Today in History – April 29, 1998 – Ten percent of the Amazon rain forest is preserved. On this day, Brazil agreed to set aside about 25 million ha (62 million ac) of the Amazon rain forest for conservation in cooperation with the World Bank and the World Wildlife Fund. This initiative will  protect 10% [...]

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Today in History – April 26, 1986 – The Chernobyl nuclear plant exploded in the Ukraine and parts of Belarus, Russia; it was the world’s worst civil nuclear catastrophe. The steam explosion and fire sent a cloud of radioactive dust over much of Europe, releasing at least five percent of the radioactive core of the [...]

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Today in History – April 25, 1925 – Florence Rena Sabin is the first woman elected to National Academy of Science. Dr. Florence Rena Sabin, Professor of Histology in the Johns Hopkins Medical School was also the first woman to be a full professor in that institution and also the first woman to be President [...]

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Today in History – April 25, 1961 – Robert Noyce and Fairchild awarded patent for the integrated circuit. Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce at the small Fairchild Semiconductor start-up company were both working on the concept of an integrated circuit in 1958. Prior to this invention, only parts of a circuit – [...]

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Today in History – April 24, 1877 – Brush patents first dynamo or electric generator. The dynamo was a concept that had been built earlier by Faraday, Henry and Pacinotti and Gramme and concurrently by Edison, but Brush’s more efficient dynamo got the U.S. patent. Brush’s dynamo eventually became the workhorse of the electric power [...]

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