Technology, science, math, engineering (STEM) timeline

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report warns:

Unless planned fossil fuel plants are not cancelled and most existing plants decommissioned and spending on renewable energy increases three to six times by 2030, we are on track for catastrophic weather and crop failures.

CO2 (carbon dioxide) in atmosphere continues to increase above 417 parts per million.

See carbon dioxide clock with historical graphs and more

CO² (carbon dioxide) in atmosphere passes 417 parts per million. Highest since beginning of the industrial revolution.

COVID-19 vaccine developed

A messenger RNA Cozvid-19 vaccine, with 95% efficacy, is developed astonishingly fast and production of 8 billion shots is achieved.

However, world wide distribution and acceptance of a vacination is less successful. Success hampered by:

• Public expectations of a vaccine, similar to measles, that provides a life time protection.
• Belief herd immunity could be achieved with wide vaccination.
• Spread of vaccine hesitancy, half-truths, misinformation, and a flood of lies along with the promotion of questionable unproven drugs and remedies.
• Evolution of different variants of the virus.
• Belief a specific mRND vaccine could end the pandemic. And
• Wanting it to be over.

The future for ending the pandemic may be a long term struggle that will only be resolved with a pancoronavirus vaccine that will thwart any Sars-CoV-2.

China’s Chang’e 5 returns 1.7 kilograms of rock and soil from the moon

First since Russia’s Luna 24 in 1976. See also Apollo

RoseTTAFold & AlphaFold (artificial intelligence algorithms) are able to predict structures of protein complexes. Both are available for researchers to use for free.

NASA announces the Artemis program to put the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2024. Source

Within the program is the Artemis Accord.

First all women team to win Noble prize

Geneticist Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their groundbreaking invention of CRISPR-Cas9 (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats ) for editing genes. Source The Code Breaker Walter Isaacson.

Greta Thunberg speaks at the United Nations on climate and global warming. Speech see 1980's related U.S. political history and Rachel Carson's early warnings

Earth’ s human population 7.6 billion

China’s Chang’e 4 lands on the dark side of the moon. Its biosphere germinates the first seeds (cotton) on the moon. January 3, 2018. Source

First image of a Black Hole is recorded with the help of Katie Bouman, who developed the algorithm necessary to create the image. The black sphere captures all light with its massive gravity. The photons (light) that surround the event horizon create the glow as matter spirals into the hole. The black hole is at the center of the Messier 87 (M87) galaxy, 53 million light years from Earth. It has a mass of 6.5 billion suns with an event horizon a bit larger than our Solar System, itty-bitty by cosmic standards.

First AI (artificial intelligence) to predict people's emotional state

Kevin LaBar creates a model that uses fMRI scans to associate brain blood flow patterns to seven feelings: countentedness, amusement, surprise, fear, anger, sadness, & neutrality.

His work builds on Jack Gallant's mapping 1000's of concept words to brain locations. Numbers, body parts, principles such as truth. He found every word is maps to multiple regions. He believes each region represents an idea associated with its meaning or related experience. Number tracks to tactile, visual, and number.

Source Discover. The Shape of Thought, December, 2019

Covid vaccine developed

Ozem Tureci and Uğur Sahin, co-founders of BioNTech (2008) discover mRNA vaccines that will open a new generation of treatments for viruses. Covid vaccine among them.

California Camp fire sets a record for the deadliest and most destructive fire in California history. Burns 153 336 acres, destroys 18 804 structures, displaces 52 000 people and kills 85 people.

Japan's Hayabusa 2 spacecraft drops multiple probes onto the surface of the Ryuga Asteroid. The probes hop across the asteroid: take pictures, measure temperatures, magnetism, look for water and organic molecules. The main spacecraft will land three times and collect samples and return to Earth in 2020. Source See Hayabusa1.

NASA announced its Mars rover found evidence for ancient life and methane in the Martian atmosphere, suggests microbes have existed and still might exist today.

The B-52 bomber is still flying. By Gordon F. Sander January 20, 2018

Somalian plate is separating from the African Continent See Africa's Big Break. by Shannon Hall in Discover magazine May 2018.

CO² (carbon dioxide) in atmosphere passes 400 parts per million. Highest since beginning of the industrial revolution.

Wheat genome sequenced. Source

Hurricane Maria devastates Puerto Rico and kills 2 975 people, in September.

First artificial species created

Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn3.0 has 473 genes and was created by J. C. Venter. He started with the living organism Mycoplasma genitalium, the smallest organism (has 525 genes) and the first organism to be sequenced, by removing and adding genes until it sustained life and reproduced.

