Vincent Van Gogh paints “The Starry Night”
Largely self-taught, van Gogh produced more than 2,000 oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, and sketches, which became in demand only after his death.
1880s C.E.
James Blyth of Scotland builds world’s first ever wind turbine used for electricity generation
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.”
Mark Twain publishes “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”
Set in a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist over 20 years before the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing satire on entrenched attitudes, particularly racism.
Oxford English Dictionary debuts
The Oxford English Dictionary is now the principal historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press.
American inventor Charles Fritts created the first commercial solar panel
Though his solar panels were very inefficient and thus not economically-viable for most uses, they were a critical early step in the development of renewable energy technology.