Astronomical Unit Seminar, 4/20/05

April 20th has a long, troubled history as the 110th day of the year (111th for a leap year), according to the Gregorian calendar.

Famous births, deaths, and events:

• 571 AD - Birth: Muhammed
  • at 25 years old, married a 40-year old rich widow. He later married 10 more times.
  • founded Islam and wrote the Qur'an.
  • said that he completed and perfected other monotheistic religions like Judaism and Christianity.
  • as a general (commanding his followers as an army), actually founded the Islamic empire that united most of the land that encompasses the current Muslim world.
• 1534 - Death: Elizabeth Barton
  • She claimed to receive messages from God during epileptic seizures prophesying Henry VIII's death within six months of marrying Anne Boleyn.
  • Henry VIII lived 14 more years; Elizabeth Barton was hanged for treason.
• 1653 - British Politics: Oliver Cromwell disbands Parliament and rules unitarily as Lord Protector.
  • Earlier, Cromwell had led the Parliamentarian forces to victory over King Charles I and ended the absolute power of the English monarchy.
  • He led the republic (The Commonwealth of England) for four years, then took over as a military dictator.
• 1769 - Death: Pontiac
  • After the French and Indian War, the Native Americans weren't being treated as nicely by the victorious British, and rebelled.
  • Pontiac inspired widespread resistance and personally led the Ottawa tribe in the unsuccessful attempts to take Fort Detroit.
• 1775 - American Revolution: American troops lay siege to British troops in Boston.
  • The siege started the night after the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the opener to the American Revolution.
  • The British navy still comfortably controlled the harbor and reinforced by sea.
  • The Redcoats soon took Bunker Hill, but at such a cost that no more breakout attacks were attempted.
  • Finally by the winter, heavy cannons were situated on the fortified Dorchester Heights, causing the British to pull out to Halifax, Canada.
• 1808 - Birth: Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte)
  • was the nephew of Napoleon I (the famous little general who tried to invade Russia during the winter).
  • initially the monarch of France's puppet state: the Kingdom of Holland.
  • imprisoned after two failed coup attempts, fled to the UK, then returned after the revolution and won the 1848 presidential election.
  • razed and rebuilt part of Paris to suppress future revolutions more easily.
  • intervened in several wars and scored victories throughout the world, restoring French military supremacy.
  • set up a French presence in Vietnam, and allowed Prussia to take Austria, which shifted the balance of power.
  • was crushed in the Franco-Prussian War after being goaded by Otto van Bismarck into declaring war. This blunder gave rise to the German Empire, and eventually World War I.
• 1818 - Birth: Heinrich Göbel
  • invented the first modern light bulb in 1854: a carbonized bamboo filament in a vacuum.
  • didn't patent his invention.
  • died of pneumonia.
• 1861 - American Civil War: Robert E. Lee resigns from the U.S. Army to command the Confederate Army.
• Lincoln offered Lee the command of the Union Army, but despite Lee's opposition to secession, he wanted to remain loyal to his native state of Virginia.
• His home before the war, Custis-Lee Mansion, was confiscated and is now part of Arlington National Cemetary.
• 1862 - Science: The first pasteurization test was completed by Pasteur and Claude Bernard.
  • Pasteurization aims to achieve a logarithmic reduction in the number of viable organisms, reducing their number so they are unlikely to cause disease (assuming the pasteurized product is refrigerated and consumed before its expiration date).
  • Despite Pasteur's sad devotion to milk and whatnot, those not smart enough to smell the milk before using it (regardless of the oft-mislabeled expiration date) continue to get sick.
• 1871 - Birth: Slavoljub Eduard Penkala
  • invented the mechanical pencil, fountain pen, and 78 inessential things.
  • died of pneumonia.
• 1889 - Birth: Adolf Hitler
  • should have been named Adolf Schicklgruber, or at least Adolf Hiedler, because his father was born illegitimately and changed surnames.
  • formed most of his anti-Semitic and Aryan-superiority views from listening to prominent public figures in Vienna.
  • moved to Munich to avoid military service in the Austro-Hungarian army, but later joined the Bavarian army during World War I.
  • had an exemplary service record, but remained only a corporal since he didn't receive German citizenship until 1932.
  • joined the Nazi Party in 1919, attempted to seize power in the "Beer Hall Putsch" of Nov 8, 1923, and was sentenced to five years in prison for high treason.
  • was appointed German Chancellor on Jan 30, 1933, with the help of Papen and Hugenberg, who promised the cooperating DNVP political party that they could control him. On Von Hindenberg's death in Aug 1934, Hitler merged the President and Chancellor positions and declared himself "Führer".
  • greatly expanded and rebuilt the German economic and industrial base, and improved life a great deal for ethnic Germans who weren't Jewish, Catholic, communist, homosexual, physically or mentally handicapped, Gypsy, or speaking out against the Nazis.