First time police use a robot to kill a suspect

After a sniper killed 12 police officers in Dallas, police armed a small robot with a bomb and detonated it next to the shooter.

The Great Math Mystery

According to Mario Livio, all numbers (one, two, ...) are invented concepts, and humans have discovered that numbers have all kinds of intricate relationships. Humans invented the concept and then discovered the relations among the different concepts. Therefore, math is both invented and discovered. It may feel like it's already there, but it comes from the creativity of human beings. Source

Cruise ship Crystal Serenity along with 100 tourists steamed from Alaska to New York through the Northwest Passage for the first time in recorded history.

OSIRIS-REx launched and arrives at Bennu asteroid (101955) in 2018. If finds the surface weathered by space exposure, has abundant organic material, and evidence of past erosion by liquid water. It collects 60 g of material to arrive on Earth 2023.

Paris agreement on climate change.

Higgs boson discovered at CERN on July 4, 2012.

Peter Ware Higgs, a theoretical physicist proposes the electro weak theory and broken symmetry could explain the origin of elementary particle mass in general and W and Z bosons in particular through a Higgs mechanism. This same mechanism was proposed by other physicists about the same time and it predicted the existence of a new particle, the Higgs boson. Both discoveries add support for the Standard Model of particle physics.

On March 14, 2013, the Higgs boson was tentatively confirmed to be + parity and zero spin. Making it the first known fundamental scalar particle to be verified in nature.

Curiosity arrives on Mars and begins to sift soil and rock samples for organic molecules. in 2015 from two different sites it finds evidence of a goopy fossilized building block (kerogen) for oil and gas on Earth were found, sulfur bearing carbon rings, and traces of methane in the atmosphere rise and fall with the season.

Voyger I entered intersteller space on August 25, 2012. In another 40,000 years it will leave the solar system and the Sun's gravitational influence. Source Ed Stone

Google brain project created an algorithm that was capable of learning to identify a cat.

First spacecraft to land on an asteroid and return to Earth is Japan's Asteroid Explorer Hayabusa (MUSES-C). It traveled to Itokawa asteroid and brought back samples. It also was the first to use ion engines to navigate. Source

Scalbard Global Seed Vault on the island of Spitsbergen near Longyearbyen Norway opens. It was created to preserve a wide variety of plant seeds as spare copies held as a worldwide gene bank in case of a regional or global crises. Source

The number of people living in urban areas (cities) is greater than the number of people living in rural areas.

Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 549 U.S. 497, in a 5-4 decision found:

1. The petitioners were found to have standing.A state has a right to act in the interest of its citizens as to whether "its mountains shall be stripped of their forests and its inhabitants shall breathe pure air."
2. The Court held the CAA gives the EPA the authority to regulate tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases. The CAA defines "air pollutant" as "any air pollution agent or combination of such agents, including any physical, chemical, biological, radioactive ... substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air".
3. The Court found the EPA's current rationale for not regulating to be inadequate and required the agency to articulate a reasonable basis in order to avoid regulation.

Chief Justice Roberts dissent argued the alleged injury: Massachusetts' loss of land because of rising sea levels is too speculative and without adequate scientific support and the effect of obliging the EPA to enforce automobile emissions as a solution is hypothetical at best.

Scalia's dissent found the Court has no jurisdiction to decide the case because the petitioners lack standing.

Source

The New Horizon space probe is launched.

It travels to Pluto and then Arrokoth in the Kuiper belt at the edge of the solar system. The original positional locating system is unable to center Arrokoth to photograph. Marc Huie recommends using a new star mapping system created from the Gaia satellite from mapping quasars as a reference frame. It works perfectly. Source

Hurricane Katrina devastates the north Gulf Coast killing 1,833 people.

Identify the human genome with 32 000 genes

Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is founded

Its mission is based on the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. It will oversee the destruction of the world’s declared chemical weapons (CW) stockpiles.

In 2014 it removes and destroyed Syria’s CW stockpile and in 2022 starts to transition from disarmament to nnonproliferation and threat reduction of state and non state actors who develop or use CW.

Among it’s most important tasks: to reinforce international norms against the use of chemical weapons (CW). And to document and confirm who is responsible for the use of CW against different populations, and the assassination of political opponents. Source Countering the future chemical weapons threat. By Tuan H. Nguyen. Science April 20. 2022

First mammal, Dolly the sheep, is cloned. Followed by dogs, rabbits, pigs, and primates in 2018, with Zhongshan Zhongshan and Hua Hua.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) is opened for signatures. Nations have signed it, but not all have ratified it. However, most nations agreed to the verification procedures and are gathering and transmitting data to the CTBTO headquarters. Thus, no nuclear explosion goes undetected.

