THIS WEEK
IN HISTORY
OCTOBER
29 - NOVEMBER 4 
The first
attempt at man producing rain happened on October 29, 1947 during a
forest fire in Concord, Massachusetts. Vincent Schaefer, who worked
for the General Electric Company, flew an aircraft over cumulus clouds
and dropped ice-pellets into these clouds. He thought that dropping
ice-pellets into clouds would produce rain to help put out the forest
fires. Shortly after Mr. Schaefer dropped his pellets, it began to rain,
however, it was not possible to tell whether his experiment was a success
or whether it just happened to rain. Mr. Schaefer was still encouraged
to continue his work of making man-made weather. Just think, in parts
of the country we now ski on man-made snow all the time!
On October
30, 1974 Muhammad Ali won the world heavyweight championship boxing
title by knocking out George Foreman. The knock-out happened in the
eighth round and each boxer was paid $5 million for the fight!
Engineers
have been digging beneath the earth to build a tunnel underneath the
English Channel which would connect England to France. On October 30,
1990, these engineers dug their way to each other on this underground
link between Folkestone, England, and Calais, France. This tunnel under
the English Channel is called the "Chunnel" and it is almost 40 kilometers
long. The "Chunnel" took several years to complete and officially opened
in May of 1994.
On October
31, 1956, Rear Admiral George John Dufek became the first American to
walk on the South Pole. He and six other officers from the Navy landed
their plane, which was named Que Sera Sera, at the South Pole as part
of "Operation Deepfreeze." "Operation Deepfreeze" was a scientific operation
at the South Pole.
In Boston,
Massachusetts on November 1, 1848, the first medical school for women
opened its doors. The school had two teachers and twelve students. Founded
by Samuel Gregory, the school was first known as the Boston Female Medical
School. In 1874, this school combined with the Boston University School
of Medicine and formed the first medical school for both men and women.
On
November 2, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill that made the
third Monday in January a federal holiday. This federal holiday honors
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King was a very important leader in
the African-American civil rights movement.
On November
3, 1957, the Soviet Union sent the first animal into space. This animal
was a dog named Laika and he was aboard the space capsule Sputnik 2.
Laika lived through the space capsule launch and for seven days this
capsule was able to get important data about the effect of space travel
on living creatures. Unfortunately at the end of seven days, the Soviet
Union space team was unable to return the space capsule to earth.
On
November 4, 1842, Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd. The couple dated
for three years before they decided to get married. Ms. Todd was originally
from Lexington, Kentucky and met Mr. Lincoln after she moved to Springfield,
Illinois to live with her sister. She was five-feet, two inches tall
and he was six-feet, four-inches tall. The height difference did not
matter as they were married and had four sons!
