835 and would "go out" with it in 1910. This he did. He was an abolitionist and a feminist; Presbyterian, Freemason. He also used the pen name "Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass." Battle of the Alamo............................began February 23, 1836; lasted for 13 days until the last man was killed; only survivors were 2 women and 2 children; a battle between Texas and Mexico over San Antonio. The Texans were led by William Travis; Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie were volunteers, which numbered 150 fighting men and 32 volunteers; Mexicans led by General Santa Anna with over 4000 troops. Arkansas became a state................June 15, 1836 (25th) Sam Houston inaugurated..............October 22, 1836; first elected president of the Republic of Texas. Samuel Houston (March 2, 1793 -- July 26, 1863) was an American statesman, politician, and soldier. Michigan became a state.................January 26, 1837 (26th) Victorian Age (reign of Queen Victoria)....June 1837 -- January 1901; Alexandrina Victoria (May 24, 1819 -- January 22, 1901) was queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; daughter of Prince Edward of England and Princess Victoria of Saxe- Coburg Saalfeld. She became queen at age 18. She married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1840. They had 9 children and 34 grandchildren. She reigned for 63 years and 7 months. The Victorian Age was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change. Queen Victoria's successor was her son Edward VII. Paul Cézanne.....................................January 19, 1839 -- October 22, 1906; French artist and Post-Impressionist painter. He is said to have formed the bridge between Impressionism and Cubism. Some of his works: Femme au Chapeau Vert (1894 -- 1895); The Card Players (1892); Les Grande Baigneuses (1898 -- 1905); Still Life with a Curtain (1895); Jas de Bouffan (1876); Pyramid of Skulls (1901); The Overture to Tannhauser: the Artist's Mother and Sister (1868); and lots more ... John Davison Rockefeller...............July 8, 1839 -- May 23, 1937; early American billionaire, Standard Oil Company, religious robber baron, oil industrialist, inventor, philanthropist; at age 58 turned to charity; married Laura Celestia Spelman, 4 daughters, 1 son; died at age 97 -- never smoked a cigar or drank champagne. Rubber invented................................1839 by Charles Goodyear, made from latex. François-Auguste-René Rodin.............November 12, 1840 -- November 17, 1917; French sculptor, married his long-time partner, Rose Beuret in the last year of both of their lives, 1 son; some of his works: The Age of Bronze (1877); St. John the Baptist Preaching (1878); The Thinker (1879 -- 1889); The Gates of Hell (unfinished); Monument to Balzac (1891 -- 1898); and many more ... Oscar-Claude Monet.........................November 14, 1840 -- December 5, 1826; French founder of French Impressionist painting; married to Camille Doncieux (who has a very cool name), 2 children. Some of his works: Woman in a Garden (1866 --- 1867); The Luncheon (1868); The Magpie (1872); Poppies Blooming (1873); Woman With a Parasol (1875); Water Lilies (1906); and many more, including a lot of water lilies. Pierre-Auguste Renoir.....................February 25, 1841 -- December 3, 1926; French Impressionist painter; his son Pierre was an actor, and his son Jean a filmmaker; married to Aline Victorine Charigot, 3 sons. Some of his works are Girls at the Piano (1892); Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (1876); On the Terrace (1881); A Girl With a Watering Can (1876); and lots more. Ether first used as an anesthetic.............December 1824 by Dr. Crawford Williamson Long of Jefferson, Georgia. First Christmas card.........................1843; created by a London businessman; printed in England; three years later, Christmas cards were available to the public. Nitrous oxide first used by a dentist.......1844 by Dr. Horace Wells (called "laughing gas" sometimes). Mary Stevenson Cassatt...................May 22, 1844 -- June 14, 1926; American painter; often portrayed women in their various private lives, especially women and children; Gustave Geffroy called her (along with Marie Bracquemond and Berthe Morisot) "les trois grandes dames" (the three grand women) of Impressionism; some of her works: Tea (1880), The Child's Bath (1893), The Reader (1877), Children on the Beach (1884), Child in Straw Hat (1886), Maternite (1890), and many more. First telegraph line inaugurated.....May 24, 1844 by Samuel F. B. Morse between Washington DC and Baltimore; he wrote "What hath God wrought!"; telegraph unveiled in 1834; electric telegraph was capable of moving messages across land and sea at 16,000 miles per second. Wilhelm Konrad Röentgen..............March 27, 1845-- February 10, 1923; German physicist, produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range that is better known today as x-rays; won the very first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901; married to Anna Bertha Ludwig, 1 child; he died from intestine cancer. Potato blight in Ireland.....................began in 1845; as many as one million died; another 1.25 million emigrated to the US. Florida became a state.....................March 3, 1845 (27th) Texas became a state.......................December 29, 1845 (28th) Iowa became a state..........................December 26, 1846 (29th) Chloroform first given.......................1847 by Dr. James Young Simpson, a Scotsman, to a woman to breathe just before she gave birth. Alexander Graham Bell....................March 3, 1847 -- August 2, 1922; Scottish scientist, inventor, engineer, and innovator; patented the telephone in 1876; created communication devices for the deaf, including his wife, Mabel Hubbard, and his mother Eliza Grace Symonds Bell; 2 daughters, 2 sons; believed that deafness should be eradicated; that people who were deaf should learn to speak and avoid sign language. Thomas Alva Edison.........................February 11, 1847 -- October 18, 1931; born in Ohio; tamed both lightning and thunder in a tiny lab in New Jersey; by 1876 he built a factory in Menlo Park to invent; invented the phonograph, lightbulb (1879), motion picture (The Great Train Robbery, 1903), telephone transmitter, stock ticker, fluoroscope, storage battery; held more than 2,000 patents. California Gold Rush.........................1848 -- 1855; "Forty-Niners;" Oregon Trail, more than 2000 miles long. Wisconsin became a state...............May 28, 1858 (30th) Women’s Rights.................................1848; Declaration of Sentiments written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and signed at the Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York; 12 resolutions adopted; suffragists took to the street in protest in 1900; woman's right to vote didn't happen until 1920. Eugene Henri Paul Gauguin............June 7, 1848 -- May 8, 1903; French Post-Impressionist artist; friend of Van Gogh; also suffered mental illnesses; not appreciated until after his death; some of his works: Portrait of Madame Gauguin (1880 -- 1881); Garden in Vaugirard, or the Painter's Family in the Garden in Rue Carcel (1881); The Midday Nap (1894); Landscape on La Dominique (1903); and many more. Communist Manifesto......................1848; collaboratively written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; "A specter is haunting Europe." -- communism; a century later 1/3 of humanity was living under communist governments: Russia in 1917; Albania in 1944; Hungary in 1947; China in 1949; North Vietnam in 1954; Cuba in 1959. Sir John Ambrose Fleming..............November 29, 1848 -- April 18, 1945; English electrical engineer and physicist; invented the first thermionic valve (vacuum tube) (called "kenotron" then) in 1904; Fleming's left hand rule for motors; Fleming's right hand rule for generators (mnemonics). Ivan Petrovich Pavlov......................September 26, 1849 -- February 27, 1836; Russian physiologist and mathematician; behaviorist; demonstrated classical conditioning with his dogs, saliva, a bell, and dog food. California became a state................September 9, 1850 (31st). Uncle Tom’s Cabin............................published 1852; written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Santiago Ramón Y Cajal..................May 1, 1852 -- October 17, 1934; showed that the brain is made up of distinct nerve cells instead of brain fibers fused into a continuous net; neurons communicate with each other; basis of modern neuroscience. Invention of elevators.......................1853; elevators were used as early as the 3rd century BCE, operated by a human, animal, or water wheel. In 1743, a personal elevator was built for King Louis XV of France to connect his room with that of his mistress, Madame de Chateauroux. In 1823, Burton and Hormer, architects, built an "ascending room" used to life tourists to see a panoramic view of London. In 1835, Frost and Stutt, architects, built the "Teagle" which was a belt-driven, counter-weighted, and steam-driven lift. In 1846, Sir William Armstrong introduced the hydraulic crane. In 1853, Elisha Graves Otis demonstrated his elevator, and patented his steam elevator. So he didn't actually invent it. But it is still here in this timeline for unknown reasons (except look below). Vincent Willem van Gogh.............................March 30, 1853 – July 29, 1890; Dutch Post-Impressionist painter; struggled with mental illness his whole life; he cut off a portion of his ear in a scuffle with Paul Gauguin; sent to the asylum in Saint-Remy for treatment; died at age 37 from a self-inflicted (assumed) gun shot wound. In his life he sold one painting. Some of his works: Starry Night (June, 1889), Still Life: Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers (1888), Bedroom in Arles (1888), Portrait of Dr. Gachet (1890) (he wrote of Dr. Gachet, "First of all, he is sicker than I am, I think, or shall we say just as much?"), Sorrow (1882), Self-Portrait (Saint-Remy) (1889) and many many more... First safe elevator..............................1854, designed by Elisha Graves Otis, and presented at the 1854 New York City fair; elevator had a spring that set two iron teeth into notches in the guide rails when tension on the rope (holding the elevator) failed. Steel Age began.................................1854; English inventor Henry Bessemer set out to build a better cannon for French emperor Napoleon III; used a blast of oxygen to burn off excess carbon in molten