2013 Calendar

www.cuny.edu/inventingthefuture

LaGuardia and Wagner Archives

Chancellor Matthew Goldstein

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I am very pleased to introduce the CUNY/New York Times in College 2013 calendar, “Inventing the Future: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math in America.” This well-timed calendar not only highlights the importance of the STEM fields to the advancement of new discoveries but also emphasizes the collaborative nature of scientific breakthroughs. For example, the incandescent light bulb was the work of a large group of scientists at Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park “invention factory” who were competing with other research teams to complete the first marketable electric bulb. Alexander Graham Bell is best remembered for inventing the telephone, but his greatest legacy may be Bell Labs, which conducted research to create the first fax machine in 1925, the transistor in 1947, the laser in 1958, and the first orbital com-munications satellite in 1962. No single inventor can take credit for these and other inventions and innovations; it was the brilliant collaboration of many great minds in the STEM disciplines that developed them.

During World War II, universities also became central to STEM research. Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania were pioneers in early computer research. With the onset of the Cold War, the federal government greatly increased its funding of public and private research universities and they became centers of both applied and basic research, including the foundations of what would become the Internet.

The STEM theme is timely for both the nation and The City University of New York. To compete in the world economy, the United States must invest in STEM disci-plines. CUNY’s Decade of Science initiative, begun in 2005, has strengthened the Uni-versity’s commitment to STEM participation and proficiency. Enrollment in CUNY’s STEM disciplines increased by 35 percent from 2005 to 2010, and there has been a 25 percent increase in STEM faculty since 2006. CUNY is also constructing new science facilities, most notably the Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC), scheduled to open on the City College campus in 2014. The ASRC will provide high-end equip-ment and space for research in photonics, nanotechnology, water and environmental sensing, structural biology, and neuroscience. Other major initiatives include the CUNY Energy Institute, which is conducting research to improve the efficiency of electric, electrochemical and thermal energy storage to enable utilization of renew-able energy sources, and the Environmental Crossroads Initiative, an internationally recognized research center dedicated to the analysis of strategic local, regional and global environmental challenges.

CUNY is also increasing its public outreach through the development of CUNY TV programs like Science & U, which examines the world of science through today’s headlines and demonstrates its importance in everyday life, referencing many of the themes in this year’s calendar. At the bottom of each month is a QR code that links to an episode of Science & U related to that month’s theme.

The concept and development of the 2013 “Inventing the Future” calendar and Web site have been guided by CUNY Senior Vice Chancellor for University Relations and Board Secretary Jay Hershenson and LaGuardia Community College President Gail O. Mellow. Their vision has been realized by Richard K. Lieberman, director of the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives and professor of history at LaGuardia Commu-nity College, and his colleagues at the archives, Associate Project Directors Steven A. Levine and Stephen Weinstein, and Assistant Project Director Tara Jean Hickman. The project has received valuable input from some of the University’s finest scholars, whose participation underscores the integrity of the content. The calendar’s one-of-a-kind images were sourced from both the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives and The New York Times photo archives.

For more than 30 years, the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives has produced exem-plary calendars and lesson plans on a variety of subjects, including the history of the New York City Council and the origins of public housing. For the past eight of those years, the archives has produced the CUNY/New York Times in College calendar proj-ects, consisting of printed calendars, Web sites, and curricula focused on the following topics: voting rights and citizenship, women’s leadership, immigrants, city life, freedom, public higher education, health, and the economy.

The commitment of the calendar’s sponsors has been particularly important. CUNY offers special thanks to JPMorgan Chase Chairman and C.E.O. Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase Foundation President Kimberly Davis, Senior Vice Presidents Leon-ard Colica, Michael Nevins and Timothy G. Noble, and Executive Director Kim Jasmin.

We are deeply appreciative of our ongoing partnership with our esteemed colleagues at The New York Times in College for making the calendar widely accessible, facilitating the curricular elements and providing access and publication rights to The New York Times’s archival photos. With the help of The New York Times in College, accessible online at www.nytimes.com/edu, CUNY is collaborating with faculty, administrators, and students in states nationwide. In particular, we want to acknowledge and thank these Times colleagues: Diane McNulty, executive direc-tor community affairs and media relations; Susan Mills, managing director, education; Stephanie Doba, Newspaper in Education manager; and Tom Glieden and Walter Barleycorn, education account managers.

Thanks are also due to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Queens Borough President Helen Marshall. Their historic support and funding of the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives and its calendars and curricula have helped the archives to preserve history and make it available and accessible to the public.

