Today in 1955, hundreds of schoolchildren in the town of Stafford Springs lined up to be vaccinated against polio, as part of a massive statewide effort to protect young Connecticans from the deadly childhood disease. Polio was the most feared childhood illness of the 20th century. An untreatable virus which spread quickly and rarely…
Tag: science
May 7: One of His 530 Patents Gave Us Instant Photography
For more than a century after practical photography was invented in 1839, all photographers had to wait to see the pictures they had taken until the images had gone through a lengthy, chemical developing process. The man who was to change all that, Edward Land, was born in Bridgeport today in 1909. Land, a…
April 22: Noah Webster Foresees Life-Changing Environmental Crisis — in 1817!
Today in 1817, Noah Webster’s visionary essay on environmental sustainability, which he modestly titled “Domestic Consumption,” was published on the front page of the Connecticut Courant. Born in what is now West Hartford, and a graduate of Yale, Webster is best known to history as the creator of the first American dictionary in 1806….
March 28: Connecticut’s Oyster Industry Comes Out Of Its Shell
By the time the U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries first assigned a resident scientist to study Connecticut’s shellfish industry in the 1920s, Connecticut residents had been harvesting oysters and clams from the waters of Long Island Sound for hundreds of years. Created in the late 19th century, the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries’ mission was…
December 14: The Country’s First Recorded Meteorite Strike
At approximately 6:30am on December 14, 1807, residents of Fairfield County were startled by the sight of a blazing fireball in the early morning sky, followed by the terrifying sound of three loud explosions that could be heard as far as 40 miles away. After the sun rose, strange rocks could be found on…
December 2: The First Successful Permanent Artificial Heart
Born in 1946, renowned medical scientist Robert Jarvik grew up in Stamford, Connecticut. He. developed an affinity for the medical field at an early age, having frequently accompanied his father, an accomplished physician, to work. As a young man, he became fascinated with the intricate tools his father used during surgeries, and invented a…
November 20: A Great American Mastodon Challenges the Bible in a Hartford Saloon
Today in 1845, awestruck visitors gathered at Gilman’s Saloon in Hartford to view the skeleton of an extinct great American mastodon recently unearthed at a marl pit near Newburgh, New York. At a time before the discovery of the great dinosaurs, when ideas about the world’s origins conflicted with deeply held theological views of…
August 27: “Substance X” Leads To the Nation’s First Chemotherapy Treatment
Today in 1942, following top-secret research on the effects of the war-poison mustard gas, physicians at Yale University made medical history as they administered the first use of intravenous chemotherapy as a cancer treatment in the United States. This medical milestone was the culmination of experiments aimed at defending against the horrors of mustard…
May 23: A Vaccine for the Most Feared Disease of the 20th Century
Today in 1955, hundreds of schoolchildren in the town of Stafford Springs lined up to be vaccinated against polio, as part of a massive statewide effort to protect young Connecticans from the deadly childhood disease. Polio was the most feared childhood illness of the 20th century. An untreatable virus which spread quickly and rarely…
May 7: A Developing Story
For more than a century after practical photography was invented in 1839, all photographers had to wait to see the pictures they had taken until the images had gone through a lengthy, chemical developing process. The man who was to change all that, Edwin Land, was born in Bridgeport today in 1909. Land, a…
April 22: Noah Webster Foresees Life-Changing Environmental Crisis — in 1817!
Today in 1817, Noah Webster’s visionary essay on environmental sustainability, which he modestly titled “Domestic Consumption,” was published on the front page of the Connecticut Courant. Born in what is now West Hartford, and a graduate of Yale, Webster is best known to history as the creator of the first American dictionary in 1806….