1630 Pernambuco Brazil: A Dutch fleet of seventy ships arrived to discover the Portuguese and Spanish were well entrenched. The Dutch moved on to what is now Surinam and Aruba. We had a Surinamese meal in Amsterdam once upon a time. Chinese by another name.
1803 In the case of Marbury v. Madison, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that Congressional acts that conflict with the Constitution are void. The plaintiff Madison lost, though he was one of the authors of the Constitution. In the judgement Marshall said that it was ‘a government of laws and not men.’ Thus was established judicial review. It has been tested many times since.
1876 Alexander Graham Bell applied for a US patent for the telephone and got it. He had worked with deaf children for years and got interested in wires and electricity as a way to penetrate deafness. Helen Keller was one of his students.
1929 Alexander Fleming forgot to do the dishes and accidentally discovered penicillin. Was he living in a dorm? Many other dates are given in the progress of ascertaining, analysing, and using penicillin.
1966 Decimal currency hit the streets of Australia with the Australian decimal dollar. Bye, bye to the Australian pound. Kate remembers this advent well.
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