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Flashback calendar

German physicist Hans von Ohain dies

He is known as the designer of the first operational jet engine. His HeS3b turbojet engine powered the first experimental jet aircraft, the He178. He had an English competitor, Frank Whittle. Whittle patented the jet engine four years before Ohain. However, Ohain's engine flew two years before Whittle's.

Apollo 9 lands

It was the first flight test of the Command/Service Module together with the Lunar Module. The crew performed the first manned flight of the Lunar Module, the first docking, and extraction of a Lunar module and two spacewalks to check out the brand new Apollo spacesuit. It was the first spacesuit without a connection to the spacecraft.

Earmuffs is patented

Young inventor Chester Greenwood of Farmington, Maine, patented a new device to keep ears warm in frost. He bended a piece of wire and asked his grandmother to saw two beaver fur pads which he attached to the wire. By his mid-twenties, he was selling 50,000 earmuffs yearly. March 13 is celebrated as a National Earmuff Day.

British astronomer William Herschel discovers Uranus

He was a musician, not a professional astronomer. But astronomy was his favorite hobby. In 1781 Herschel was looking for double stars and noticed an object appearing as a disk. He originally thought it was a comet. Later Russian Academician Anders Lexell computed the orbit and found it to be planetary.

Anniversaries of the (in)famous

born 1952

Didier Raoult

died 1982

Otis Boykin

born 1963

Andy Rubin