1888

Today in History 12/23 (Rutan Voyager)

Pilots Jeana Yeager and Dick Rutan stand next to the experimental aircraft Voyager in 1985 (© Doug Pizac/Getty Images)(1986) First nonstop around-the-world flight completed
Pilots Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager land the odd-looking experimental plane at Edwards Air Force Base in California, completing the first flight around the world without refueling. The trip took nine days and three minutes and covered 25,000 miles.
The Rutan Model 76 Voyager was the first aircraft to fly around the world without stopping or refueling. It was piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager. The flight took off from Edwards Air Force Base’s 15,000 foot runway in the Mojave Desert on December 14, 1986, and ended 9 days, 3 minutes and 44 seconds later on December 23, setting a flight endurance record. The aircraft flew westerly 26,366 statute miles at an average altitude of 11,000 feet.
Maximum speed: 121.79 mph
Range: 26,229 miles
Maiden flight: Jun 22, 1984
Length: 29′ 2″
Wingspan: 111 feet
Passengers: 1

The Voyager aircraft circles before landing at Edwards Air Force Base, Edwards, California, to complete its record-breaking, non-stop unrefueled flight around the world
The Voyager aircraft circles before landing at Edwards Air Force Base, Edwards, California, to complete its record-breaking, non-stop unrefueled flight around the world.
wiki/Rutan_Voyager
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(1986) First nonstop around-the-world flight completed.
Also on this day,

1823 | ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’ is published
A newspaper in Troy, New York, publishes an anonymous poem with the memorable opening line, “Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house…” Literature professor Clement Clarke Moore will later be identified as the author of the poem that will help define the modern Santa Claus.
1888 | Vincent van Gogh reportedly slices off part of his ear
A depressed Van Gogh cuts off his ear, reportedly after his friend, artist Paul Gauguin, says he’s leaving the “yellow house” in Arles, France, where Van Gogh is renting rooms. This dashes Van Gogh’s hopes of creating an artist colony there. Some historians will doubt Van Gogh cut his own ear and will blame Gauguin for the injury.
1954 | First successful kidney transplant performed
A medical team described by one doctor as a “bunch of fools,” performs the procedure on 23-year-old identical twins, Richard and Ronald Herrick. The recipient will live for eight years; his donor brother will live until age 79. One of the doctors, Joseph Murray, will go on to win a Nobel Prize for his work in organ transplants.

Today in History 12/23/17

(From left) Richard Herrick and his twin brother, Ronald, in 1955 (© AP)(1954) First successful kidney transplant performed
A medical team described by one doctor as a "bunch of fools," performs the procedure on 23-year-old identical twins, Richard and Ronald Herrick. The recipient will live for eight years; his donor brother will live until age 79. One of the doctors, Joseph Murray, will go on to win a Nobel Prize for his work in organ transplants.

Kidney transplantation or renal transplantation is the organ transplant of a kidney into a patient with end-stage renal disease. Kidney transplantation is typically classified as deceased-donor (formerly known as cadaveric) or living-donor transplantation depending on the source of the donor organ.

Living-donor renal transplants are further characterized as genetically related (living-related) or non-related (living-unrelated) transplants, depending on whether a biological relationship exists between the donor and recipient.

Exchanges and chains are a novel approach to expand the living donor pool. In February 2012, this novel approach to expand the living donor pool resulted in the largest chain in the world, involving 60 participants organized by the National Kidney Registry. In 2014 the record for the largest chain was broken again by a swap involving 70 participants.


Kidney Transplant
Kidney location after transplantation. Based on this image. Human figure adapted from this image by Connexions, which was licensed under CC BY 3.0.

wiki/Kidney_transplantation
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Today in History 12/18 (Cliff Palace)

Cliff Palace photographed in 1891 (Gustaf Nordenskiöld via Wikipedia)(1888) Cowboys stumble upon an ancient “palace” on a cliff
Two cowboys, Richard Wetherill and Charlie Mason, are out looking for stray cattle in southwestern Colorado when they spy ruins of ancient dwellings high on a mesa. Wetherill dubs it Cliff Palace and the name will stick. The former home of Ancestral Puebloans will come to be considered the largest cliff dwelling in North America.
Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America. The structure built by the Ancestral Puebloans is located in Mesa Verde National Park in their former homeland region. The cliff dwelling and park are in the southwestern corner of Colorado, in the Southwestern United States.
Website: www.nps.gov/meve/learn/historyculture/cd_cliff_palace.htm

Cliff Palace
Cliff Palace dwellings
wiki/Cliff_Palace
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(1888) Cowboys stumble upon an ancient “palace” on a cliff.
Also on this day,

1892 | ‘Nutcracker Suite’ premieres in St. Petersburg, Russia
The new two-act ballet, choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov, with music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky gets an ambivalent reaction from critics. But the score will become one of Tchaikovsky’s most famous compositions and many ballet companies will rely on ‘Nutcracker’ ticket sales each Christmas season.
1915 | US President Woodrow Wilson marries socialite
Woodrow Wilson, 59, marries a 43-year-old Washington, DC, socialite, Edith Bolling Galt. Presidential advisors voice concern about the marriage just a year after Wilson’s first wife had died. Wilson will suffer a stroke during his second term, leaving Edith to run many routine affairs of his administration.
1957 | First civilian nuclear power plant goes online
The Shippingport Atomic Power Station, in Pennsylvania, is up and running, generating electricity for the first time. The $72 million plant, which is the world’s first large-scale nuclear power facility, will supply power to the Pittsburgh area for 25 years until it’s retired in 1982.

Today in History 12/18/17

A technician is suspended on a wooden platform in the reactor pressure vessel at the Shippingport Atomic Power Station, Shippingport, Pennsylvania, 1958 (© PhotoQuest/Getty Images)(1957) First civilian nuclear power plant goes online
The Shippingport Atomic Power Station, in Pennsylvania, is up and running, generating electricity for the first time. The $72 million plant, which is the world's first large-scale nuclear power facility, will supply power to the Pittsburgh area for 25 years until it's retired in 1982.
The Shippingport Atomic Power Station was the world’s first full-scale atomic electric power plant devoted exclusively to peacetime uses. It was located near the present-day Beaver Valley Nuclear Generating Station on the Ohio River in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, United States, about 25 miles from Pittsburgh.
Opened: 1957

Shippingport Reactor
Photograph of the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, the first full-scale nuclear power generating station in the United States which began operating in 1957.

wiki/Shippingport_Atomic_Power_Station
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