1850 Boston, Literature: National Hawthorne published ‘The Scarlet Letter.’ In the popular culture this powerful foray in social criticism has been reduced to a soap opera. One of my students wrote a superb thesis on it.
1861 Austin, Politics: Founder of Texas Governor Sam Houston refused to acknowledge the secession of Texas and was impeached. Upstairs in the Hall the firebrands voted to leave the Union in a wild scene, while downstairs Governor Houston sat reading Cicero. When presented with the bill, he refused to sign it. Back upstairs ran the democratically elected mob which ousted him for a more compliant alternative. A biography of Houston is discussed elsewhere on this blog.
1867 Glasgow, Medicine: Quaker Joseph Lister published a manual on antiseptic surgery in ‘The Lancet.’ He became a surgeon though his medical education was limited by prejudice and barriers against godless Quakers. His innovations were widely disparaged by other surgeons. But the survival rate of patients led to a demand his services. This demand led other surgeons to apply his methods. Thank you Dr Lister.
1900 Heraklion (Crete), History: Arthur Evans found the bronze age city of Knossos, home of the legendary Minotaur. Discoveries there re-wrote much of ancient history in Linear B. It remains Europe’s oldest city tracing back to 7000 BC.
1926 Auburn (MA), Technology: Robert Goddard launched the world’s first liquid-fuel rocket. Its flight of a few seconds reached 40 feet. Inspired by H.G. Wells stories Goddard had been experimenting with rockets for years using gunpowder. This flight was made while he was a PhD student at Clark University. At times the Smithsonian funded his research into methods to reach the stars. One of the rocket facilities at the Johnson Space Center in Houston is named for him which we saw a few years ago.
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