Dinge en Goete (Things and Stuff)

Monday, November 7, 2011

THIS DAY IN HISTORY : 1991: Magic Johnson announces he is HIV positive

November 7: 1991: Magic Johnson announces he is HIV positive

On this day in 1991, basketball legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson stuns the world by announcing his sudden retirement from the Los Angeles Lakers, after testing positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. At the time, many Americans viewed AIDS as a gay white man's disease. Johnson (1959- ), who is African American and heterosexual, was one of the first sports stars to go public about his HIV-positive status. Read more...

American Revolution
1776 : Post office stays in the Franklin family
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/post-office-stays-in-the-franklin-family

Automotive
1965 : Art Arfons sets land-speed record
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/art-arfons-sets-land-speed-record

Civil War
1861 : North and South clash at the Battle of Belmont
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/battle-of-belmont-missouri

Cold War
1957 : Gaither Report calls for more U.S. missiles and fallout shelters
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gaither-report-calls-for-more-us-missiles-and-fallout-shelters

Crime
1983 : A family is brutally murdered
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/a-family-is-brutally-murdered

Disaster
1940 : Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapses
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/tacoma-narrows-bridge-collapses

General Interest
1885 : Canada's transcontinental railway completed
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/canadas-transcontinental-railway-completed
1940 : Tacoma Bridge collapses
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/tacoma-bridge-collapses
1944 : FDR reelected a record third time
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fdr-reelected-a-record-third-time
1989 : Two African American firsts in politics
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/two-african-american-firsts-in-politics

Hollywood
1980 : "King of Cool" Steve McQueen dies
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/king-of-cool-steve-mcqueen-dies

Literary
1913 : French novelist Albert Camus is born
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/french-novelist-albert-camus-is-born

Music
1943 : Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell is born
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/singer-songwriter-joni-mitchell-is-born

Old West
1916 : Jeannette Rankin becomes first U.S. congresswoman
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/jeannette-rankin-becomes-first-us-congresswoman

Presidential
1944 : FDR wins unprecedented fourth term
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fdr-wins-unprecedented-fourth-term

Sports
1991 : Magic Johnson announces he has HIV
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/magic-johnson-announces-he-has-hiv

Vietnam War
1964 : U.S. intelligence asserts numbers of North Vietnamese in South Vietnam growing
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/us-intelligence-asserts-numbers-of-north-vietnamese-in-south-vietnam-growing
1966 : McNamara shouted down at Harvard speech
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mcnamara-shouted-down-at-harvard-speech
1972 : Nixon re-elected president
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nixon-re-elected-president

World War I
1914 : First issue of The New Republic published
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-issue-of-the-new-republic-published

World War II
1944 : Soviet master spy is hanged by the Japanese
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/soviet-master-spy-is-hanged-by-the-japanese

Marie Curie (1867 - 1934)

Marie Curie, née Maria Sklodowska, was born in Warsaw on November 7, 1867, the daughter of a secondary-school teacher. She received a general education in local schools and some scientific training from her father. She became involved in a students' revolutionary organization and found it prudent to leave Warsaw, then in the part of Poland dominated by Russia, for Cracow, which at that time was under Austrian rule. In 1891, she went to Paris to continue her studies at the Sorbonne where she obtained Licenciateships in Physics and the Mathematical Sciences. She met Pierre Curie, Professor in the School of Physics in 1894 and in the following year they were married. She succeeded her husband as Head of the Physics Laboratory at the Sorbonne, gained her Doctor of Science degree in 1903, and following the tragic death of Pierre Curie in 1906, she took his place as Professor of General Physics in the Faculty of Sciences, the first time a woman had held this position. She was also appointed Director of the Curie Laboratory in the Radium Institute of the University of Paris, founded in 1914.

Her early researches, together with her husband, were often performed under difficult conditions, laboratory arrangements were poor and both had to undertake much teaching to earn a livelihood. The discovery of radioactivity by Henri Becquerel in 1896 inspired the Curies in their brilliant researches and analyses which led to the isolation of polonium, named after the country of Marie's birth, and radium. Mme. Curie developed methods for the separation of radium from radioactive residues in sufficient quantities to allow for its characterization and the careful study of its properties, therapeutic properties in particular.

Mme. Curie throughout her life actively promoted the use of radium to alleviate suffering and during World War I, assisted by her daughter, Irene, she personally devoted herself to this remedial work. She retained her enthusiasm for science throughout her life and did much to establish a radioactivity laboratory in her native city - in 1929 President Hoover of the United States presented her with a gift of $ 50,000, donated by American friends of science, to purchase radium for use in the laboratory in Warsaw.

Mme. Curie, quiet, dignified and unassuming, was held in high esteem and admiration by scientists throughout the world. She was a member of the Conseil du Physique Solvay from 1911 until her death and since 1922 she had been a member of the Committee of Intellectual Co-operation of the League of Nations. Her work is recorded in numerous papers in scientific journals and she is the author of Recherches sur les Substances Radioactives (1904), L'Isotopie et les Éléments Isotopes and the classic Traité' de Radioactivité (1910).

The importance of Mme. Curie's work is reflected in the numerous awards bestowed on her. She received many honorary science, medicine and law degrees and honorary memberships of learned societies throughout the world. Together with her husband, she was awarded half of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903, for their study into the spontaneous radiation discovered by Becquerel, who was awarded the other half of the Prize. In 1911 she received a second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry, in recognition of her work in radioactivity. She also received, jointly with her husband, the Davy Medal of the Royal Society in 1903 and, in 1921, President Harding of the United States, on behalf of the women of America, presented her with one gram of radium in recognition of her service to science.
For further details, cf. Biography of Pierre Curie. Mme. Curie died in Savoy, France, after a short illness, on July 4, 1934.

From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1967

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: 1962: U.N. condemns apartheid

November 6: 1962: U.N. condemns apartheid

Monday, November 7, 2011

THIS DAY IN HISTORY : 1991: Magic Johnson announces he is HIV positive

Marie Curie (1867 - 1934)

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: 1962: U.N. condemns apartheid

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