“Inventing the Future” is a work of scholarship, enabling an understanding of the history of science, technology, engineering and math and the impact that break-throughs in these fields have on society. The University takes great pride in the partnerships that allow the calendar to bring this history to life.

Matthew Goldstein, Chancellor

RIGHT Model of CUNY’s Advanced Sci-ence Research Center on the campus of City College in Harlem.

January 21, 1801 The Philadelphia Water Works opens, making Philadelphia the first major city in the U.S. to provide clean drinking water citywide.

March 29, 1806 Thomas Jefferson signs legislation committing the federal government to build the Cumberland (later National) Road west from Cumberland, MD.

August 17, 1807 Robert Fulton takes the steamboat Clermont up the Hudson River from New York to Albany; reliable upriver steam travel revolutionizes intercity trade and transportation.

1818 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley writes “Frankenstein,” about a creature produced by scientific activity in a laboratory.

October 26, 1825 The Erie Canal connects the port of New York to the Great Lakes via the Hudson River. By 1840, New York moved more freight than the ports of Boston, Baltimore and New Orleans combined.

May 24, 1830 America’s first railroad, the Baltimore & Ohio, travels 13 miles from Baltimore to Ellicott City, Maryland; the line extends to Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1853.

July 1832 Cholera strikes New York and cities along the eastern seaboard;

New York suffers 3,513 deaths and begins planning to bring clean water to the city from an upstate source.

February 25, 1836 Samuel Colt patents the revolver, a handgun “that featured a rotating cylinder with multiple chambers for bullets.”

January 11, 1838 Samuel F.B. Morse uses electric signals to shift an electromagnet in a patterned print across paper, known as Morse code.

1839 Charles Goodyear invents vulcanized rubber, which maintains its shape despite exposure to pressure and heat. Goodyear receives his patent in 1844.

October 14, 1842 The Croton Aqueduct provides New York with its first clean supply of water needed to combat disease, fight fires, and meet the demands of a rapidly growing city.

May 24, 1844 Samuel F.B. Morse builds the first telegraph line, extending from Baltimore to Washington, DC.

1845 Innovations by Elias Howe and Isaac Singer lead to the modern, practical sewing machine.

October 16, 1846 The first public demonstration of ether as anesthesia takes place during surgery performed by Dr. William T.G. Morton at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

April 28, 1852 Boston establishes the first electric-powered fire alarm system with call boxes to indicate the location of the fire.

November 11, 1856 English metallurgist Henry Bessemer receives a U.S. patent for a process that converts pig iron to steel, establishing a much lower cost method for producing steel in large quantities.

March 23, 1857 The first safety elevator for passengers in America, designed by Elisha Otis, is installed at 488 Broadway in New York in E.V. Haughwout’s porcelain and glassware shop.

November 30, 1858 John L. Mason patents the Mason jar, enabling America to preserve perishable goods.

1861 Richard Gatling invents the Gatling gun, forerunner of the revolving machine gun, under the mistaken impression that it would reduce battlefield casualties by reducing the number of soldiers needed. He receives a patent on May 9, 1865.

October 24, 1861 High-speed telegraph communication begins between the Pacific and Atlantic coasts as the Western Union Company completes its telegraph line between St. Joseph, MO, and Sacramento, CA.

July 27, 1866 The Transatlantic cable opens between Newfoundland and Val-entia, Ireland, forever changing communication between American and Europe. Communication that once took two to three weeks now takes minutes.

Howard Coffin with steam car he built while a student at the University of Michigan, 1899.

Tetrahedral kite designed by Alexander Graham Bell, c. 1910.

Dr. Patricia Bath invented a new device and technique for cataract surgery known as “laserphaco” that has helped many blind people to see.

Carl Rakeman’s painting of the first American macadam road, n. d.

Milestones for Inventing the Future

page 1

1800S

The Aerodyne, designed by Alexander Lippisch, 1950.

Patent issued to Bell Labs for the transistor, 1950.

William Saunders, an American horticulturalist working for the U.S. Patent Office, arranged for the importation of seedless or navel orange trees from Bahia, Brazil, in the late 1860s. Here mammoth oranges are shipped on the Southern Pacific Railroad, 1909.

Linus Pauling, two-time Nobel Prize winner, works with a vacuum pump in his lab at Oregon State University.

Original crew of the U.S.S Monitor playing games on deck while on the James River (Virginia), 1862.

Broadway Elevated Railroad, New York, City, 1866.

June 23, 1868 Christopher Latham Sholes and his associates patent the first practical typewriter; five years later he introduces the QWERTY arrangement of keys to avoid jamming.

