He traveled to Hong Kong in 1894 at the request of the Japanese government during an outbreak of the bubonic plague, and identified a bacterium that he concluded was causing the disease.
Blyth’s 10 m high, cloth-sailed wind turbine was installed in the garden of his holiday cottage at Marykirk in Kincardineshire and was used to charge accumulators developed by the Frenchman Camille Alphonse Faure, to power the lighting in the cottage, thus making it the first house in the world to have its electricity supplied by wind power. Blyth offered the surplus electricity to the people of Marykirk for lighting the main street, however, they turned down the offer as they thought electricity was “the work of the devil.”
The Oxford English Dictionary is now the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press.
Oxford English Dictionary debuts Read more
The world’s first underground railway, it opened in January 1863 between Paddington and Farringdon in London using gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives.
The world’s first underground railway, the London Underground, opens Read more
This Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom expanded the jurisdiction of the Slave Trade Act 1807 and made the purchase or ownership of slaves illegal within the British Empire, with the exception of “the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company.”
The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 abolished slavery in parts of the British Empire Read more
British scientist William Sturgeon invented the electromagnet in 1824. His first electromagnet was a horseshoe-shaped piece of iron that was wrapped with about 18 turns of bare copper wire.
William Sturgeon invents the electromagnet Read more
The codification of soccer began in the public schools of Britain at the beginning of the 19th century. Within the private school system “football” was a game in which the hands were used during periods of play and grappling allowed, but otherwise, the modern shape of soccer was being formed.
Modern football, or soccer, begins to become officially codified for the first time Read more
The Royal Navy established the West Africa Squadron in 1808 to patrol the coast of West Africa, and between 1808 and 1860 freed 150,000 Africans aboard slave ships.
British Parliament abolishes slave trade throughout the British Empire Read more
In his patent applications, he described the concept of laminating several layers of veneer with glue to form a thicker piece — the first description of what we now call plywood.
Samuel Bentham invents plywood Read more
In the West, Jenner is often called “the father of immunology”, and his work is said to have “saved more lives than the work of any other human”.
British physician Edward Jenner develops first-ever successful vaccine Read more