iron ore; steel strong enough to withstand an explosion or hold up a bridge. The Smithsonian Institution opened...............1855 in Washington DC Secret ballot introduced..................March 19, 1856 in Victoria, Australia; by 1884, most US states adopted voting by secret ballot. Sigmund Freud (Sigismund Schlomo Freud)............May 6, 1856 – September 23, 1939; Austrian neurologist; founded psychoanalytic school of psychology; published The Interpretation of Dreams in 1900; free association; Oedipal and Electra conflicts; id, ego, superego; oral fixation; dream analysis; believed that the power of the unconscious influence behavior and broadened the view of human nature and sexuality; penis envy; castration anxiety; etc. Nikola Tesla........................................July 10, 1856 – January 7, 1943; Serbian/American inventor of the electric age; rotating magnetic field; alternating current (AC in AC/DC, the patents for which he sold to George Westinghouse in 1885); Croatian born; also came up with a “death ray” to shoot down attacking aircraft. He was a mechanical engineer and an electrical engineer. His work on electromagnetism was inspired by the theories of electromagnetic technology discovered by Michael Faraday. He was quite eccentric and believed to be a mad scientist, ultimately. Clarence Darrow...............................April 18, 1857 – March 13, 1938; American lawyer and member of the American Civil Liberties Union; best known for defending John T. Scopes in the Scopes Monkey Trial (1924). He was called a "sophisticated country lawyer" known for his wit and agnosticism; opposed the death penalty. Minnesota became a state...............May 11, 1858 (32nd) Theodore Roosevelt.........................October 27, 1858 -- January 6, 1919; 26th US president US 1901 -- 1909; vice president (2nd term) Charles W. Fairbanks; Republican Party; founder of Progressive ("Bull Moose") Party (1912); New York; Governor of New York, hunter, historian, naturalist, author (wrote 38 books), soldier (colonel); married to Alice Hathaway Lee (July 29, 1861 -- February 14, 1884) (she died on the same day his mother died), 1 child, and Edith Kermit Carow (August 6, 1861 -- September 30, 1948), 5 children; attended Harvard University and Columbia University; Dutch Reformed; he was the youngest president in the nation's history; won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906. His favorite quote was "Speak softly and carry a big stick." Oregon became a state.....................February 14, 1859 (33rd) Georges Seurat.................................December 2, 1859 – March 29, 1891; French painter and draftsman, founder of French school of Neo-Impressionism (technique was called Pointillism); studied color theories and the effects of different linear structures. Some of his works: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884), Bathers at Asnieres (1883), Can-Can (Le Chahut) (1889 -- 1890), Evening, Honfleur (1886), The Channel of Gravelines (1890), and many more ... On the Origin of the Species published................1859, written by Charles Darwin, English naturalist; observed plants and animals in a five-year voyage on the HMS Beagle (beginning December 27, 1831); denounced as a heretic; rejected still by fundamentalist Christians as contrary to the Bible. Raid at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia............1859; John Brown and followers captured the US Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses)...............September 7, 1860 – December 13, 1961; American folk artist; began painting in her 70s; her paintings were often used to promote holidays; married to Thomas S. Moses, 10 children (5 died at birth); most of her paintings were done on pieces of strong cardboard; some of her paintings: The Old Oaken Bucket (1940), Sugaring Off (1945), Hoosick Valley (From the Window) (1946), A Beautiful World (1948), Little Boy Blue (1947) ... Jane Addams...........................................1860 – 1935; founded Chicago’s Hull House, a settlement house, in 1889; 2,000 immigrants a week came to eat, attend classes, see plays, hear concerts; regarded as mother of social work; pacifist; suffragist; helped found American Civil Liberties Union and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom; won Nobel Prize in 1931. Pony Express..........................................April 3, 1860 – October 24, 1861; founded by William H. Russell, William B. Waddell, and Alexander Majors; consisted of relays of men carrying saddlebags of mail across 2000 miles. The first trips took 9 -- 11 days. Kansas became a state.....................January 29, 1861 (34th) American Civil War..............................April 12, 1861 – 1865; between the northern states (Union) and the southern (Confederacy); due to differences about the extension of or prohibition of slavery in the federal territories of the West; South Carolina seceded from the Union, followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas; and then Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Well-known battles: Gettysburg (July 1 -- 3, 1863), Fort Sumter (April 12 - 14, 1861); Shiloh (April 1862), Harper's Ferry (September 1862); Antietam (September -- October 1862); Emancipation Proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863; General Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865; Lincoln assassinated April 14, 1965. Emancipation Proclamation.............January 1, 1863; made by Abraham Lincoln; freeing the slaves in the Confederate States; 13th Amendment followed in 1865, freeing all slaves; January 1, 1863 celebrated as the Day of Jubilee. Henry Ford.............................................July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947; American industrialist and engineer; interest in internal combustion engines, culminating in 1896 with the completion of his self-propelled vehicle -- the Quadricycle; set up shop in Detroit in 1903: Ford Motor Company; sold 15.5 million Model Ts; revolutionary car-making assembly line; married to Clara Ala Bryant (1866 -- 1950), 1 child: Edsel Ford (1893 -- 1943). West Virginia became a state............June 20, 1863 (35th) George Washington Carver...............January, 1864 – January 5, 1943; American agricultural chemist, botanist, educator, inventor; discovered three hundred uses for peanuts, and hundreds more for soybeans, pecans, and sweet potatoes: adhesives, axle grease, bleach, buttermilk, chili sauce, fuel briquettes, ink, instant coffee, paper, plastic, linoleum, mayonnaise, meat tenderizer, metal polish, pavement, shaving cream, shoe polish, synthetic rubber, talcum powder, wood stain ... ; studied at Simpson College in Iowa, and then Iowa Agricultural College, receiving both BS in 1894 and an MS in 1897, after which he became a faculty member at the Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanics; later on the faculty of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute for Negroes until his death. He didn't patent or profit from most of his products: "God gave them to me. How can I sell them to someone else?" Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.................November 24, 1864 – September 9, 1901, French painter, printmaker, draftsman, and illustrator; he was said to have a lot of congenital health problems which were blamed on inbreeding. A disorder, called pycnodysostosis (also called Toulouse-Lautrec syndrome) seems to have been one -- he had brittle bones that did not heal properly. Also rickets aggravated with praecox virilism: his legs stopped growing so that as an adult he was only 5 feet 1 inch tall, but with an adult-sized torso. He died at age 37 from alcoholism and syphilis; his last words were "Le vieux con!" ("Old fool!"). He created 737 canvases, 275 watercolors, 363 prints and posters, 5084 drawings, ceramic and stained glass and lots of lost works. Some of his work: Dance at the Moulin Rouge (1890), Self Portrait Before a Mirror (1880), Devotion: The Two Girlfriends (1895), The Spanish Dancer (1888), In Bed: The Kiss (1892), A Nude Woman (1894), Seated Dancer in Pink Tights (1890), and so many more beautiful things ... (information from http://www.toulouse-lautrec-foundation.org) Nevada became a state.......................October 31, 1864 (36th) 13th Amendment to the Constitution.......................January 31, 1865 (by Congress) and December 6, 1865 (ratified by states); "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was published...................November 26, 1865; written by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) (January 27, 1832 -- January 14, 1898), an English author. It was illustrated by John Tenniel (February 28, 1820 -- February 25, 1914). Lincoln killed in Ford’s Theater........April 14, 1865 by John Wilkes Booth. Booth escaped to Virgina, but was captured and fatally shot. Nine other people were involved in the assassination: four were hanged, four imprisoned, and one acquitted. Dynamite invented...............................1867 by Alfred Nobel; mixed nitroglycerin with absorbent sand. Nebraska became a state...................March 1, 1867 (37th) Wright Brothers....................................Orville, 1867 – 1912; Wilbur, 1871 – 1948; designed and made bicycles for a living; studied flying buzzards for 8 years, also tested wing models, built engines, and launched gliders; finally in 1903 they succeeded in flying the first powered airplane – for 12 seconds; by 1908 they were making warplanes. Sale of “Russian America” to US...........1867; the Russian czar sold Alaska to Secretary of State William H. Seward for $7,200,000, less than 2 cents an acre. Seward was thought to have wasted government money and called Alaska “Seward's Folly.” Marie Sklodowska Curie.....................November 7, 1867 – July 4, 1934; Polish; theory of radioactivity; discovered the elements polonium and radium; won Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 with her husband (Pierre) and Henri Becquerel; 1911 Nobel Prize in chemistry for isolation of radium; established Radium Institute in France, a center for nuclear research. Japan opened its ports to trade........1868; for nearly 250 years Japan’s military rulers, shoguns, had kept their country closed to the world; in 1853, US Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Tokyo Bay with 4 gunships and demanded Japan open its ports to trade; by 1868 power had shifted back from the shoguns to the emperor Mutsuhito (15 years old); Meiji Restoration; won Taiwan, the Pescadores, southern Manchuria from the Chinese in 1894 