September 8, 1868 Bessemer Steel’s first “blow” is made at the Cleve-land Rolling Mills, inaugurating an American industrial revolution; the cities of Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Chicago would soon anchor the new industrial heartland of the nation.

May 10, 1869 The Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads forge link at Promontory Point, UT, opening train travel between the eastern U.S. and California.

November 24, 1874 Joseph Glidden introduces barbed wire fencing, enabling herds to remain on private ranches.

March 10, 1876 Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone, signaling the decline of the telegraph industry.

1879 Constantine Fahlberg and Ira Remsen of Johns Hopkins University discover saccharine, the first synthetic sweetening agent.

January 27, 1880 Thomas Edison receives a patent for the electric light bulb; the first successful test had occurred on October 22, 1879.

December 20, 1880 New York’s Broadway receives its first electric lights between 14th and 34th streets. The stretch between 23rd and 34th streets becomes known as The Great White Way for its brightly illuminated advertisements.

September 4, 1882 Thomas Edison’s Pearl Street Station in New York begins the first successful commercial production of electricity in America, distributing direct current to 203 customers in lower Manhattan within four months. The New York Times building is lit up on this first night.

1883 American inventor Charles Fritts creates the first solar cell.

March 20, 1883 Jan Ernst Matzeliger invents a shoe and boot-lasting machine that increases shoemaking speed by 900%.

May 24, 1883 The Brooklyn Bridge opens, connecting the nation’s largest and third largest cities, New York and Brooklyn. Its towers were the tallest structures in America.

1885 William Seward Burroughs creates a “calculating machine.”

1884-1885 America’s first skyscraper, Chicago’s 10-story Home Life Insurance Building, utilizes a lightweight fireproof steel structure made possible by the Bessemer process of steel manufacturing.

March 20, 1886 William Stanley demonstrates the first practical use of alternating current electrification, distributing electrical illumination in Great Barrington, MA.

1888 Nikola Tesla develops the first motor for translating alternating current (AC) to mechanical energy.

February 2, 1888 The nation’s first electric streetcar system opens in Richmond, VA. Frank Sprague and the Richmond Union Passenger Railway Company operate 10 streetcars in its nascent network.

September 4, 1888 George Eastman receives a patent and begins marketing his first Kodak camera.

1889 Boston’s West End Street Railway opens the first large scale rapid transit system operating on electric power.

March 20, 1890 University of Wisconsin professor Stephen Babcock invents the butterfat tester, giving birth to the Wisconsin cheese industry.

July 10, 1893 Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performs one of the first successful open-heart surgeries, at Provident Hospital in Chicago.

1895 H.G. Wells writes “The Time Machine,” about the wonders of time travel in a spaceship.

January 8, 1896 William Roentgen discovers x-rays; the first clinical x-ray is taken at the Dartmouth University Medical School.

January 2, 1900 The direction of the Chicago River is reversed so that it flows into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, thereby cleansing the city’s Lake Michigan drinking water.

March 20, 1900 Nikola Tesla is granted a U.S. patent for a “system of transmitting electrical energy” (the radio patent) and another patent for “an electrical transmitter.”

July 17, 1902 Willis Carrier designs an air-conditioning system for a Brooklyn printing plant.

1903 The first steam turbine generator, pioneered by Charles Curtis, is put into operation at the Newport Electric Corporation in Rhode Island.

Edison storage battery assembly department, New Jersey, 1915. Stone’s Marvelous Mental Calculator, 1880.

Mirror fusion test facility magnet at LawrenceLivermore National Library, 1981.

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1800S

1900S

Telstar, the first telecommunications satellite, developed at Bell Labs, 1962.

The inventors of the transistor at Bell Labs, William Shockley (seated), John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, 1947.

John von Neumann and J. Robert Oppenheimer at the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, 1952.

The meeting of the rails at Promontory Point, UT, on May 10, 1869.

Hampton Institute (Virginia) class in mathematical geography studying earth’s rotation around the sun, 1899.

Edison battery-operated truck used by the Metropolitan Opera Company of New York.

Inauguration of air mail delivery by U.S. Post Office, 1918.

December 17, 1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright conduct the first motor-powered flight at Kitty Hawk, NC.

1904 Benjamin Holt, a California manufacturer of agricultural equipment, develops the first successful crawler tractor, equipped with a pair of tracks rather than wheels. Dubbed the ‘caterpillar’ tread, the tracks help keep heavy tractors from sinking in soft soil and are an inspiration for the first military tanks.