Self flying plane (autonomous vehicle)

A Boeing 737 with a Global positioning system (GPS) landed itself 110 times in a row. Source

Congress killed the Superconducting Super Collider

Confirmed microwave background radiation of the big bang

The COBE ( NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer satellite) team announced they detected the three-degree Kelvin electromagnetic background radiation in all directions of the sky that was emitted 380,000 years after the Big Bang.

Al Gore introduced legislation to create ARAPANET, a public network that became the internet, which will eventually connect anyone anywhere instantly. See 1990, 1989.

Hubble telescope launched April 24, 1990.

The Hubble telescope will collect millions of observations of space objects expanding the size and the universe and the number of known objects in it. See NASA for great photos and more about Hubble.

Tim Berners-Lees and Robert Cailliau utilize ideas of a server, TCP, DNS, HTTP, HTML, URL, and a browser to make the WWW and the first web page at: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

See 1989, 1991.

Internet

Tim Berners-Lee designs the Distributed Information System (internet) for particle physicists to communcate more effectively and efficiently. See 1990 and 1991.

The first world leader, Margaret Thatcher, calls for action on climate change.

Treaty to ban chlorofluorocarbons, to protect the ozone layer, is ratified by 197 countries.

Nuclear power plant in Pripyat, Ukraine (Chernobyl) explodes to become the worst nuclear accident in the history of nuclear power.

Organ Transplant

Organ transplants are largely unsuccessful because the body rejectes the new organ. Thomas Starzl works for many years to improve on transplant success. First, with the drug cyclosporine, approved by the FDA in 1983. Later with tacrolimus, approved by the FDA in 1994. Over his career he investigates: preservation, immunosuppression, infectious diseases, oncology, growth factor physiology, and immunology. The Puzzle People: Memoirs of a Transplant Surgeon. University of Pittsburgh Press.

Stanley Prusiner claims prions replicate without nucleic acids.

He publishes: scrapie, a degenerative disease of the central nervous system of sheep, is cause by prions. Prions are misfolded proteins that have the ability to transmit their misfolded shape onto normal proteins without RNA, DNA, or a virus. Also cause other degenerative diseases: mad cow disease and chronic wasting disease. Shifts & drifts in prion science. Science October 2, 2020

Micro Computers

Diamond v. Chakbrabarty - Can life be patented

Asked to rule if a patent for a human-made, genetically engineered bacterium capable of breaking down crude oil, a property which is possessed by no naturally occurring bacteria could be patented.

1. At questions is: are living things patentable?
2. Does a micro-organism constitutes a manufactured or composition of matter?

Ruled, it was a nonnaturally occurring organism that was manufactured or a composition of matter of human ingenuity with a distinctive name and character of use.

Referenced: 1930 Plant Patent Act, allowed protection of certain asexually reproduced plants and the 1970 Plant Variety Protection Act, protected certain sexually reproduced plants.

Source

Global positioning system (GPS)

Brad Parkinson and his team had proof of the concept for a global positioning system (GPS) . Source

Gossamer Condor, became the first nonstop human-powered flight in 1977. The Condor designed and built by Paul MacCready stayed aloft for seven minutes and flew a figure eight course. The flight won a prize of $100,000, which was offered by British industrialist Henry Kremer 18 years earlier. The Condor now hangs in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. More about Paul and ...

Have Blue, the first stealth aircraft designed and built at Lockheed's Skunk Works took flight over Nevada. More

Voyger 1 is launched and continues its voyage.

• Voyger 1 was launched Septeber 5, 1977.
• In 1990 the blue dot photo 2,was taken.
• On February 17, 1998 it became the most distant human made object
• In 1998 it crosses the termination shock
• On February 13, 2010 it passes the reach of the solar wind
• On August 25, 2012 in reaches interstellar space

Photo of Earth taken by Voyager 1 between Uranus and Neptune. Original: NASA JP

Carl R. Woese discovered cells whose 16S rRNA genetic materials were evolutionary older than known bacteria. This discovery resulted in a three-domain (archaea, bacteria, & eukaryote) biological classification system and understanding of how evolutionary differences can be used for classification. His work lead to the separation of prokaryotes into two groups: Bacteria and Archaea. Woese reasoned the differences in genes of these two groups and the eukaryotes (multicellular fungi, plants, & animals) to be classified as three separate domains.

Source The Tangled Tree by David Quammen

Earth’ s human population 4 billion

First use of precision guided bombs

On July 23rd, laser-guided bombs were used to target and destroy the Than Hoa Bridge and Longbien Bridge. The Than Hoa Bridge was destroyed by a 3,000-pound laser-guided bomb dropped by an F-4 Phantom jet, and Longbien Bridge was destroyed by a 2,000-pound TV-guided bomb. Source

Blue marble photograph by Jack Schmitt 12-7-1972.