and gained free access to Korea; sank Russian navy in 1905, annexed Korea in 1910, joined the Allies against Germany 1914. Transcontinental Railroad.................completed 1869; construction began in 1863; known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route;" between Council Bluffs, Iowa; Omaha, Nebraska; through Ogden, Utah to Sacramento, California and Oakland, California. Suez Canal opened.............................1869; excavated for a decade by 1.5 million men, thousands of whom died; hailed as the Eighth Wonder of the World; about 100 miles long; shortened sea route from Europe to India by 6,000 miles; expropriated in 1956 by Egypt’s president Gamal Abdel Nasser. Mohandas Gandhi.................................1869 – 1948; “The candle of non-violence should be able to burn even when the cyclone of violence surrounds it”; strategy to life India to independence (1947) was called “satyagraha,” involved nonviolent noncooperation, boycott of all things British, civil disobedience, marches, and fasts. Vladimir L. Lenin....................................1870 – 1924; (Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov); with Leon Trotsky led the October 1917 revolution that delivered Russia to the Bolshevics and started the worldwide spread of Soviet-style communism; “dictatorship of the proletariat”; laid the foundation for decades of murderous totalitarianism; built an economic engine that made the Soviet Union a superpower; helped stop Hitler in World War II, forced the cold war; initiated the space race. Maria Tecla Artemesia Montessori.................August 31, 1870 – May 6, 1952; the first woman in Italy to earn a medical degree; worked in psychiatry, education, anthropology; nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize six times; developed Education for Peace; her Casa dei Bambini first opened on January 6, 1907 which became the Montessori program for children ages 6 -- 12 in Rome, Italy; she had one son, Mario Montessori (1898 -- 1982). First professional baseball game in US........................May 4, 1871; Fort Wayne, Indiana; Cleveland Forest Cities beat Fort Wayne Kekiongas 2 to 0; about 500 spectators. Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen.............July 16, 1872 – June 18, 1928 (disappearance); Norwegian explorer; the first person to reach the South Pole (arrived December 14, 1911); first person to navigate the Northwest Passage (a northern water route between Atlantic and Pacific) (1903 -- 1906); first person to reach the North Pole (1926); disappeared in June 1928 while on a rescue mission. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.......................opened February 20, 1872 in Manhattan, New York; located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile. Harry Houdini (Ehrich Weisz)........................March 24, 1874 – October 31, 1926; born in Hungary; illusionist; began his professional career at age 17 doing magic shows; married to Beatrice Raymond; died of peritonitis from a burst appendix; his last words were "I'm tired of fighting ... I guess this thing is going to get me." Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill.............................November 30, 1874 – January 24, 1965; British conservative politician and statesman; Prime Minister of United Kingdom (1940 – 1945; 1951 – 1955) during WWII; officer in British Army, writer, historian, artist; Nobel Prize in Literature, 1953; married to Clementine Churchill; 5 children. Albert Schweitzer........................................January 14, 1875 – September 4, 1965; German theologian, pianist and organist, medical doctor; founder of a hospital in Lambaréné in French Equatorial Africa; he and his wife were sent to a French internment camp as prisoners of war; but returned to Africa in 1924; he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953, and with the money, he started the leprosarium at Lambaréné; married to Helene Bresslau. Invention of the telephone........................March 10, 1876 was the first telephone transmission, “Mr. Watson! Come here! I want you!” by Alexander Graham Bell, a professor of vocal physiology at Boston University; aided by Thomas Watson. Colorado became a state..........................August 1, 1876 (38th) Cholera epidemic in India.........................1876 – 1877; estimated 3 million deaths invention of the light bulb.........................1879 Joseph Stalin...............................................1879 – 1953 Albert Einstein..............................................March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955; German theoretical physicist; Theory of Relativity, 1909; Nobel Prize in Physics, 1921 Helen Adams Keller....................................June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968; American author, political activist, and lecturer; illness at 19 months left her deaf and blind; first deaf/blind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree (Radcliffe, 1904); suffragist, pacifist Cecil B. DeMille............................................1881 – 1959 Alexander Fleming......................................1881 – 1955 Pablo Picasso (Pablo Diego Jose Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Maria de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santisima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso)...........................October 25, 1881 – April 8, 1973; Spanish painter, draughtsman, and sculptor; Cubist movement in art Germ theory...................................................1882; French scientist Louis Pasteur isolated microbes that were responsible for fermentation and silk worm disease in 1864; in 1876 Robert Koch, a German scientist showed that a specific bacillus caused a specific disease; worked with anthrax and tuberculosis and his 1882 report became the Germ Theory. invention of the automobile.......................1885/1886 by (maybe) Karl Benz Neils Bohr.......................................................1885 – 1962; Danish physicist; quantum theory; mathematical complexity and randomness of the quantum; physics and philosophy collided in Bohr … Coca-Cola.......................................................1886; made from coca leaf and kola nut blend by Atlanta druggist John Pemberton; called his non-alcoholic tonic “the Great National Temperance Drink”; bought by Asa Candler for $2,300 and retooled formula; Robert Woodruff took over, establishing a foreign department in 1926; today over 606,000,000 cokes are consumed each day. Georgia O’Keeffe...........................................1887 – 1986 Charlie Chaplin..............................................April 16, 1889 – December 25, 1977; English comedic actor, film maker, composer, musician and film director; co-founded United Artists in 1919 with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith; The Great Dictator, 1940 Edwin Powell Hubble...................................1889 – 1953; discovered that the Andromeda nebula is located beyond the known boundaries of the Milky Way in 1924; multiple galaxies was a new concept; determined that all galaxies are receding away from each other, or the universe is expanding; Hubble Space Telescope named for him Roll film invented...........................................1889 by George Eastman; Thomas Edison used it to show movies to one person at a time with his Kinetoscope; French brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière showed a projecting moving picture to a group of people on December 28, 1895. Adolf Hitler......................................................1889 – 1945; propagandist; had an ideal of racial purity; ruthless politician; possessed a diabolical personal magnetism; became chancellor of Germany in 1933; declared war on the world in 1939; exterminated Jews and other “undesirables;” defeated in 1945, by then as many as 77 million people had died; committed suicide in his bunker North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington became states..............November 2, 1889 (39th and 40th); November 8, 1889 (41st); and November 11, 1889 (42nd). Agatha Christie...........................................1890 – 1976; 78 crime novels have sold more than 2,000,000,000 copies in 44 languages; considered the best-selling novelist of all time. Idaho and Wyoming became states.................July 3, 1890 (43rd); July 10, 1890 (44th) invention of motion pictures...................1891 Mao Tse-Tung 1893 – 1976; helped form the outlaw Chinese Communist Party; Long March; Red Army; resisted Japanese to defeat the Nationalists; the rise of the People’s Republic in 1949; despotic dictator; economic Great Leap Forward failed at a cost of 20 million lives; Cultural Revolution caused injustice and death Norman Rockwell 1894 – 1978 Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra reign (Russia) – 1894 – 1917 (abdication); assassination of family 1918; Tsar Nicholas II was born May 18 (or 6), 1868 and died July 17, 1918 Babe Ruth (George Herman Ruth, Jr.) (The Babe, the Bambino, the Sultan of Swat) February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948; American Major League Baseball player from 1914 to 1935; Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Boston Braves; Hall of Fame 1936 X-rays discovered 1895 by Wilhelm Röntgen, a German physicist; by accident; November 8, 1895; saw his hands in front of a screen when he was doing an experiment; side effects included burns and hair loss J. Edgar Hoover 1895 – 1972 Utah became a state............................January 4, 1896 (45th) Modern Olympic Games started again 1896 by a Parisian aristocrat Baron Pierre de Coubertin Gold found on the Klondike River August 17, 1896 Amelia Mary Earhart July 24, 1897 – missing July 2, 1937; declared dead July 5, 1939; American aviation pioneer and author; first aviatrix to fly solo over the Atlantic Ocean, earning her the Distinguished Flying Cross Spanish-American war 1898; over Cuba’s independence; began with US battleship “Maine” being blown up Golda Meir 1898 – 1978 Alaska Gold Rush 1899 – 1902; thousands of prospectors and settlers came to Nome and Fairbanks in search of gold; Alaska subsequently became a US Territory in 1912, then a state in 1959. Alphonse Gabriel “Al” Capone January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947; American gangster – bootlegging and smuggling of liquor during Prohibition; convicted for income tax evasion; responsible for Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre Ernest Hemingway July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961; American writer and journalist; Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for “Old Man and the Sea;” Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. 1900s Oklahoma became a state.........................November 16, 1907 (46th) New Mexico and Arizona became states...................January 6, 1912 (47th); February 14, 1912 (48th) Alaska and Hawaii became states....................January 3, 1959 (49th); August 21, 1959 (50th) |
