On this very day in the year 47 BC the Roman dictator Gaius Iulius Caesar won the battle of Zela against Pharnaces II. king of Pontus. As the Roman victory was won rather quickly, Caesar wanted to emphasize that very fact by the brevity and conciseness of his report sent to the senate and people of Rome. He only wrote three little words:
"Veni, Vidi, Vici."
209 years ago today one of the most important English poets of the Victorian era was born, Alfred Lord Tennyson.
The works of Alfred Lord Tennyson are best known for their close affinity with the English mythology and English history, they influenced the movement of the 19th century's Victorian Art as well as the Arts and Crafts Movement, which was to join art and handcraft using simple forms applied to mostly romantic or medieval styles.
Ivan Sutherland, The American computer scientist and Internet pioneer has received the Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery in 1988 for his invention of Sketchpad, an early predecessor to the sort of graphical user interface that has become ubiquitous in personal computers today.
On this day in 1921, the psychotherapist, psychoanalytic, sociologist, philosopher, and author Paul Watzlawick was born. He was best known for his approaches in the field of schizophrenia and his five axiomes in the theory of communication.
301 years ago, the great Philosopher David Hume was born. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy as well as the Scottish Enlightenment. In his 'Treatise of Human Nature' (1739), he was about to create a total naturalistic "science of man" examining the psychological basis of human nature.
On July 2, 1839, Sengbe Pieh (later known as Joseph Cinqué) led 53 fellow Africans being transported as captives aboard the Spanish schooner 'La Amistad' from Havana in a revolt against their captors. The captives had been taken in Africa by a Portuguese slaving ship and then smuggled into Havana under cover of nightfall, because this was a violation of an already existing treaty between Britain and Spain, which forbade trading in slaves.
40 years ago today Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney founded a company named Atari Inc. that should become a pioneer in arcade computer games, video game consoles, and home computers. The year before in 1971, they had designed and built the world's very first arcade video game - Computer Space for Nutting Associates.
On June 10th 1829 the very first of now legendary annual boat races of Oxford and Cambridge on the river Thames took place. The race came about because two friends from Harrow School, Charles Wordsworth (nephew of the poet William Wordsworth), of Christ Church College, Oxford, and Charles Merrivale of St. John’s, Cambridge, met during the vacation in Cambridge, where Wordsworth’s father was master of Trinity. Wordsworth went rowing on the river Cam, and the two school fellows decided to set up a challenge.
958 years ago today, Chinese astronomers observed a new star in the constellation of Taurus, which later turned out to be a supernova.
China was able to contribute to the developments in the science of astronomy critically. In their philosophy, the harmony between earth, the sky and humankind were essential, and therefore any disturbance to that balance had to be predicted. This believe caused the astronomers of the historical China a great status, they were able to predict comets like no other culture. Also, the precise predictions were caused by the critical consequences the responsible astronomer had to face in case of a false prognosis.
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