1905 Jay Brownlee Davidson designs the first professional agricultural engineering curriculum at Iowa State College. Courses include agricultural machines, agricultural power sources, farm building design, rural road con-struction and field drainage.

September 26, 1905 Albert Einstein publishes the special theory of relativity.

December 24, 1906 Reginald Fessenden conducts the first wireless radio broadcast of entertainment and music in Brant Rock, MA.

September 26, 1908 Jersey City, NJ, becomes the first city in the U.S. to begin chlorination of its water supply. Death rates from waterborne diseases, typhoid in particular, begin to plummet.

July 13, 1907 Belgian scientist Leo Baekeland files a U.S. patent for Bakelite, the first completely man-made plastic material, which marked the birth of the plastics industry.

1910 Thomas Hunt Morgan’s experiments with fruit flies show that heredity was in part determined by genes carried by chromosomes.

1910 Gulf Oil, Texas Refining and Sun Oil introduce asphalt manufactured from byproducts of the oil-refining process. Suitable for road paving, it is less expensive than natural asphalt mined in and imported from Venezuela.

August 19, 1912 Garrett Morgan files a patent for his “breathing device” to be used by the Cleveland Fire Department. His invention is later incorporated into the gas masks used by the U.S. military in World War I.

1913 The University of Kansas School of Medicine discovers that corn oil is good for cooking.

November 5, 1913 The Los Angeles-Owens River Aqueduct opens, bringing water by gravity to the Los Angeles basin from the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains, more than 230 miles to the north.

December 1, 1913 Ford introduces the moving assembly line for the mass production of autos in Highland Park, MI, a concept borrowed from the meat-packing industry. Workers perform a single task rather than master whole portions of automobile assembly.

November 14, 1914 Dodge introduces the first car body made entirely of steel, fabricated by the Budd Company of Philadelphia.

January 25, 1915 Alexander Graham Bell makes the first transcontinental telephone call to Thomas Watson – from New York to San Francisco.

1916 Clarence Birdseye begins experiments in quick-freezing. Birdseye develops a flash-freezing system that moves food products through a refrigerating system on conveyor belts. This causes the food to be frozen very fast, minimizing ice crystals.

April 15, 1917 Wisconsin is the first state to adopt a numbering system as the network of roads increases. The idea gradually spreads across the country.

1917 American Gas & Electric, an investor-owned utility, establishes the first long-distance high-voltage transmission line. The line originates from the first major steam plant to be built at the mouth of a coal mine, virtually eliminat-ing fuel transportation costs.

November 2, 1920 Pittsburgh’s Westinghouse-owned KDKA, the first com-mercial radio station in the United States, broadcasts election results. By 1922, three million Americans own radios.

July 1, 1925 Cleveland opens the first municipal airport in the U.S. in con-tinuous operation; 100,000 visitors celebrate the occasion.

November 13, 1927 Completion of the Holland Tunnel beneath the Hudson River links New York City and Jersey City, NJ. It is named for engineer Clifford Holland, who solved the problem of venting the build-up of deadly car exhaust by installing 84 electric fans, each 80 feet in diameter.

January 7, 1927 Philo Farnsworth files a patent for the first electronic television set.

May 21, 1927 Charles Lindbergh completes the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, traveling 3,600 miles from New York to Paris.

August 19, 1927 “The Jazz Singer” is the first featured-length motion picture to have synchronized sound.

February 22, 1928 Charles Adler, Jr., invents the first modern electric traffic signal, which is installed at a Baltimore intersection.

Engineering students examine aircraft engine at Michigan State University, c.1955.

Agricultural explorer Frank N. Meyer in Chinese Turkestan on a mission to bring back plants of economic value; the gingko biloba, kaki (Chinese persimmon) and the Meyer lemon, (a hybrid between a lemon and a mandarin or orange) c.1910.

Woman living at Casa Grande Valley Farms, Pinal County, AZ removing the cover from her electric washing machine, 1941.

Packeting floor of the Seed Distribution Bureau, Washington, DC., 1905.

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1900S

Students with giant slide rule at Michigan State University, 1960.

Mastodon Corn made possible with Maule seeds.

East Texas farmer rolling up old barbed wire near Harleton, TX, 1939.

University of Arkansas graduate student, Hong Wen, transferring a nanomaterial sample from a molecular beam epitaxy machine to a scanning tunneling microscope, c. 2005.

Steam-powered elevated railway in lower Manhattan on great curve at Coenties Slip, 1895.

Biologists at the University of North Dakota, 1960s.