| abolitionist -- a person who worked to do away with slavery. accretion disc -- the growth of a massive object by gravitationally attracting more matter, typically gaseous matter. This is common around smaller stars or stellar remnants in a close binary, or black holes in the centers of spiral galaxies. Gravity causes material in the accretion disc to spiral inward towards the central body. acritarch -- generally, any small, non- acid soluble organic structure that can not otherwise be accounted for is classified as an acritarch (small organic fossils, not otherwise specified). aesthetics -- a branch of philosophy that deals with notions such as beautiful, ugly, sublime, comic, etc. as applicable to the fire arts, and the principles of judging the fine arts on those notions. alchemy -- a form of chemistry and speculative philosophy practiced in the Middle Ages and Renaissance and concerned principally with discovering methods for transmuting baser metals into gold and with finding a universal solvent and an elixir of life. alternating current -- the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. In direct current, the charge is only in one direction. amniote egg -- eggs with a hard shell to prevent drying, and a series of membranes that surround the developing baby. Amniotes are turtles, lizards, birds, dinosaurs, and some mammals (such as monotremes) and stuff .... amoeba -- a kind of protozoa, first discovered by August Johann Rosel von Rosenhof in 1757. It is an eukaryote. amphitheater -- an oval or circular building with rising tiers of seats arranged about an open space and used in ancient Rome especially for contests and spectacles; a place of public entertainment. anaerobic -- without oxygen. anatomist -- an expert in the study of anatomy. animalcules -- a microscopic or minute organism, such as an amoeba (proteus animalcule), paramecium (slipper animalcule), rotifer (wheel animalcule), stentor (trumpet animalcule), vorticella (bell animalcule), heliozoa (sun animalcule); used by Leeuwenhoek to describe microorganisms. anthrax -- an infectious disease caused by the bacteria Bacillus anthracis. It involves the skin, gastrointestinal tract, or lungs. anthropology -- the science of humans and their works. antiseptic -- capable of preventing infection. aqueduct -- a pipe or channel designed to transport water from a remote source, usually by gravity; a bridgelike structure supporting a conduit or canal passing over a river or low ground. archaea -- a group of single-celled organisms with no cell nucleus or membrane-bound organelles. They are classified as prokaryotes. architecture -- the art or practice of designing and constructing buildings. artery -- a blood vessel that carries blood from the heart to the cells, tissues, and organs of the body. assassinate -- the murder of (usually) a politically prominent person. asteroid -- small solar system bodies in orbit around the sun. They are small in comparison to planets and there are thousands of them. The first asteroid (Ceres) discovered was in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, who thought it was a new planet. They are generally considered to be orbiting in the inner solar system out to the orbit of Jupiter. astronomer -- a scientist who studies celestial bodies and systems. Aurora Borealis -- (Northern Lights) (Southern Lights are called Aurora Australis) -- a natural light display in the sky particularly in high latitudes, caused by energetic charged particles crashing into atoms high in the atmosphere. The particles flare off in solar wind, and drawn into our atmosphere. bacillus -- spore-producing bacteria. bacteria -- prokaryotic microorganisms, present in most habitats of earth: soil, acidic hot springs, radioactive waste, water, deep in the earth's crust, organic matter and live bodies of plants and animals. There are approximately five noniliion bacteria on earth. barnstorm -- to travel around the country making political speeches, etc. Baroque -- architecture, art, music of the 17th to 18th centuries; ornate; irregular basalt -- an extrusive igneous rock. basso rilievo -- a piece of artwork that is sculpted, carved, or molded in such a way that it barely protrudes from the background flat surface. behaviorism -- a philosophy of psychology that states that all things that organisms do are behaviors, and those behaviors can be modified. Bill of Rights -- the first 10 amendments of the United States Constitution; ratified on December 15, 1751. A list is found below. binary star -- two stars that orbit around one center of mass. binomial nomenclature -- how species of animals are named. The name of a species is made by using two words (binomial): the genus name and description (such as Homo sapiens). black hole -- a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light cannot get out. The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny place. This can happen when a star is dying. Bolshevik -- a member of the Social Democratic party 1903 -- 1917; a member of the Russian Communist party; extremely radical, revolutionary, or anarchist. botanist -- one who studies botany -- plant life. bourgeois -- of, relating to, or characteristic of the social middle class; a concern for material interests; capitalistic. brewer -- one who makes ale or beer from malt and hops. Buddhism -- a religion of approximately 300 million people worldwide. It began about 2500 years ago by the enlightenment at age 35 of Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha). There are Four Noble Truths: 1. Life is suffering; 2. Suffering is caused by craving and aversion; 3. Suffering can be overcome and happiness can be attained; 4. The Noble 8-fold Path leads to the end of suffering. The Noble 8-Fold Path includes being moral, focusing on the mind (full awareness of thoughts and actions); developing wisdom, developing compassion. The 5 Precepts are: not to take the life of anything living, not to take anything not freely given, to abstain from sexual misconduct and sensual overindulgence; to refrain from untrue speech; and to avoid intoxication. (Karma, Wisdom, Compassion) calculus -- a branch of mathematics focused on limits, functions, derivatives, integrals, and infinite series. Calvinism -- a Protestant religion named after the French reformer John Calvin. There are 5 points of Calvinism, or "doctrines of grace": 1. total depravity (everyone on earth is enslaved to the service of sin); 2. unconditional election (God's mercy to those that he has chosen and no mercy to those not chosen; 3. limited atonment (only the sins of the elect are atoned for by Jesus's death); 4. irresistible grace (God's grace is effectually applied to those he has chosen); 5. perseverence of the saints (those that God has chosen will continue in faith until the end.) capillary -- a minute blood vessel that connects arterioles and venules for the interchange of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and stuff. caravel -- a small, fast Spanish or Portuguese ship of the 15th -- 17th centuries. They had two or three masts and lateen sails. carbolic acid -- also called phenol; a white, crystalline, water-soluble, poisonous mass, C₆H₅OH, obtained from coal tar or benzene; used as a disinfectant and antiseptic. carbon -- an element that is found free in nature, and in abundance in the sun, stars, comets, and atmospheres of most planets. Symbol C; atomic number 6, non-metalic and tetravalent; the 15th most abundant element in the earth's crust; the fourth most abundant in the universe; the second most abundant element in the human body; name comes from the Latin for coal and charcoal. cartographer -- one who makes maps. castration anxiety -- Freud; the fantasized fear of injury to or loss of the genital organs. Cathars -- a Christian religious sect with dualistic (belief in a god of good and a god of evil -- Rex Mundi) and gnostic elements that appeared in Europe in the 11century and flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries. The Cathars believed that the purpose of man's life on earth is to transcend matter, renouncing power and attaining union with the principle of love; to reclaim and redeem matter by spiritualizing and transforming it. centesimal -- relating to or divided into hundredths. chemist -- one who practices chemistry, which is the study of matter and energy and the interactions between them. chlorine -- element: Cl, atomic number 17, number of protons/electrons: 17, number of neutrons: 18; halogen, green. It was discovered in 1774 by Carl Wilhelm Scheele. It is used for water purification and bleaches. It is obtained from salt. chloroform -- an organic compound, CHCl₃; clear liquid with an ether-like odor; naturally occurring chemical, but most is man-made; used as a coolant and a cleanser; in criminal activity; and, formerly, an anesthetic. chlorophyll -- the green coloring matter of leaves and plants, essential for photosynthesis. chloroplasts -- a chlorophyll- containing plastid found in algal and green plant cells. cholera -- an infection of the small intestine. It is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. It causes severe diarrhea. It occurs more frequently in places that have poor sanitation, crowding, war, and famine. It is spread by eating or drinking contaminated food or water. We are in the 7th cholera pandemic, which started in Indonesia in 1961. Christianity -- a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus, who is the Son of God and the Messiah. There are lots of Christian churches, such as: Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Jehovah's Witness, Church of Christ, Mormon, ... and about a kajillion others. chronometer -- timekeeping device. Church of England -- a Christian church established formally by Saint Augustine of Canterbury in 597 CE. The Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church in 1534 prompted by a dispute over the annulment of Henry VIII from his first wife Catherine of Aragon. circumnavigate -- to sail or fly around. classical conditioning -- a form of conditioning, first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov, in which a conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus are involved, as well as a conditioned response and an unconditioned response. It's basically all Greek. But Pavlov demonstrated with doggies. clavichord -- a stringed keyboard instrument used widely in the late Medieval through the Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical eras. It was invented in the early 14th century. cold war -- refers to the relationship that developed between the USA and USSR after World War II; growth in weapons of mass destruction; lasted between 1945 and 1991 (apx.). communism -- a social, political, and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, stateless, and revolutionary socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production. (Wikipedia) composer -- one who writes music. concentric -- having a common center, as circles or spheres. congress -- in the USA, the House of Representatives and the Senate. conquistador -- a conqueror, especially one of the 16th century Spanish soldiers who defeated the native civilizations in Mexico, Central America, or Peru. Constitution -- the framework for the organization of the US government. It was adopted on September 17, 1787 by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and ratified by conventions in each US state. It has been amended 27 times. The first 10 amendments are called the Bill of Rights. See Bill of Rights below. The other 17 amendments, briefly: XI -- sovereign immunity, judicial limits, 1795; XII -- presidential elections, 1804; XIII -- abolition of slavery, 1865; XIV -- citizenship, privileges or immunities, due process, equal protection, post-Civil War issues, 1868; XV -- suffrage based on race, 1870; XVI -- income tax, 1913; XVII -- election of senators,1913; XVIII -- prohibition of alcohol, 1917; XIX -- women's suffrage, 1920; XX -- presidential, congressional terms (Lame Duck), 1933; XXI -- repeals 18th amendment, 1933; XXII -- presidential term limits, 1951; XXIII -- electoral college, 1961; XXIV -- voting and poll taxes, 1964; XXV -- Tyler Precedent, 1967; XXVI -- 18 year old vote, 1971; XXVII -- Congressional salary, 1992 courtier -- a person who is often in attendance at the court of a kind or other royal person. crurotarsans -- archosaurs including birds, crocodilians, and dinosaurs. The only living crurotarsans are crocodiles, but during the early and middle Triassic, between 250 and 200 million years ago, they were responsible for most reptilian diversity. cubism -- a 20th century art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Art is abstract, with sharp lines and stuff. cuneiform -- composed of slim triangular or wedge-shaped elements, as the characters used in writing by the ancient Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and others. cyanobacteria -- (blue-green algae; blue-green bacteria ...) a phylum of bacteria that obtain energy through photosynthesis. daguerrotype -- an early way of taking photographs made on a light-sensitive silver-coated metallic plate. Deist -- one who has a religious belief in God based on the application of reason on the designs/laws found throughout nature, rather than the tenets of a "revealed" religion. Democratic-Republican party -- an American political party founded in 1792 by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Presidents elected by the party were Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. It was dissolved in 1825. The modern Republican Party was founded in 1854 (Jeffersonian). The modern Democratic Party was founded after the split of the Democratic-Republican party (Jacksonian). demotic -- of, pertaining to, or noting the simplified form of hieratic writing used in ancient Egypt between 700 BC and 500 AD. deposed -- removed from office suddenly and forcefully. despot -- a king or other ruler with absolute, unlimited power; autocrat; tyrant or oppressor. Disciples of Christ -- a Christian church based on a blend of two religious movements -- one led by Thomas and Alexander Campbell, and the other by Barton W. Stone. The two movements united in 1832. Their "Confession" involves a declaration of belief in Jesus Christ, baptism, communion, scripture, and worship of God. disk -- an enlargement or outgrowth from the receptacle of a flower. diving bell -- a rigid chamber used to transport divers to depth in the ocean. draughtsman -- draftsman Dutch Reformed -- a reformed Christian denomination that existed from 1570s to 2004 in the Netherlands. It was one of many new churches established across Europe during the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. It expanded to US beginning in 1628. Martin Van Buren belonged to this faith. dynamics (music) -- volume (piano or forte, for example), speed (legato, for example), style (staccato, for example), and other things that make music wonderful. ecology -- the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. economics -- a social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. eddy current -- an electric current induced in a massive conductor, such as the core of an electromagnet, transformer, etc., by an alternating magnetic field. Also called Foucault current. Edict of Worms -- a decree issued by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V on May 25, 1521 in the city of Worms, southwest Germany. It banned the writings of Martin Luther and labeled him a heretic and enemy of the state. Martin Luther escaped arrest and went into seclusion at Wartburg castle for several years. This decree was never enforced. ego -- Freud; the part of the psyche that experiences and reacts to the outside world and thus mediates between the id and the environment. Electra Conflict -- Freud; the unresolved, unconscious, libidinous desire of a daughter for her father. electrochemistry -- the study of the interchange between chemical and electrical energy. electromagnetism -- the interaction of electric currents or fields and magnetic fields; the branch of physics concerned with this. electromagnetic radiation -- a form of energy emitted and absorbed by charged particles. electron -- a subatomic particle with a negative charge. It has a mass that is approximately 1/1836 of a proton. It is an elementary particle (no known components or substructure). elements -- a pure chemical substance consisting of one type of atom distinguished by its atomic number, which is the number of protons in its nucleus. As of 11/11, there are 118 elements, of which only the first 92 are believed to occur naturally on earth. Of these, 80 are stable and the others are radioactive. emancipation -- the act of freeing or state of being freed. Emancipation Proclamation -- an executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, proclaiming the freedom of 3.1 million of the nation's 4 million slaves, and immediately freed 50,000 of them. The proclamation did not make the freed slaves citizens, and it did not compensate their former owners. The total abolition of slavery came in December 1865 with the 13th Amendment. emancipator -- one who frees from bondage, oppression, or restraint; liberates. Also refers to the release of a child (minor) from the control of parents or a guardian. entrepreneur -- a person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture. epidemic -- (disease) affecting many people at the same time, and spreading from person to person in a community or area; temporary. Episcopal (Church) -- a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the US. It defines itself as "Protestant, yet Catholic." It was organized shortly after the American Revolution when it was forced to separate from the Church of England. eponymous -- being the person after whom a literary work, film, etc., is named; named after a book's (or movie's or work's) central character. ethics -- a branch of philosophy that addresses questions of good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc. eukaryote -- an organism with DNA -- an nucleus containing DNA and other membrane-bound organelles such as mitochondria, chloroplasts, and Golgi apparatus. Animals, plants, fungi ... eunuch -- a castrated man exile -- the state of being barred from one's native country, typically for political or punitive reasons extrusive -- igneous rock formed by hot magma flowing outside of the earth, that subsequently crystallizes. fable -- a short story, typically with animals as characters, conveying a moral. Federalist Party -- the first American political party from the 1790s to 1816. The Federalists controlled the federal government until 1801. It was formed by Alexander Hamilton during George Washington's first presidential term. John Adams was the only Federalist president. feminist -- one who advocates social, political, and all other rights of women as equal as those of men. fermentation -- a chemical reaction that is used to convert sugar to ethyl alcohol by yeast. flatulence -- expulsion through the rectum of a mixture of gases that are byproducts of digestion in mammals and other animals. fluoroscope -- a tool with an x-ray source and fluorescent screen between which a person is placed so that they can be viewed in real-time moving images. Foucault pendulum -- introduced in 1851, used as the first simple proof of the rotation of the earth. It is a free- swinging pendulum that has an 11 degree clockwise rotation per hour. Fourth Lateran Council -- convoked by Pope Innocent III on April 19, 1213, but the council didn't gather until November, 1215 at Rome's Lateran Palace. The council was called with the purpose "to free the Holy Land." There were 71 degrees; Frederick II was confirmed as Holy Roman Emperor; and many other things were decreed. free association -- the uncensored expression of the ideas, impressions, etc., passing through the mind; a technique used to facilitate access to the unconscious. Freemasonry -- a fraternal organization that arose in the late 16th to early 17th centuries. Today there are approximately 6 million members. Free Soil party -- a political party that began in 1847--1848. It was formed as a result of opposition to slavery into newly acquired territories. It was absorbed into the new Republican party in 1854. frond -- a large, divided leaf gangrene -- death of tissue in part of the body. It occurs when a body part loses its blood supply, possibly due to injury, blood disease, diabetes, surgery, supressed immune system, etc. gastroenteritis -- a condition that causes irritation and inflammation of the stomach and intestines. Symptoms are diarrhea, cramps, nausea, and vomiting. genre -- a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique, etc. genus -- the usual major subdivision of a family or subfamily in the classification of organisms, usually consisting of more than one species. geologist -- a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. A person who loves rocks. geometry -- a branch of mathematics concerned with questions of shape, size, relative position of figures, and the properties of space. geophysicist -- one who measures, examines, and explores the physical properties of the earth, from below the ground to the atmosphere, from the depths of the ocean to the tops of volcanoes. Cool job if you can get it. glaciation -- a covering of ice or glacier; frozen glaciologist -- one who studies glaciers: ice, from glaciers to permafrost to polar ice caps -- to determine whether ice sheets are growing or shrinking. gnostic -- esoteric or intuitive knowledge -- the way to salvation of the soul from the material world, created by an intermediary being rather than directly by god. goldsmith -- a metalworker that specializes in working with gold and other precious metals; jeweler. Golgi apparatus -- a network of stacked membranous vesicles present in most living cells that functions in the formation of secretions within the cell. granodiorite -- an intrusive igneous rock similar to granite but containing more plagioclase than orthoclase-type feldspar; a phaneritic igneous rock with greater than 20% quartz. It contains biotite mica and hornblende. gravity -- universal stickiness (Biff). guillotine -- a device used for carrying out executions by decapitation. You all know what this is and what it looks like. hammerstone -- an object used as a prehistoric hammer, to cause fractures on another object. It might have been a round cobble of quartzite, for example. heliograph -- a photographic process invented by Joseph Nicephore Niepce about 1822. He coated glass or metal with bitumen, which hardened in relation to exposure to light. heretic -- one who commits heresy, (religious opinions contrary to those accepted by his/her church or rejection of those doctrines.) hieroglyphics -- ancient writings. Hieroglyphics date back to 3000 BCE. They are a combination of logographic and alphabetic elements. Hippocratic oath -- see below definitions ... humanitarian -- one who is concerned about helping to improve the welfare and happiness of people. Hussites -- religious following of Czech reformer Jan Hus who became one of the forerunners of the Protestant Reformation. hydrogen -- the chemical element (H), atomic number 1. It is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. It has 1 proton and 0 neutrons, non- metal. It was discovered in 1766 by Henry Cavendish. hydrogen sulfide -- H₂S; a colorless, poisonous, flammable gas that smells like rotten eggs. It results from the anaerobic bacterial breakdown of organic matter, such as in swamps and sewers. ice age -- glacial age, a geological period of time in which there is a reduction in temperature in the earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in ice sheets, polar ice sheets, and alpine glaciers. ice caps -- dome-shaped bodies of ice and snow that covers an area of less than 19,500 square miles. They spread out under their own weight. ichthyologist -- one who practices the branch of zoology dealing with fishes. ichthyosaur -- extinct marine reptiles strikingly similar to modern dolphins and bluefin tuna. Their name means "fish lizard." They lived about 200 million years ago. id -- Freud; part of the psyche which resides in the unconscious and the source of instincts to seek satisfaction. igneous rock -- rock formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava. immobile bags -- one of the Ediacaran fauna -- mysterious category of life to have ever existed -- along with segmented worms, fronds, and disks. immunology -- a branch of biomedical science that covers the study of the immune system. Impressionism -- a 19th century art movement originating in Paris. Famous impressionists were Renoir, Monet, Cezanne, Degas, Manet, etc. inbreeding -- the mating of closely related individuals, which increases the appearance of recessive traits. infrared radiation -- electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths between those of visible red light and radio waves. Infrared waves are given off by all warm objects and produce heat in all objects they strike. William Herschel, an English astronomer discovered this in 1800. infusoria -- a class of protozoa, including a large number of species, all of minute size. Formerly, infusoria meant any microbe found in organic material. internal combustion -- the combustion of fuel inside a cylinder. internment -- the act of confinement, especially of enemy citizens in wartime or terrorism suspects. ion -- an electrically charged atom or group of atoms formed by the loss or gain of one or more elections. iron -- a ductile, malleable, silver-white metallic element, symbol Fe; atomic number 26. Islam -- a religion based on the Qur'an, a text considered to be the verbatim word of God. The religion also is informed by the teachings of Muhammed. Beliefs include Oneness, God, prophets, revealed books, angels, predestination, resurrection, prayer, fasting, alms, pilgrimage, etc. Followers of Islam are called Muslims. isthmus -- a narrow strip of land, bordered on both sides by water, that connects two larger bodies of land, such as the Isthmus of Panama. Joule's Law -- Physics: heat produced by an electric current is equal to the product of the resistance of the conductor, the square of the current, and the time for which it flows. Thermodynamics: at constant temperature the internal energy of an ideal gas is independent of volume. Real gases change their internal energy with volume as a result of intermolecular forces. (named for James Prescott Joule). Judaism -- religion, philosophy, and way of life of Jewish people; sacred texts (Tanakh and Talmud, for example) express the covenantal relationship between God and the children of Israel. jurist -- one who has thorough knowledge and experience of law, such as a judge, lawyer, or legal scholar. Khmer -- the Khmer Empire was one of the most powerful empires in Southeast Asia, with many different religions and covering modern day Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Malaysia. Know Nothing Ticket -- a political faction founded in 1845, due to fears that the country was being overwhelmed by German and Irish immigrants. The party wanted to curb immigration and naturalization. It was named for the semi- secret organization of the party (Protestant white males of British lineage over age 21), who, when asked about the party's activities, would reply "I know nothing." It was dissolved in 1860. lateen -- a triangular sail set on a long yard mounted at an angle on the mast. leprosarium -- a hospital for the treatment of leprosy. leprosy -- a disease that causes progressive skin sores, nerve damage, and muscle weakness. It is caused by a bacteria. It isn't very contagious. Louvre -- a large museum in Paris, France, on the Right Bank of the Seine. It contains nearly 35,000 works of art and more than 380,000 objects in 8 curatorial departments. It has an area of 652,300 square feet. It was opened on August 10, 1793. lupus -- (systemic lupus erythematosus) -- an autoimmune disorder that affects the skin, joints, kidneys, brain, and other organs. Symptoms are chest pain, fatigue, fever, malaise, hair loss, mouth sores, sensitivity to sunlight, rash, and swollen lymph nodes (among others). lycopodium (lycopod) -- a family of ferns that are flowerless; creeping club mosses magma -- molten rock that is found beneath the surface of the earth; and is observed usually in the form of lava outflows. mammoth -- an extinct genus Mammathus, with long tusks and covering of long hair. The most well- known mammoth is a woolly mammoth. mastodon -- extinct large tusked mammals. The most well-known is the American mastadon. They look similar to elephants and mammoths. mechanics -- the branch of physics that concerns the action of forces on objects. meningitis -- a bacterial or viral infection of the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord (meninges). The bacterial forms are generally more dangerous and can result in death or brain damage. Symptoms are fever, nausea, photophobia, headache, stiff neck, agitation, bulging fontanelles, etc. mercenary -- working or acting merely for money or other reward; hired to serve in a foreign army; any hireling. mercury -- a chemical element, atomic number 80, symbol Hg. It is the only metal in liquid form at standard conditions. meridian -- middle messiah -- one who is anticipated as, regarded as, or professes to be a saviour or liberator; the anticipated saviour of the Jews; Jesus Christ. metamorphism -- change in form due to extreme heat and pressure. meteor -- a sand- to boulder-sized particle of debris that enters the earth's atmosphere methane -- CH4; the principal component of natural gas; most abundant organic compound on earth. meteorologist -- one who studies meteorology, which is the scientific study of the atmosphere. metric system -- an international decimalized system of measurement; tera, giga, mega, kilo, hecto, centi, milli, micro, nano, etc. microbe -- a minute life form. microbiology -- the study of microorganisms. microfossils -- itty bitty fossils microorganism -- tiny, one-celled organisms, fungi, viruses, and bacteria, found everywhere, and are nevertheless invisible to the naked eye. microscopy -- research with the use of microscopes. Minutemen -- a colonial militiaman who promised to be ready to fight at one minute's notice. mitochondria -- power producers in a cell that convert energy into forms usable by the cell. Mitochondria are found in cytoplasm. mnemonic -- something used (like a trick or a rhyme or a picture) to assist memory (like the colors of the rainbow -- ROYGBIV). Model T -- first widely available automobile powered by a gasoline engine, mass-produced by Henry Ford from 1908 -- 1927. monotreme -- mammals that lay eggs (platypus and echidna). Monroe Doctrine -- an American foreign policy opposing interference of outside powers in the Americas. It was introduced on December 2, 1823 by James Monroe, and was authored by John Quincy Adams. Morse Code -- a method of transmitting information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks. The International Morse Code uses dots and dashes (or "dits" and "dahs"). It was created by Samuel F. B. Morse, Joseph Henry, and Alfred Vail in 1836. mosaic -- a picture or pattern produced by arranging