  • supported Franco's fascist rebel forces in Spain, and added Italy, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria (who would eventually all be occupied by German troops), along with Japan to the alliance of "Axis Powers".
  • coined the phrases Lebensraum (living space) and Endlösung (final solution).
  • invaded the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa, but was stopped short of Moscow in Dec 1941, due to a harsh Russian winter, and fierce resistance resulting from the terrible treatment of all Russian P.O.W.'s and civlians by the Nazi forces.
  • was, according to recent medical reports, missing his left testicle.
  • shot himself in the head while biting a cyanide tablet on April 30, 1945, at the age of 56. The "Thousand Year Reich" lasted twelve years.
• 1889 - Birth: Albert Jean Amateau
  • was a Sephardic Jew that began a movement in early 1920s to bring more Jews into the U.S. workplace and government.
  • helped found the American Society of Jewish Friends of Turkey (and was named as its president) in 1992.
  • died in 1996 at the age of 106 years and 10 months.
• 1902 - Science: Pierre and Marie Curie refine radium chloride.
  • They shared the Nobel Prize with Becquerel a year later for the discovery of radiation.
  • Marie died of leukemia in 1934 (guess why), but Pierre was spared such a fate when in 1906 his head was crushed under a wheel in a carriage accident.
• 1912 - Death: Bram Stoker
  • The author of Dracula was bedridden for much of his childhood, but had excellent health thereafter.
  • Inspiration for the character is likely Vlad the Impaler, a.k.a. Vlad Draculea ("The Son of the Dragon"), since Vlad III's father was known as the Dragon.
  • Stoker's estate sued F.W. Murnau for his 1922 silent movie Nosferatu the Vampire. Countless adaptations and spinoffs have been produced since then, including Shadow of the Vampire and Van Helsing.
• 1923 - Birth: Tito Puente
  • was a famous Latin jazz musician, and helped create and make salsa popular.
  • appeared on several television shows, including The Simpsons.
• 1928 - Birth: Gerald S. Hawkins
  • was an astronomer that said Stonehenge, which The Simpsons visited, was once a primitive observatory.
• 1937 - Birth: George Takei
  • was forced into an internment camp with his family during World War II.
  • played Mr. Sulu in the original Star Trek.
  • appeared at countless scifi conventions, and on The Simpsons several times.
• 1943 - Birth: Edie Sedgwick
  • was Andy Warhol's Girl of the Year in 1965, but had a public split with him in 1966.
  • was the inspiration for The Cult's "Edie (Ciao Baby)", The Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale", and Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Leapord-Skin Pillbox Hat".
  • died in Nov 1971 from a suicide/drug overdose due to barbituate poisoning.
• 1961 - Birth: Don Mattingly
  • was a legendary first baseman for the New York Yankees, but never appeared in a World Series.
  • was one of the ringers Mr. Burns hired on an episode of The Simpsons.
• 1964 - Birth: Crispin Glover
  • was an actor best known for his role as George McFly in Back To The Future.
  • has also played Willard, and Andy Warhol in The Doors.
• 1964 - Birth: Andy Serkis
  • played the white motion-capture suit that was painstakingly erased by skilled animators in The Lord of the Rings.
  • also growled the voice of Gollum when the lovable character appeared on The Simpsons, an animated comedy television show.
• 1962 - Birth: Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf
  • was an choleric, inebriated man of Lilliputian stature, who frequented the radio show of Howard Stern.
  • won the 1998 People Magazine online poll as the most beautiful person.
  • was a member of The Wack Pack.
• 1972 - Science: Apollo 16 lands on the moon.
  • They explored a region purported to have volcanoes and found that it didn't
  • They revved up the lunar rover to 11 miles per hour.
  • America had already stopped caring.
• 1979 - Politics: President of the United States Of America, Jimmy Carter, is 'attacked' by a fluffy Rabbit.
• Umm, I'm still not sure what this means, but it seems as newsworthy as everything else here.
• President Carter also claimed to have witnessed a UFO in 1969 and filed a report with the International UFO Bureau in Oklahoma City. During his presidential campaign, Carter promised to release the truth about any alleged UFO cover-up. Feel free to add your own anal-probe joke here.
• 1998 - Computing: Windows 98 crashes for the thousandth time (roughly) while Bill Gates is trying to give a presentation.
• 1999 - News: Columbine massacre
  • It was widely covered in the media and two main sources were blamed: violence in video-games, music, and movies, and the social cliques and bullying in schools.
  • There were several copycats within the next few weeks; it was found that the constant media coverage was to blame.
  • The movies Bowling for Columbine from Michael Moore and Gus Van Sant's Elephant were based on Columbine, as were several notorious underground modpacks to first-person shooter video games.
• xxxx (where x's are any numbers) - Potheads celebrate.

Real Ideas for the Talk:

1. Future prospects for astrobiology (or bioastronomy).
2. Possible ideas for dark energy from theoretical particle physics.
3. Insert better idea here-- Luminosity-Dependent Quasar Lifetimes.