First Earth Day

Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and promote peaceful uses of nuclear energy. See 1963 and 1996

Environmental Acts ALL pass in the Senate without a single dissenting vote and signed into law by President Nixon.

• The Clean Air Act (1970),
• Clean Water Act (1972), and the
• Endangered Species Act (1973)

Eric Kandel shows short-term memory involves changes in synapse strength and long term memory creates new synapses. Source

Apollo program with first Moon landing of Apollo 11

• Apollo 1 accident fire kills Virgil Gus Grissom, Edward White, & Roger Chaffee. 1, 27, 1967
• Apoll0 4 no crew Earth orbiting mission to test Saturn V as a launch vehicle. 11, 9, 1967
• Apollo 5 no crew Earth orbit with test flight of lunar module. 1, 22, 1968
• Apollo 7 first crew flight Walter Schirre, Donn Eisele * Walteer Cunningham 10, 11, 1968
• Apollo 8 takes three astronauts (Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, & William Anders) to the dark side of the moon and back. 12, 21 1968
• Apollo 9 tests the lunar module for the first time while in Earth orbit. 3, 3, 1969
• Apollo 10 tests all aspects of a complete crewed lunar landing, except the landing. First crewed spacecraft to operate in lunar orbit. Thomas Stafford, John Young, & Eugene Cernan. 5, 18, 1969

• Apollo 11 Neil Armstrong is the first man to step on the moon and first broadcast from the surface with "One small step for man, a giant leap for mankind." Accompanied by Buzz Aldrin & Michael Collins. Michael orbits the moon. Includes a two and one-half hour moon walk.
• Apollo 12 Second lunar landing with an eight hour moon walk. Found bacteria could survive from Earth through space to the moon onan unmanned lander. 11, 14, 1969 Charles Conrad, Richard Gordon, & Alan Bean
• Apollo 13 Third planned lunar landing, however, the lunar landing is aborted when an oxygen tank explodes two days after launch. Mission control and astronauts ( Jim Lovell, Jack Schwigert, Fraed Haise) engineer a solution and return safely to Earth. 4, 11, 1970
• Apollo 14, Third lunar landing, Alan Shepart, Stuart Roosa, & Edgar Mitchell 1, 31, 1971

• Apollo 15, Fourth lunar landing, David Scott, Alfred Worden, & James Irwin 7, 26, 1971 first use of lunar rover.
• Apollo 16, Fifth lunar landing John Young, THomas Mattingly, Charles Duke. 4, 16, 1972
• later went to the moon and
• Apollo 17 Sixth lunar landing. Harrison Schmitt, Eugene Cernan, & Ronald Evans. Longest rover exploration and returns more soil and rock samples than previous. 12, 7, 1972
  It is the last mission. However, several movie legends and conspiracy theories will claim additional secret NASA missions.
• After Apollo 17 the Apollo program goes on to launch Skylab and ends with the docking of the Apollo - Soyuz vehicles.

Tragedy of the Commons

Garrett Hardin writes his Tragedy of the Commons to describe problems for common resources. He explains how herders, who seek to maximize production, can increase herd size and over graze a common range. Production that exceeds the range's capacity will cause livestock to suffer, production to fall, and the ultimate tragedy: no rancher being able to graze the field, due to overconsumption. However, persuasive forces, such as: from a collective cooperative agreement or monarch who apply coercion or social pressure for conservation of land could achieve a sustainable environmental with appropriate management. The idea of tragedy of the commons can be expanded to other land uses. Provide food, shelter, aesthetic value, watershed for quality water to sustain agriculture and human health; conservation of wild life; healthy oceans; clean atmosphere with balanced amounts of oxygen nitrogen, carbon dioxide, life sustaining climate; transportation; and intellectual knowledge rights.

Science December 13, 1968

Decoded how DNA is transribed into RNA to build proteins.

Har Gobind Khorana, found that DNA's four letter codes: A, T, C and G are transcribed into RNA and then translated, three at a time, to build proteins with amino acids. He studied nucleic acids, molecules that make genes, and confirmed the 64 unique three-letter words that determine the order of amino acids needed to make specific proteins.

In 1972, Khorana made a second breakthrough, constructing the world's first synthetic gene. In 1976 he injected the gene into a living bacterium. Source The Gene

Earthrise photograph by Bill Anders 12-25-1968.