together small colored pieces of hard material such as stone, tile, or glass. OR Of, or pertaining to Moses. mosque -- a place of worship for followers of Islam. Muslim -- one who follows the Islam religion: a monotheistic religion articulated by the Qur'an and the teachings of Muhammad; belief that God is one and incomparable and the purpose of existence is to love and serve God. They consider Abraham, Moses, and Jesus prophets, as well as others. Napoleonic Code -- Code Napoleon, established under Napoleon I in 1804, which forbade privileges based on birth, freedom of religion, and that government jobs should go to the most qualified. narcolepsy -- a sleep disorder that causes excessive sleepiness and frequent daytime sleep attacks. navigator -- a person aboard a ship or airplane responsible for the vessel's position, including planning and mapping the journey, nautical charts, nautical publications, navigational equipment, meteorological equipment, and communications. neuron -- a specialized, impulse- conducting cell that is the functional unit of the nervous system, consisting of the cell body and its processes, the axon, and dendrites. neurologist -- a doctor that studies the anatomy, physiology, and diseases of the nervous system. neuroscience -- a field of study about the structure, development, function, chemistry, pharmacology, and pathology of the nervous system. nightshade -- a family and a genus of weedy plants, including potato, tomato, petunia, tobacco, and eggplant, as well as many poisonous plants, such as belladonna, jimsonweed, and henbane. nitroglycerine -- a colorless, thick, oily, flammable, highly explosive, slightly water soluble liquid, C₃H₅N₃O₉; used in dynamite, explosives, rocket propellants, and heart medicine. nitrous oxide -- a colorless, sweet- smelling, sweet-tasting, nonflammable, slightly water-soluble gas, N₂O; used mostly in dentistry and surgery, in chemicals, and as an aerosol. Nobel Prize -- a set of international awards bestowed in a number of categories by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances; established by Alfred Nobel; prizes given for physics, chemistry, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine. nonillion -- 10³⁰ (you know, million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion, and then nonillion). nurseryman -- an expert in the science of cultivating plants. obelisk -- an upright, four-sided monolithic pillar that gradually tapers as it rises and terminates in a pyramid at the top. Oedipus conflict -- Freud; the unresolved desire of a child for sexual gratification through the parent of the opposite sex, especially the desire of a son for his mother. optics -- a branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light. oral fixation -- Freud; in need of mouth stimulation such as chewing, sucking, drinking, talking, smoking, etc.; caused by a baby who does not successfully move through the first of Freud's developmental stages -- the Oral phase. orator -- a public speaker, especially one of great eloqence. organelle -- any of a number of organized or specialized structures within a living cell. ornithology -- the branch of zoology that deals with birds. oxygen -- an element (O) with the atomic number 8. It is a highly reactive nonmetallic element. By mass, oxygen is third most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen and helium. It has 8 protons, electrons, and neutrons, non-metal. It was discovered by Joseph Priestly in 1774. pagoda -- a tiered tower with multiple eaves common in India, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Nepal and other Asian countries. paleontology -- the science of the forms of life existing in former geologic periods, as represented by their fossils. paramecium -- a unicellular protozoa with cilia used to move; feed on bacteria and other small cells; eukaryote; very cute. Parliament -- the legislature of Great Britain; or an assembly of the representatives of a political nation or people. Pascal's Triangle -- a cool triangle of numbers that makes sense, but I don't understand the implication or use but it is fascinating! It's named after Blaise Pascal. You should look it up. pasteurization -- to expose (cheese, milk, yogurt, beer, wine ...) to an elevated temperature for a period of time sufficient to destroy certain microorganisms; developed by Louis Pasteur. patent -- the exclusive right granted by a government to an inventor to manufacture, use, or sell an invention for a certain number of years. penis envy -- Freud; the suppressed wish of a female to possess a penis; ridiculous and preposterous. philanthropy -- the practice of performing charitable or benevolent actions; the love of mankind in general. philosophy -- the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. phonetic -- agreeing with pronunciation. phonograph -- any sound-reproducing machine using records in the form of cylinders or discs. photosynthesis -- a chemical process that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds using energy from sunlight. It occurs in plants, algae, and some bacteria. The by-product of photosynthesis in plants is oxygen. physics -- a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through space, along with concepts such as energy and force. physiology -- the biological study of the functions of living organisms and their parts. plastid -- a double membrane bound organelle involved in the synthesis and storage of food, and is commonly found within the cells of photosythetic organisms, like plants. playwright -- one who writes plays. "Wright" is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder. plesiosaur -- any marine reptile of the extinct genus Plesiosaurus from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, having a small head, a long neck, four paddlelike limbs, and a short tail. pointillism -- a technique developed by neo-impressionists, based on the principle of juxtaposed dots of pure color, as blue and yellow, are optically mixed into the resulting hue, green, by the viewer. polonium -- a radioactive element discovered by Pierre and Marie Curie in 1898; symbol Po, atomic number 84. It is very rare and occurs in trace amounts in uranium ores. polyglot -- one who is able to speak or write several languages; multilingual. polymath -- a person of great learning in several fields of study. polymetamorphism -- two or more metamorphic events have left their imprint upon the same rocks. postcapitalism -- an economic system has not been stipulated by nature, but is the result of human choices. Post-Impressionism -- a school of painting in France in the late 19th century that rejected the objective naturalism of impressionism and used form and color in more personally expressive ways. praecox virilism -- precocious puberty before the age of 8 in girls and 10 in boys. Presbyterianism -- a number of Christian churches adhering to the Calvinist theological tradition within Protestantism; emphasizes the sovereignty of God, the authority of the Scriptures, and the necessity of grace. This religion originated primarily in Scotland in the early 1700s. printmaker -- one who makes artworks by printing, normally on paper, such as inklings, etchings, lithography, screenprinting, monotype, etc. privateer -- a ship privately owned and crewed but authorized by a government during wartime to attack and capture enemy vessels; the commander of the crew of such a ship. prokaryote -- a single-cell organism, the smallest and most simple. It doesn't have a cell nucleus or any other membrane-bound organelles. Bacteria and archaea. proletariate -- the lower class; beggars. Protestant -- a Christian who is not Catholic, Anglican, or an Eastern Church adherent. protists -- a diverse group of eukaryotic microorganism protobiont -- considered to be the precursor of prokaryotic cells -- nanobes, nanobacteria (??) protozoa -- single-celled eukaryotes that commonly show characteristics usually associated with animals such as mobility or heterotrophy. Prussia -- a historical region and former kingdom of north-central Europe including present-day northern Germany and Poland. The state became a republic in 1918 and was formally abolished after World War II. pseudonym -- a fictitious name, especially a pen name. psychoanalysis -- Freud; psychological therapy involving free association, dream interpretation, and analysis of resistance and transference used to explore repressed or unconscious impulses, anxieties, and internal conflicts. pycnodysostosis -- a genetic disease of the bone, autosomal recessive, chromosome pair 1. It causes short stature, abnormally dense and brittle bones. It is thought that Toulouse- Lautrec had this disorder. Pythagorean Theorem -- the theorem that the sum of the squares of the lengths of the sides of a right triangle is equal to the square of the length of the hypotenuse: a² + b² = c². Quaker -- The Religious Society of Friends, originating in 17th century England; George Fox; believe that the Bible should not be taken as the final revelation of God; all people are children of God and have inherited powers from him; sometimes God will speak to people through an "inner voice"; peace; equality of all people ... quadrilingual -- the ability to read, write, or speak four languages. rabies -- a deadly viral infection that is spread by infected animals; the incubation period is 10 days to 7 years (though commonly 3 -- 7 weeks); symptoms are anxiety, drooling, seizures, fever, numbness, pain, difficulty swallowing. radium -- element # 88 on the periodic table, symbol Ra; discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898. It is an almost pure-white earth metal that readily oxidizes in air, becoming black; highly radioactive (over 1,000,000 times as radioactive as uranium). realism -- the attempt to depict subjects as they are considered to exist in 3rd person objective reality. The artistic movement began in France in the 1850s. recession -- a business cycle contraction; a general slowdown in economic activity. Reformation -- 16th century skirmish started by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other early Protestants. They protested the doctrines, rituals, and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, leading to the creation of Protestant churches. Renaissance man -- a cool term for polymath (which is also a cool word); a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. revolutionary -- radically new or innovative; outside or beyond established procedure, principle, etc. rheumatism -- any disorder of the extremities or the back, characterized by