On This Day January 23

In 1948 a young American just out of the army, Walter Frederick Morrison, applied for a patent for a plastic flying disc. It is said the idea originated when Morrison and his wife began flinging pie tins to one another on the beach. On January 23, 1957 Morrison sold the rights to his flying disc to the Wham-O toy company, (inventors of the hula- hoop). Called at first the “Toy Flying Saucer”, they changed its name to the Frisbee disc.

Walter Frederick Morrison promoting his Pluto Platters, forerunner of the Frisbee.

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On This Day January 11

At Toronto's General Hospital, 14-year-old diabetic Leonard Thompson became on January 11, 1922 the first person to be treated with the insulin drug, using a fetal calf pancreas extract. However, the ox extract was so impure, Thompson suffered a severe allergic reaction, and further injections were canceled. A second dose was injected twelve days later with an improved extract. This was completely successful in completely eliminating the glycosuria sign of diabetes.

Insulin

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On This Day July 18

The Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky married his student Antonina Ivanovna Milivkova at the Church of Saint George in Moscow on July 18, 1877. The marriage was hasty, and Tchaikovsky quickly found he could not bear his wife.  Finding Antonina physically repulsive, Tchaikovsky sneaked away one night six weeks after their marriage and fled to his brother, Anatoly in St Petersburg. Antonia kept in touch with letters and they never divorced.

Tchaikovsky and Antonina on their honeymoon

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On This Day May 21

On May 21, 1809 the French made their first major effort to cross the Danube during the Napoleonic Wars, precipitating the Battle of Aspern-Essling. However, they were driven back by the Austrians under Archduke Charles. The result was the first defeat Napoleon suffered personally in a major set-piece battle in over a decade. The French emperor's set back caused excitement throughout many parts of Europe because it proved that he could be beaten on the battlefield.

The Battle of Aspern-Essling by Fernand Cornon

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On This Day May 11

The first, and to date only, British Prime Minister to be assassinated was Spencer Perceval. On the evening of May 11, 1812, Perceval entered the lobby of the House of Commons, when a Liverpool merchant with a grievance against the government, John Bellingham, stepped forward, drew a pistol and shot him in the chest. Bellingham was tried and convicted, and hanged at Newgate Prison.

A painting depicting the assassination of Perceval. 

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On This Day May 10

The first American transcontinental railway was completed west of the Rockies at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869 when the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads met. The Central Pacific Railroad President Leland Stanford ceremonially drove the gold "Last Spike" with a silver hammer at Promontory Summit. It was a moment of vast symbolic significance as with this transcontinental link completed, the American nation was now a single unit from coast to coast.

At the ceremony for the driving of the "Last Spike" at Promontory Summit

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On This Day February 12

The phrase 'The New Look' was coined by Harper's Bazaar, the fashion monthly, for Christian Dior's first fashion collection, on February 12, 1947. His long-skirted "new look" brought Dior worldwide fame and helped Paris regain its position as the capital of the fashion world as out went fashion rations and in came masses of material, designed to suit a curvy hour-glass figure.

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