Frederick Banting and Charles Best successfully isolate insulin for the first time
Within a year, people suffering from diabetes were being treated with insulin for a disease that had been considered fatal.
Science & academia
Arthur Eddington publishes The Internal Constitution of the Stars correctly speculating about the existence of nuclear fusion
At that time, the source of stellar energy was a complete mystery; Eddington correctly speculated that the source was fusion of hydrogen into helium, liberating enormous energy according to Einstein’s equation E = mc2.
Frank Shuman builds the world’s first solar thermal power plant in Egypt
Frank Shuman was an American inventor, engineer, and solar energy pioneer known for his work on solar engines. Shuman built the world’s first solar thermal power station in Maadi, Egypt in 1913, using used semi circle shaped troughs to power a 60-70 horsepower engine that pumped 6,000 gallons of water per minute from the Nile River to adjacent cotton fields.
Japanese scientist Shibasaburo Kitasato discovers the infectious agent of the bubonic plague
He traveled to Hong Kong in 1894 at the request of the Japanese government during an outbreak of the bubonic plague, and identified a bacterium that he concluded was causing the disease.
James Blyth of Scotland builds world’s first ever wind turbine used for electricity generation
Blyth’s 10-meter high, cloth-sailed wind turbine was installed in the garden of his holiday cottage at Marykirk in Kincardineshire and was used to charge accumulators developed by the Frenchman Camille Alphonse Faure, to power the lighting in the cottage, thus making it the first house in the world to have its electricity supplied by wind power. Blyth offered the surplus electricity to the people of Marykirk for lighting the main street, however, they turned down the offer as they thought electricity was “the work of the devil.”
Oxford English Dictionary debuts
The Oxford English Dictionary is now the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press.
American inventor Charles Fritts created the first commercial solar panel
Though his solar panels were very inefficient and thus not economically-viable for most uses, they were a critical early step in the development of renewable energy technology.
Peter von Rittinger of Austria invents the world’s first functional heat pump
A heat pump is a device that uses electricity to transfer heat from a colder place to a warmer place. Air-source heat pumps are now among are most effective climate solutions. In 1856, Rittinger recognized the principle of the heat pump while conducting experiments on the use of water vapor’s latent heat for the evaporation of salt brine. As a result, the heat pump was used to dry salt in salt marshes in Austria.
British physician Edward Jenner develops first-ever successful vaccine
In the West, Jenner is often called “the father of immunology”, and his work is said to have “saved more lives than the work of any other human”.
Elena Cornaro Piscopia becomes the first woman ever to receive a university doctoral degree or PhD
The Venetian was proclaimed Magistra et Doctrix Philosophiae at the University of Padua thus becoming the first women known to have received an academic degree from a university and the first to receive a Doctor of Philosophy degree.