Technology & innovation

Cancer Cells under microscope

Louis S. Goodman and Alfred Gilman run first human trial of cancer chemotherapy

In collaboration with thoracic surgeon Gustaf Lindskog, the two doctors from Yale School of Medicine injected the chemical mustine into a patient with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. In a monumental moment for the field of medicine, the patient, a Polish immigrant to Connecticut known in literature only as JD, experienced a dramatic reduction in his tumor masses, paving the way for millions of future patients who would benefit from the therapy in the years and decades to come.

The Panama Canal officially opens

France began work on the canal in 1881, but stopped due to engineering problems and a high worker mortality rate. The United States took over the project in 1904 and opened the canal on August 15, 1914.

Frank Shuman thermal solar plant concept drawing

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.

James Blyth's windmill at his cottage in Marykirk in 1891

James Blyth of Scotland builds world’s first ever wind turbine used for electricity generation

Blyth’s 10 m 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.”

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