History Schmistory, June 21: Sun, You’re In Trouble!
Tuesday, June 21, 2022
1633 – Galileo Galilei was forced by Inquisition to “abjure, curse, & detest” his Copernican heliocentric views (the view that the  planets revolve around the sun). I guess some people couldn’t handle the thought of not being in the spot light! However, Galileo can now relax & galiLAY out to enjoy the sun, which we now know, is the real star of the show!
Look who gets to say “I told you so!”
History Schmistory: January 19. Under the Neon Lights!
Wednesday, January 19, 2022
1915: The Neon Tube sign is patented by Georges Claude, and later exploited by Las Vegas.
-So, you might already know that neon is one of the “noble” gases of the periodic table, which glows an orangey-red color when electrons run through it. But what about all the other colors on a typical “neon” sign? Well, sorry to say, those aren’t neon. To get shades of blue, typically argon is used with a dash of mercury. Helium can be used for a nice pink glow; xenon radiates a cool purple, while krypton yields- what? Green, you say? Nope, sorry Superman, it has more of an off-white tinge. From there, certain gases can mingle to produce colors like green and yellow, or sometimes the tubes are coated with fluorescent powders to tweak the shading. But neon typically doesn’t play nicely with others, so it’s only used to produce that one color.
(Check out Vegas Vic’s scarf. There’s your neon.)
There is another noble gas that wasn’t invited to the party: Radon. That stuff is radioactive, yo.
Vegas Vic,By  Joe Gauder [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
History Schmistory: January 4. An Elephant Never Forgets…
Tuesday, January 4, 2022
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edison.jpg#/media/File:Edison.jpg, [public domain]
History Schmistory: December 12. Is anybody out there?
Sunday, December 12, 2021
1901: Guglielmo Marconi receives the first transatlantic radio signal in Newfoundland. The Message? “What kind of name is gooey elbow macaroni?”
Leslie Ward [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
History Schmistory: December 7. “We’ve been expecting you”
Tuesday, December 7, 2021
1995: The Galileo spacecraft arrives at Jupiter more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis. Jupiter bakes a cake.
History Schmistory: December 2. Hubble Trouble.
Thursday, December 2, 2021
1993: NASA launches the Space Shuttle Endeavor on a mission to repair the damaged Hubble Space Telescope, and, of course, terminate the culprits…
![By NASA/Kim Shiflett [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://www.teammarcopolo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/401px-STS-127_Launch_Pad_39A.jpg)
By NASA/Kim Shiflett [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
History Schmistory: November 21. News from the Prince of Patents.
Sunday, November 21, 2021
1877: Thomas Edison announces his latest invention, the phonograph, the first instrument able to reproduce a recorded sound, and one of the few inventions Edison might actually deserve a little credit for.
![By Levin C. Handy (per http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cwpbh.04326) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons](http://www.teammarcopolo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Edison_and_phonograph_edit1.jpg)
By Levin C. Handy (per http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cwpbh.04326) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
History Schmistory: November 17. Not your ordinary cat toy…
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
1970: Douglas Engelbart successfully patents the computer mouse. His patent for computer cheese is still pending.
By SRI International (SRI International) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia CommonsBy SRI International (SRI International) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons
History Schmistory: November 11. Coooold-snap!
Thursday, November 11, 2021
1911: Apocalyptic expectations went wild the last time we saw an 11/11/11, as The Great Blue Norther, a cold snap that produced record highs and lows on the same day, barreled through the central US, leaving much of the bewildered population with contrasting habiliments.
![By Adriano Agulló [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://www.teammarcopolo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/800px-Barcelona_snowfall08032010.jpg)
By Adriano Agulló [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
History Schmistory: November 8. Rays of Hope.
Monday, November 8, 2021
1895: Wilhelm Röntgen discovers the X-Ray almost completely by accident. And that’s when the fun began!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Historical_X-ray_nci-vol-1893-300.jpg