pain and stiffness. rickets -- a disease of childhood, characterized by softening of developing bones, malnutrition, and enlargement of the liver and spleen as a result of inadequate intake of vitamin D and insufficient exposure to sunlight. robber baron -- an American capitalist of the latter part of the 19th century who became wealthy through exploitation (as of natural resources, governmental influence, or low wage scales). Roman Catholicism -- the faith, practice, and system of government of the Roman Catholic Church, the world's largest Christian church. It is led by the Pope and doctrine maintains that the church is infallible. rotifer -- microscopic aquatic animals, found in many freshwater environments and moist soil. Russian Orthodox Church -- a body of Christians who are under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Moscow. It is traditionally believed that the church was founded by the apostle Andrew. saber-toothed cat -- the extinct subfamilies of several families found worldwide in the Eocene Epoch to the Pleistocene Epoch; called for their large saber-like maxillary canine teeth; not all were related to modern felines. An example is Smilodon. saltpeter -- potassium nitrate (KNO₃) or the mineral niter, the critical oxidizing component of gunpowder, and a food preservative. Also can refer to sodium nitrate (NaNO₃) or the mineral Nitratine, a component of fertilizers, explosives and solid rocket propellants, and a food preservative. Also can refer to calcium nitrate (CaNO₃) or Nitromagnesite, a compound produced in Norway in the early 20th century. Also can refer to magnesium nitrate (Mg(NO3)2); the Saltpeter War or War of the Pacific between Chile, Peru, and Bolivia; or a saltpeterman, who dug saltpeter up, found it, or made it for a living. OK? satirist -- seceded -- seizure -- shogun -- small pox -- Social Security Act (1935) -- Socratic method -- eliciting discussion and insight from students through a series of questions. sonata -- a piece of music that is played rather than sung. It is usually a composition for a solo instrument. space race -- species -- a basic unit of biological classification and a taxanomic rank. Here is the biological classification: Species, Genus, Family, Order, Class, Phylum, Kingdom, Domain, Life. spiral galaxy -- a galaxy that is shaped like a spiral: spiral arms that spread outward from the center of the galaxy. These galaxies have a lot of gas, dust, and newly forming stars. About 20% of all galaxies are spiral. The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy. stele -- a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerals, etc. and inscribed with names and titles. The Code of Hammurabi is a series of stelae of stone or clay tablets. The Rosetta Stone stele is made from granodiorite. stentor -- trumpet animalcules, eurkaryotes, horn shaped, common in freshwater lakes and streams. stromatolite -- the oldest known fossils, formed by huge colonies of prokaryotic cyanobacteria, which contributed directly to the formation of the earth's atmosphere. suffrage -- the civil right to vote gained through the democratic process. sultan --a title given to certain rulers who claimed sovereignty without claiming the overall caliphate. supercontinent -- a landmass comprising more than one continental core. Eurasia is a supercontinent. Here is a list of prehistoric supercontinents: Vaalbara (3.6 billion years ago), Ur (~3 billion years ago), Kenorland (~2.7 billion years ago), Nena (~1.8 billion years ago), Columbia (~1.8 -- 1.5 billion years ago), Rodinia (~1.1 billion -- 750 million years ago), Pannotia (~600 -- 540 million years ago), Oldredia (~418 -- 380 million years ago), Euramerica (~300 million years ago), Pangaea (~300 -- 180 million years ago), Laurasia (~300 -- 60 million years ago), Gondwana (~300 -- 30 million years ago). superego -- supernova -- a stellar explosion which is extremely luminous and causes a burst of radiation that briefly outshines an entire galaxy. syphilis -- a sexually transmitted disease caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum. Symptoms are chancres, skin rash, mucous membrane lesions, fever, swollen lymph glands, sore throat, hair loss, etc. It can be cured with penicillin. taxonomy -- the science of classification; the science dealing with the description, identification, naming, and classification of organisms. telegraph -- a system or device for sending messages or signals to a distant place; also that message. teratorn -- very large extinct bird of prey testate amoeba (arcellinida) -- single- celled protists enclosed in a simple shell, commonly found in soil, leaf litter, peat bogs, and fresh water tetrapod -- a vertebrate animal having four limbs (quadruped): amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. The New Church -- therapsids -- thermodynamics -- physics that deals with the relationships and conversions between heat and other forms of energy. Tonalism -- an artistic style that emerged in the 1880s. Usually the art is landscapes with an overall tone of colored atmosphere or mist. James McNeill Whistler is a famous tonalist. totalitarianism -- trajectory -- the curve described by a projectile, rocket, etc. in flight; a curve or surface that cuts all the curves or surfaces of a given system at a constant angle. treason -- the offense of acting to overthrow one's government or to harm or kill its sovereign; violation of allegiance; betrayal of trust or confidence; breach of faith. trilobite -- fossils of extinct marine arthropods which flourished throughout the Paleozoic era until extinction in the Devonian. tuberculosis -- typhoid fever -- an illness caused by the bacterium Salmonella Typhi. It can be treated with antibiotics. Salmonella Typhi lives in humans, and is spread by eating or drinking food and beverages by a person who is shedding the bacterium. It can also be spread by contaminated drinking water. There is a vaccination. Underground Railroad -- an informal network of routes and houses that aided slaves to escape to free states and to Canada, aided by abolitionists and others who were sympathetic to their cause. Unitarian -- a religion that accepts the religious beliefs of everyone. The full name is Unitarian Universalism, a non-creedal faith. Members may engage in prayer, meditation, etc. Francis David, a 16th century figure, said, "We need not think alike to love alike." Unitarians follow seven principles: 1. inherent worth and dignity of everyone; 2. justice, equity, and compassion; 3. acceptance and encouragement of one another; 4. free and responsible search for truth and meaning; 5. right of conscience; 6. peace, liberty, and justice for all; 7. respect for the interdependent web of all existence. Cool, huh? vaccination -- the administration of an antigen to stimulate adaptive immunity to a disease. The word was first used by Edward Jenner in 1796. vacuum tube -- a device invented by Sir John Ambrose Fleming (standing on the shoulders of many others) in 1904; it relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum for rectification, amplification, switching, signaling, etc. Vatican -- the Holy See; the central governing body of the Catholic Church; the Holy City. Vatican City was created by the 1929 Lateran Treaty. vein -- a blood vessel that carries blood to the heart. vernal equinox -- the equinox that happens in the spring -- an equinox happens twice a year and is when daylight and nighttime have approximately equal length. The other one happens in fall (autumnal equinox). virulent -- actively poisonous; intensely noxious; highly infective; violently or spitefully hostile; intensily bitter or malicious; yucky. vorticella -- a genus of protozoa, stalked inverted bell-shaped ciliates. They live in freshwater ponds and streams. Waldensians -- a Christian movement of the Middle Ages. They were persecuted as heretical in the 12th century. The church was founded by Peter Waldo about 1177. Their belief system involves serving marginalized populations, social justice, advocating respect for religious diversity, and freedom of conscience. Whig -- a political party in the United States founded in 1833 and dissolved in 1856. It was formed in opposition to the policies of Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party. x-rays -- zoologist -- one who works in zoology, which is a branch of biology that deals with the animal kingdom -- structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, distribution, extinction, etc. |
| Hippocratic Oath,ancient I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfil according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant: To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art - if they desire to learn it - without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken an oath according to the medical law, but no one else. I will apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice. I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art. I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work. Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves. What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself, holding such things shameful to be spoken about. If I fulfil this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot. Hippocratic Oath, Modern I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant: I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow. I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism. I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug. I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery. I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God. I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick. I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm. If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help. |
| Bill of Rights. I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. II. A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. III. No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law. IV. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. V. No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; no shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, no be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation. VI. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense. VII. In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury will be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law. VIII. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments be inflicted. IX. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. |