AUGUST 4

Giovanni Battista Castagna was born on the 4th on 1521. Somehow, he finagled his way into the papacy on September 15, 1590, taking the name Pope Urban VII. He contracted malaria and died twelve days later[i]. Some are of the opinion that becoming pope is more than enough distinction in a career in the theological field. Castagna wanted more though. His papacy is the possibly the shortest one. Boniface VI may have come in first; the records are unclear. Are you annoyed by all the restrictions on where you can and cannot smoke?
[i] It took the College of Cardinals 8 days to elect Cardinal Castagna pope. He would assume the name Gregory XIV

AUGUST 3

Elisha Graves Otis was born on the 3rd in 1811. His name lives on to this day and is so generally associated with elevators that many believe that he invented the damn things. He did not. What he did invent was the safety device[i] that kept the elevators from falling and sending its passengers to an agonizing and painful death, something that I believe most people probably want to avoid. To plug his work, in 1853, at the Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York City[ii], he set up an elevator, got in it, raised it up and then had an assistant cut the only cable holding the cage of the elevator. The crowd was impressed that the thing didn’t simply fall and squish Otis like a bug on a windshield and Otis probably managed to get a bunch of customers for his little invention.
[i] He was given patent number 31,128
[ii] Elisha did eventually build elevators and his first one was installed in 488 Broadway, New York, New York in 1857.

AUGUST 2

Have you ever abandoned a project before you had completed it? If so, did you regret it? Well, Elisha Grey[i], born on the 2nd in 1835, did and I am pretty sure that, man, he had to have regretted giving it up a whole lot. He was an inventor. He made a bunch of money with a telegraph and then turned his sights on a telephone. On February 14, 1876, he filed a caveat with the US Patent Office. A caveat isn’t a formal patent application but is a sort of heads up to the agency; it didn’t contain drawings or specifications, just a general description of the invention. On the same day, Alexander Graham Bell filed the same thing, though several hours after Grey. At first, Grey fought Bell’s application and in one action Bell was found guilty of interference, whether electrical, social or financial is unclear. After that, Grey simply never followed up on his filing. A patent for the telephone, number 174,465 was issued to Bell on March 7. This probably pissed Grey off to no good end.
[i] In 1887 Gray was granted several patents for his "telautograph", and several similar devices which were early fax machines.

augu8st 1

No, no, no, I got here first, that’s my seat! Get out now!! Maria Mitchell[i] (I know that sounds a lot like Margaret Mitchell but she is not Margaret, trust me) was born on the 1st in 1818. You know how some girls always have their heads in the clouds? Well, of course she became an astronomer. In 1847, she discovered what was then referred to as a telescopic comet, one that couldn’t be seen with the naked eye because comets had to be properly dressed in the 19th century. King Frederick VI of Denmark[ii] was offering a gold medal to everyone who found one of those, though for a king he was kind of cheap – only the first discoverer of a particular comet would get a medal. A couple of days after she found it, so did Francesco de Vico. They both applied to the king for the prize, but de Vico got his papers in a couple of days before Maria did. While not quite the fight that Harrison had to endure to get his chronometer recognized, after of bit of dancing around, the prize was handed to Maria. Which was kind of neat because at the time the only other woman credited with discovering a comet was Caroline Herschel[iii]. The comet she found was named Miss Mitchell’s Comet. The modern designation is C/1847 T1, which really lacks the charm of Miss Mitchell’s Comet, but I was not consulted, so don’t blame me.
[i] Marie’s parents, William and Lydia Coleman Mitchell, were Quakers and they insisted that she get the same quality education that her brothers and other boys in their Nantucket, Massachusetts community received.
[ii] I find it interesting that Frederick was a schizophrenic.
[iii] Astronomer Sir William Herschel was Caroline’s brother.

july 31

What the heck is potash? In addition, just why does it need a process? I am not sure that I understand what a process even is. But if people are going around inventing processes, can I get one too? I don’t know if I even need one, but if potash got one, I want one too. Whatever potash is, it apparently does need a process because on the 31st, in 1790, Samuel Hopkins was awarded the first patent[i] in the United States. It was for a potash process[ii].
[i] The patent was signed by both George Washington, as President and Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State.
[ii] The application had been filed on April 10, 1790, and in it, Hopkins had sought a patent on an improvement "in the making of Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process."