First interracial kiss on television

On a Startrek, episode between Communications officer, Lieutenant Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) and Captain Kirk (William Shatner).

Nichelle Nichols, later becomes a spokesperson for NASA in recruiting women and minority astronauts. Her story is told in the documentary, entry Women in Motion.

Source

Discover microwave background radiation of the big bang

Detected electromagnetic background radiation that seemed to be coming from all directions of the sky. Thought to be emitted 380,000 years after the Big Bang. See 1992

16 October 3 pm China detonates its first atomic bomb and announces its policy of no first use in a conflict.

Qian Xuesen was born in China. Received a scholarship to MIT gained a security clearance and worked on classified weapons research in the U.S. During the Red scare. The FBI revoked his clearance and put him under house arrest. He returned to China and worked on their nuclear weapon program, ballistic missle program, aerodynamics, and systems engineering to control social science and engineering problems (Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River). His work sets the stage for state surveillance to control reality in later years, 2016. Source

James F. Holland researches and develops combination chemotherapy as a treatment of acute leukemia in children based on two key concepts: first, cancer cells are naturally resistant to chemotherapy, and second, resistance can be overcome more effectively when multiple drugs are given at the same time instead of one after another. His research changes acute lymphoblastic leukemia from an incurable illness to one with a high survival rate.

First stop motion photograph taken

Dr. Edgerton, invents the stroboscope and uses it to capture photographs of rapid motion. Pictures that seem to stop time. His photos include a bullet shot through an apple, a milk drop above a splash wave, and many more.

Source

Treaty to ban atmospheric nuclear testing to eliminate radioactive fallout as a source of pollution is signed.

First live instant replay on TV is run in the third quarter of the Army v. Navy football game, December 7, 1963.

Valentina Tereshkova is the first woman to orbit Earth.

Ermal Cleon Fraze invents the pull-tab opener. First used on beer and soft drink cans.

Fian Fossey begins her life long study of gorillas. See her story

Rachel Carson publishes Silent Spring

In it she claims everything is connected, we all share the same molecules, and humans have the capacity to destroy nature.
PBS Rachel Carson video 2017 (1:53:11) and Life & Legacy of Rachel Carson

• Creates the environmental movement
• At 10 she wins a prize for her story published in St. Nicholas Magazine 1918.
• Graduates Parnassus, PA High School 1925
• Graduatea Pennsylvania College for Women (Chatham University) 1929
• Employed at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory
• Earn an MA in zoology at Johns Hopkins University in 1932.
• Writes 52 short radio programs on marine life: Romance Under the Waters in 1935.
• Undersea Atlantic Monthly article in 1937
• Works at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as a fish & aquatic marine biologist 1939-1951
• Notes the subartic growing season is longer, growth rings are fatter, and cod are migrating farther north. She concludes: "The long trend is toward a warmer earth." 1951
• Reader's Digest turns down her article on DDT effects on the environment because it is thought to be too controversial. Chemical companies claim it is only harmful to bugs.
• The Sea Around Us prize winning book, published in 1952, a study of the oceans. Followed by The Edge of the Sea in 1955.
• Japanese seamen on board the Lucky Dragon die of radiation exposure 1954. She asks: How much radiation does it take to harm life? How much to kill? Strontium 90. leukemia, birth defects ...
• Help Your Child to Wonder. 1956
• Our Ever-Changing Shore. 1957
• Silent Spring published 1962 Relates pesticide effects to radioactive build up. What is a wise use of pesticides?
• CBS Reports with Eric Sevareid airs The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson on national television 1963 in spite of the fact all sponsers with draw commercial support.
• Who does the land, air, forest, water belong to? What is the commons?
• She set out to save a species ... Us.

Big box store architecture can be tracked to 1962 when Walmart, Target, and Kmart stores open a few months apart. Inside stores with huge areas of undivided retail space for customers to purchase large supplies of retail goods and outside big parking lots with easy access to highways to attract shoppers.

Two Telstar communication satellites are launched. The first in July 1962 and the second in May 1963. They enable the first TV signals, telephone calls, fax images and live transatlantic feed to be relayed from space.

December 1961. President Kennedy authorizes the use of defoliants in Vietnam.

1960 Earth’ s human population 3 billion

The Green Revolution, and Norman Borlaug develope new strains of wheat and rice to use in developing countries for higher yields. He first developes a short strain of wheat and other varieties for Mexico, which increases wheat production three times.

Later, India and Pakistan ask him to help their countries with their agricultural revolution.

