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STEM History

In 1871, General A.J. Pleasonton presented ten years' worth of experimental findings to the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture in an effort to "shed light" on a new subject. Standing...

In September and October 2024, two historic hurricanes slammed into Florida's Gulf coast and wreaked havoc into the Appalachia region, impacting 6 states, and resulting in over 230 casualties. It is...

Although ATLAS, dubbed the "Halloween Comet," disintegrated before having the opportunity to spook anyone, the return of Halley's Comet in the late spring of 1910 certainly caused a sensational fright...

The so-called eugenic marriage of today is a happy combination of the ideality of a stockyard with the practicality of a hummingbird. - Dr. Edward Earle Purinton Eugenics: "the practice or advocacy of...

In a world where cellphones and wristwatches are ubiquitous, it’s anachronistic to ask somebody what time it is. We’re immersed in time, and the evidence of its passage is all around us. Of course...

The search for inoculation from the most dreadful diseases that afflict humankind has been relentless for centuries. The history of the American colonies was affected by the decision of George...

It does seem a little like murder to pick off a man as one would a deer, but sharp-shooting in war is one of the “necessities.” The “Near Yorktown” correspondent of the New York Post relates the...

Between early August and early November of 1793 almost ten percent of the population of Philadelphia died after contracting Yellow Fever. At that time Philadelphia was the capital of the young nation...

In January 1919 the influenza pandemic continued to sweep through the United States seemingly unabated. On New Year’s Day the Augusta Chronicle published the advertisement for a preventative tonic...

In early 1919 San Francisco was on the brink of a third wave of influenza. On January 10 of that year the San Jose Mercury Herald reported on the increasing number of deaths under the headline, “Masks...

The history of enlightened treatment of the mentally ill in the United States was significantly affected by Dr. Benjamin Rush, the famed Philadelphia physician and signer of the Declaration of...

There’s an entry in Readex’s Native American Indians, 1645-1819 , from a book printed in Philadelphia in 1803 in which British topographical engineer Captain Thomas Hutchins described the “Kahokia...

Perhaps you’ve explored Readex’s five Origins of Modern Science and Technology collections, which include material from the latter half of the twentieth century. For an earlier perspective on the...

In June 1958, about eight months after the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite circled the globe, former Illinois governor and future United Nations ambassador Adlai Stevenson had an idea for another...

On April 26, 1986, a safety experiment at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine went terribly awry, unleashing plumes of fire and invisible radioactive particles that rained down on...