Today in Hazmat History – January 17

Hazmat History

By Richard T. Cartwright, PE, CHMM, (IHMM, AHMP and APICS) Fellow

The saying, “Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it” is more than a cliché. It is a reminder that we must constantly be learning from the past. Here’s a look back at major historical events that happened today in the world of hazardous materials.


January 17, 1966

An American B-52 bomber collided with an American KC-135 jet tanker over Spain’s Mediterranean coast, where eight crewmembers died. Three 70-kiloton hydrogen bombs were dropped near the town of Palomares and one in the sea.

January 17, 1861

Thomas Crapper, an English plumber and sanitary engineer patented the ballcock for flush toilets.

January 17, 1834

August (Friedrich Leopold) Weismann, a German biologist, was born. He was one of the founders of the science of genetics. He is best known for his opposition to the doctrine of inheritance of acquired traits and for his germ plasm theory, the forerunner of DNA theory. Weismann conceived the idea, arising out of his early observations on Hydrozoa, that the germ cells of animals contain “something essential for the species, something which must be carefully preserved and passed on from one generation to another.” Weismann envisioned that hereditary substances from two parents become mixed together in the fertilized egg and a form of nuclear division in which each daughter nucleus receives only half the original ancestral germ plasms.

January 17, 1706

Benjamin Franklin, American printer, publisher, author, inventor, scientist, and diplomat was born. He was widely known in European scientific circles for his reports of electrical experiments and theories. He invented the Franklin stove, which is still being manufactured to give more warmth than open fireplaces. The lightning rod and bifocal eyeglasses were also his ideas. Franklin helped establish several institutions people now take for granted: a fire company, a library, an insurance company, an academy, and a hospital.


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