This Day in Science History

We hope that this Solstice weekend serves up some of that special summertime something for you. And we’re really glad that you’re here to make Tonic a part of your weekend.

In addition to this weekend’s featuring the maximum extent of daylight length (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, anyway...sorry, mate), there's a roster of significant events in the world of science and technology that took place on the 20th and 21st of June.

So, please, come along. Let us take a stroll through the days of geekdom yesteryear, shall we?

In 1819, the first trans-Atlantic crossing via steam-power arrives safely in Liverpool England.

Samuel Morse is awarded the patent for the telegraph in 1840.

Alexander Graham Bell marks this occasion 37 years later by exclaiming “I got your dots and dashes right here, pal,” and then proceeds to turn the switches on the world’s first commercial telephone system in Hamilton, Ontario.

Swedish physicist Anders Jonas Angstrom passes away in 1874. Friends and colleagues honor his life, and deem his contributions to the field of knowledge to be immeasurable, except in very, very small units.

Serving to remind that strange, out-of-place and extreme weather is not exclusively relegated to our current times, a highly unusual and unfortunately deadly hurricane strikes Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1959.

Ichthyologists worldwide in 1975 are suddenly confronted with the unrelenting challenge of convincing people everywhere that they do in fact remain perfectly safe on their toilets. Jaws is released in theaters.

And lastly, in 1990 , a new asteroid is discovered and is named “Eureka.” Astronomers responsible for the find wanted to to commemmorate how surprised they were to discover that the name had not already been taken by any of the legions of previously discovered asteroids.