He developes techniques to create mutations for finding new hybrids, which he uses to develop different strains of wheat, rice, sorgum, millet, cassova, triticale, maize, and tubers. It is estimated these varieties were able to save billions of people from starvation. The down side is the large amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides required to maintain high yields. Source

Jane Goodall begins her life long study of chimpanzees.See her story

Over 90% of homes in USA have a television.

Laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) is invented.

Laser is a device that amplifies coherent light by energizing electromagnetic radiation.

The first laser is built by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, based on ideas by Charles Hard Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow.

Later applications include: laser pointers, laser surgery, tatoo removal, cutting materials, welding, fiber-optics, optical disk drives, laser printers, barcode scanners, DNA sequencing instruments, instruments to mark targets, instruments to measuring range and speed, laser lighting displays ...

First SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) experiment

Frank Drake turns the telescope at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory toward Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani (close stars) to search for interstellar communications (project Ozma). A high altitude plane signals a false alarm. However, it demonstrates such a search is reasonable and feasible.

America enters space age

ARPA launches America's first communication satellite (SCORE) into orbit with an American Atlas rocket. A previously recorded meassage is onboard and on December 19, 1958, with a second attempt with a radio signal from Earth, it is turned on and President Eisenhower's pre recorded speech is broadcasted on a short-wave radio frequency from outer space. Message below: Source

This is the President of the United States speaking. Through the marvels of scientific advance, my voice is coming to you from a satellite circling in outer space. My message is a simple one. Though this unique means, I convey to you and all mankind, America's wish for peace on earth and good will to men everywhere.

NASA launces its first satellite, Explorer 1, into space on January 31, 1958 aboard a Jupiter C rocket developed by the team headed by Dr. Wernher von Braun. The primary scientific purpose is to measure cosmic ray radiation in Earth orbit.The experiment, conducted by Dr. James Van Allen, measures a lower cosmic ray count than expected. This lead to the discovery of the Van Allen Belts of charged particles concentrated in space by Earth's magnetic field. Source

Alan Shepard is the first American to reach space on a suborbital flight on May 5, 1961. Three weeks after the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

In 1962 astronaut John Glenn orbited the Earth three times in the Mercury spacecraft Friendship 7, re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, and splashed down in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Female mathematicians, or human computers, support the engineers. Amoung them is Katherine Johnson. She developes precise trajectory calculations for human spaceflights and lunar orbits. Margot Lee Shettelry writes about her in the book Hidden Figures, which the movie of the same name is based.

See Apollo program 1969

Nuclear research

ARPA funded research to investigate the possibility of creating an electron shield, to destroy enemy intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), by exploding atomic bombs in the atmosphere. The funding included an actual icbm launch with an atomic bomb that was exploded in the atmosphere to test feasibility (ARGUS test). Source

Investigate the creation of a space vehicle powered by hundreds of nuclear bombs (Orion).

Lego bricks were invented by the family company found by Ole Kirk Kristiansen in 1932. The word Lego was shortened from Danish leg godtz - meaning play well. In 2018 the company moves to make environmentally responsible bricks with a small environmental footprint. Source

Anthropocene Epoch (present - .01 mya) can be identified by the measurement of radioactive traces in organic materials that was alive during the atomic bomb tests of the 1950's and 60's. Might be considered as a sign post, along with the introduction of plastic into the environment, for the extinction of many species. Will humans be among them?

The start of the Space Age
The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1, the earth's first artificial satellite, on October 4, 1957

Shortly after, two more Soviet satellites are launched, one with a dog, into space. The satellites orbit Earth approximately once every 90 minutes. See America enters space race 1958

Strategic Air Command (SAC) south of Omaha, NE under the command of General LeMay employs nearly a quarter of a million men and its hangars contained over 2,000 strategic aircraft, including over 700 B-52s.

Federal Aid Highway Act passes Congress

Construction of the U.S. Interstate Highway System with controlled access highways propossed by Dwight D. Eisenhower starts.

Shipping container is invented and patented in 1956 by Malcolm Mc Lean. A trucker who owned and operated a large fleet of trucks, designs it for more efficient and faster intercontinental trade.

AI (artificial intelligence) is used by John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky extending the questions: Can machines think? Later explored in films such as: 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Terminator. They coined the term to focus discussion on the programing of machines as opposed to the philosophical ideas associated with the term used in the 1948 book Cybernetics by Norbert Wiener.

Solar cell

On April 25, 1954, Bell Labs announces the invention of the first practical silicon solar cell. Originated from Aleksandr Stoletov the first solar cell based on the photoelectric effect in 1894. Source Timeline solar cells

See article on how variation of Sun angle, duration effects the amount of Solar radiation energy (insolation).

Stanley Miller creates amino acids

His experiment put an electrical charge in a flask with methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water. The results may explain how organic materials were created on Earth billions of years ago.

