Louis Slotin (1910–1946) was a Canadian physicist and chemist who took
part in the Manhattan Project, the secret U.S. program during World
War II that developed the atomic bomb. As part of the Manhattan
Project, Slotin performed experiments with uranium and plutonium cores
to determine their critical mass values. During World War II, Slotin
continued his research at Los Alamos National Laboratory. On 21 May
1946, Slotin accidentally began a fission reaction, which released a
burst of hard radiation. He was rushed to a hospital, and died of
radiation sickness nine days later on 30 May, the second victim of a
criticality accident in history. Slotin was hailed as a hero by the
United States government for reacting quickly enough to prevent the
deaths of his colleagues due to the accident he caused. The accident and
its aftermath have been dramatized in fictional accounts.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Slotin>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1814:
The War of the Sixth Coalition ended with the signing of the
Treaty of Paris, which deposed Napoleon and restored Louis XVIII to the
French throne.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_(1814)>
1899:
Female Old West outlaw Pearl Hart performed one of the last
recorded stagecoach robberies 30 miles (48 km) southeast of Globe,
Arizona.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Hart>
1925:
Shanghai Municipal Police officers opened fire on Chinese
protesters in the city's International Settlement, giving rise to a
major labor and anti-imperialist movement.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Thirtieth_Movement>
1959:
The Auckland Harbour Bridge, joining St Marys Bay in Auckland
with Northcote in the former North Shore City, New Zealand, was
officially opened.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auckland_Harbour_Bridge>
1972:
Members of the Japanese Red Army carried out the Lod Airport
massacre in Tel Aviv, Israel, on behalf of the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine, killing over 20 people and injuring almost 80
others.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lod_Airport_massacre>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
have Van Gogh's ear for music:
(humorous) To be tone-deaf.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/have_Van_Gogh%27s_ear_for_music>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Even the most wretched individual of our present society could not exist
and develop without the cumulative social efforts of countless
generations. Thus the individual, his freedom and reason, are the
products of society, and not vice versa: society is not the product of
individuals comprising it; and the higher, the more fully the individual
is developed, the greater his freedom — and the more he is the product
of society, the more does he receive from society and the greater his
debt to it.
--Mikhail Bakunin
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakunin>