Vannevar Bush (1890–1974) was an American engineer, inventor, science administrator, policymaker and public intellectual. He is best known for his work on analog computers, for founding Raytheon, and for the memex, an adjustable microfilm viewer with a structure analogous to that of the World Wide Web. He became Vice President of MIT and Dean of the MIT School of Engineering in 1932, and president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in 1938. He was chairman of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and of the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC). During World War II he was director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), coordinating the defense activities of some 6,000 leading American scientists. As head of NDRC and OSRD, he initiated the Manhattan Project, and ensured that it received top priority from the highest levels of government. In 1945, he published As We May Think in which he predicted that "wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them". This influenced generations of computer scientists, who drew inspiration from his vision.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

222:

Disgusted with Roman emperor Elagabalus's disregard for Roman religious traditions and sexual taboos, the Praetorian Guard assassinated him and his mother Julia Soaemias, mutilated their bodies, and threw them in the Tiber River. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elagabalus

1864:

A crack in the Dale Dyke Dam in Sheffield, England, caused it to fail, and the resulting flood killed 238 people and damaged more than 600 homes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sheffield_Flood

1879:

Shō Tai, the last king of the Ryūkyū Kingdom, abdicated when the kingdom was annexed by Japan and became Okinawa Prefecture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8D_Tai

1945:

World War II: The Empire of Japan established the Empire of Vietnam, a short-lived puppet state, with Bảo Đại as its ruler. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Vietnam

2006:

Michelle Bachelet was inaugurated as the first female President of Chile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Bachelet

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

quibble: (intransitive) To complain or argue in a trivial or petty manner. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/quibble

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

One Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything. Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, the Earth was unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass, and so the idea was lost, seemingly for ever.   --So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#So_Long.2C_and_Thanks_for_All_the_Fish_.281984.29