By The original uploader was Carny at Hebrew Wikipedia (Transferred from he.wikipedia to Commons.)

DNA first identified

James Watson and Francis Crick demonstrate a model for deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) as a double helix twisted ladder. It is essential to understand how genes control the chemical processes in living organisms.

The 4 Level Freeway Stack opens in Los Angles. It is 32 lanes of traffic to change directions 8 ways.

Maria Tharp discoveres the Mid-Atlantic Ridge from mapping data.

When Maria transfers data from a 5000 foot scroll onto sheets of white linen to map the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean a long rift valley appears.

Such a ridge is suggested by Wegner's theory of continental drift & plate tectonics.

However, most people believe continents are permanently attached to the surface of the Earth or they are to massive to drift so she is told by her superior to redo her work. After she does, the results are compared to another map by Bruce Heezen, and both maps describe rift valleys in the mid-ocean ridge. The results are published in 1957.

The article is read by the ocean explorer, Jacques Cousteau. He doubts Tharp's conclusions. Determined to prove her wrong he tacks her map to the dining room wall of his ship. However, when he views film he took of the Atlantic Ocean floor, he sees a deep valley ridge where Tharp had mapped it. Source "Connect the Dots: Mapping the Seafloor and Discovering the Mid-ocean Ridge" by Marie Tharp, Chapter 2 in Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia

• Check out Mary Sears, another interesting people in oceanography and her Pioneering Ocean Research …
  

Great London Fog or Big Smog

A five day air-pollution event in the United Kingdom caused by cold weather and a lack of wind to move massive amounts of smoke created by the buring of coal and other fossil fuels for home use, transportation, and industry is believed to have killed 12,000 and sickened 25,000. It leads to the Clean Air Act in 1956. Source

First amino acid sequence of a protein

Frederick Sanger found a protein is a genetically created sequence of amino acids. He uses this ideas to determine the complete amino acid sequence of two polypeptide [protein] chains - bovine insulin A (1951) and bovine insulin B (1952). Next he determines how amide groups are distributed, and the location of the disulphide linkages which complete his deduction of the structure of insulin, in 1954. Source

Henrietta Lacks dies of cervical cancer on October 4, 1951, at age 31. C

Her cells are taken from her body and used to create the HeLa cell line. These cells are found to grow quickly, are very hardy and survive longer than usual human cells. They became widely used in thousands of medical research experiments (cancer, polio vaccine, HIV, effects of toxins and radiation on cells, gene mapping, testing sensativity of cosmetics and other substance on cells, invitro fertilization, ... ). Since the cells were taken without her or her families permission their use and ownership eventually began discussion on ethical and legal use of peoples cells and genetic material. Source

Jack St. Clair Kilby invents an integrated circuit

Turned down by MIT to study electronics. He later says it was because he didn't know it wasn't supposed to work that he tried it and found that it did. Serendipity?

First protein structures (myoglobin & hemoglobin) are determined with X-ray crystallography. Later Christian B. Anfinsen Jr. suggests that since a protein is thermodynamical stable it will make it possible to predict the structure of a protein based on the the sequence of its amino acids. Which will be solved in 2021

Willard Libby, invents carbon-14 dating around 1950. Therefore, scientists agree to use January 1, 1950 as the reference date for before present (BP or YA ) when dating.

French textile engineer fashion designer Louis Reardé designs a two piece swim suit, the bikini (Bikini Atoll is where atomic bombs were tested), and has Micheline Bernardini model it on July 5, 1946.

Previously, bikini like clothing is carved on a statue in Turkey about 5,600 BCE and paintings and other artifacts from Greece and Rome also show bikini style clothing.

Manhattan Project's Trinity test successfully detonates the first atomic bomb in Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945, at 5:29:45 a.m.

Views of photos and videos of atomic test explosions. Compiled by Gregg Spriggs, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California for the public to see the destructive power.

George Polya studies and identifies a heuristic to systematically solve problems. His classical book: How to Solve It, has been been found by students and educators as an authority for solving problems. In it he suggests four steps for solving mathematical problems:

1. Understand the problem
2. Make a plan
3. Carry out the plan
4. Look back on your work and ask, How could it be better?

Frozen food developer Clarence Birdseye learns from the Inuit that trout caught through holes in the ice can be frozen instantly in the air (which was 30 degrees below zero) tastes like it fresh trout when it was cooked later. Unlike when food is frozen in the more usual slower way.

This leads him to develope a flash freezing method to create better tsting frozen meals and vegetables, which and changes the way the world eats and provides people with quality food that isn't in season. Source and more.

Erwin Schrodinger publishes What Is Life? In it he seeks answers to

... how can the events in space and time, which take place within the spatial boundary of a living organism be accounted for by physics and chemistry?

This book is credited by many of the pioneers in the study of genetics and DNA as inspiring their work.

First digital speech encryption system, SIGSALY or The Green Hornet, is developed by Bell Telephone Laboratories and built by Western Electric. It is used to communicate from Washington to London during WWII. Communications such as confidential talks between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Roosevelt. The system uses the highly-secure One-Time Pad (OTP) encryption. Source

Space age

The V-2 missile fires successfully from Peenemund island off Germany's Baltic coast. Directed by German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun.

Penicillin Howard Florey and Ernst Boris Chain isolated, purified, and created an injectable form of penicillin to use as an antibiotic.

A study showed bacteria could develop a resistance to penicillin. Even before penicillin was used to treat infections. However, the idea of killing bad bacteria and an increase in the discovery of antibiotics would accelerate the use of antibiotics in ways to contribute to resistant microbes rather than considering a more targeted and efficient use of antibiotics to reduce the evolution of drug resistant organisms.

DDT is found to kill insects and began to be used extensively as an insecticide. Sprays attached to mowers to spray yards before picnics, shelf paper with DDT embedded, paint, varnish, there were no limits on its use. Thought it would raise the standard of living, rid the world of malaria, fire ants and other pests that caused disease and harmed crops.

Hoover dam completed

City planning for green space and community ...

Greenbelt, Maryland, is constructed from 1936 to 1938 by thousands of laborers, through the New Deal programs. Clarence S. Stein is a consultant and creates design guidelines. Later Stein works to preserve the town as an example of a socially and environmentally responsible community design that can be used as a prototype for future desgins. Designs that combine superblocks of houses and apartments with pedestrian walkways through communal green space which join to a central area with commercial and recreational structures separate from roads for automobile travel. In addition, the federal government promotes cooperative enterprises and associations in Greenbelt as a way to foster affordable houseing and an enduring sense of community. While the cooperative nature of the towns are deemed a failure, the physical layout of the town is replicated by private developers. Source
More information related to the political aspects of this social experiment.

Sulfa drug and antibiotics

Sulfa, also called sulfonamide, a synthetic antibiotic with a sulfanilamide molecular structure is the first chemical substance systematically created to treat and prevent bacterial infections in humans. Their effects were first observed in 1932, by Gerhard Domagk who notices that red dye Prontosil kills Streptococcus infections in mice. Later researchers find the active agent is sulfanilamide, or para-aminobenzenesulfonamide, a metabolic product of Prontosil.

Edwin P. Hubble supports the expansion of the universe with his measurements of shifting spectral lines of light emitted from distant galaxies.

Penicillin. Alexander Fleming accidentally (serendipity) contaminates colonies of bacteria with mold, penicillium, and notices there is no bacteria growing around the areas of the mold. He isolates the mold, grows it, and finds it contains a substance capable of killing many bacteria that infect humans.

Later Gladys Hobby, Martin Henry, and Karl Meyer relized the importance of this and perfected penicillin ( See 1941) and later Hobby perfects Terramycin.

Dirac and the electron wave equation and the positron

Dirac presentsto the Royal Society of London a relativistic wave equation for the electron. His equation requires four wave functions and introduces spins. It included an extra set of solutions with negative values of energy. In 1931 Dirac suggests this implies the existence of the antielectron, or positron. Later discovered in cosmic rays by Carl Anderson.

The Dirac equation as a path to the concept of quanta, and its role in quantum electrodynamics. by Mario Bacelar Valente

Holland Tunnel opens

It is the first vehicle tunnel, under the Hudson River, between Lower Manhattan in New York City and Jersey City, New Jersey.

Plans to bridge the Hudson River are first suggested in 1906. However, in 1919 it is decided to build a tunnel under the river. Construction starts in 1920 to build, what is at the time, the longest continuous underwater vehicular tunnel in the world. Clifford Milburn Holland is the chief engineer until his death in 1924. The problem of supplying breathable air to motorists in a closed system with running gasoline engines is solved by Ole Singstad, who designs the first mechanical ventilation system and supervises the tunnel's completion.

Hans Berger invens the EEG (electroencephalograph). It records brain waves. He also discovers the alpha wave.

Earth’ s human population reaches 2 billion

First evidence to support Einstein's Theory of General Relativity

May 29, 1919, during a solar eclipse, the path of star light is measured as it travels past our Sun. The measurement finds the star's light bends by the amount predicted by Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, of how light interacts with mass which warps time and space.