1929 Frigidaire markets the first room cooler, designed to be located out-side the house, or in the basement.

March 15, 1929 Working at the Carnegie Observatories in California, astronomer Edwin Hubble publishes a scientific paper claiming that distant galaxies were moving away from each other at a rate constant to the distance between them.

1932 The U.S. Public Health Service, working with the Tuskegee Institute, begins a study to record the natural history of syphilis in hopes of justifying treatment programs for African-Americans. The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male is conducted without the patients’ informed consent. Although penicillin becomes widely available for use against syphilis in 1947, patients never receive it. Originally projected to last six months, the experiments continue until 1972.

December 26, 1933 Edwin H. Armstrong patents frequency modulation, or wide-band FM, radio.

May 18, 1933 Congress passes legislation establishing the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a federal corporation providing electrification to homes and businesses in the Tennessee Valley.

February 28, 1935 DuPont chemist Gerard Berchet of the Walter Caroth-ers research group invents nylon, intending it to replace silk in stockings.

May 11, 1935 President Roosevelt signs an executive order establishing the Rural Electrification Administration (REA). The REA provided loans and

other assistance so that rural cooperatives could build and run their own electrical distribution systems.

November 12, 1936 Englishman Alan Turing and American Alonzo Church introduce an algorithm that describes what information can be computed and provided a model for computing.

May 27, 1937 The Golden Gate Bridge opens, connecting San Francisco with Marin County.

1937 The paving of Route 66 linking Chicago and Santa Monica, CA, is com-plete. Stretching across eight states and three time zones, the 2,448-mile-long road is the country’s main thoroughfare, bringing farm workers from the Midwest to California and contributing to California’s post-World War II population growth.

1938 A window air conditioner using Freon is marketed by Philco-York as the “Cool-Wave.” The Philco air conditioner plugs into an electrical outlet.

October 22, 1938 Physicist Chester Carlson invents xerography.

August 2, 1939 Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard write a letter to President Roosevelt explaining the need to build a nuclear bomb to counter Nazi Germany’s effort.

October 1939 John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry at Iowa State College design the first electronic computer, which incorporates binary arithmetic and electronic switching.

1940 Oldsmobile introduces the first mass-produced fully automatic transmission, named Hydra-Matic, in its cars.

October 1, 1940 The Pennsylvania Turnpike opens as the country’s first roadway with no cross streets, no railroad crossings and no traffic lights. Built on an abandoned railroad right of way, it includes 7 miles of tunnels through the mountains, 11 interchanges, 300 bridges and culverts, and 10 service plazas.

December 30, 1940 The Arroyo Seco Parkway (today known as the Pasadena Freeway) opens, connecting Pasadena and Los Angeles. This first freeway in southern California begins a wave of highway construction that transforms urban transportation in America.

August 13, 1942 The Manhattan Engineering District is founded with the mission to design and build a nuclear bomb.

November 20, 1942 The Alaska Canada Military Highway (the Alcan) is completed, linking Dawson Creek, British Columbia and Delta Junction, Alaska. Built by African American and white soldiers of the Army Corps of Engineers, the Alcan has been called “the road to civil rights.”

December 2, 1942 The first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction occurs at the University of Chicago in an experiment led by physicist Enrico Fermi.

July 16, 1945 The U.S. Army’s Manhattan Engineer District tests the first atomic device at Alamogordo, NM, under the code name Trinity.

August 6, 1945 The atomic bomb nicknamed Little Boy is dropped on Hiroshima, Japan; three days later another bomb, Fat Man, is dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.

October 8, 1945 Engineer Percy Spencer accidentally discovers the possibil-ity of making a microwave oven during an experiment with electromagnetic radiation while working at Raytheon.

Early road-paving machine in Tennessee.

Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory workingon missile development for the U.S. Army, 1951.

Milky Way, the galaxy next door, seen from NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer, 2012.

Chinese student working in the food chemistrylaboratory at Purdue University.

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University of Maryland Terrapin rocket program, c.1956.

1900S

Dr. Nora D. Volkow, pioneered the use of brain imaging to investi-gate the toxic effects of drugs.

Nobel Prize winner Luis Alvarez and his son Walter, near Gubbio, Italy where they dated the extinc-tion of dinosaurs, 1981.

New York City youngsters in the Federal Art Projectlearn metal craft, c. 1937.

Philco Predicta Model 4654 television produced in 1959.

First filmed boxing match takes place at the ConeyIsland Athletic Club (1899); Jeffries defeats Sharkey. Film-ing requires 200 special arc lights of 400 candle power each – strongest artificial light ever created.

Cleveland inventor Garrett Morgan developed the first safety hoods for the local fire department, in 1912.

February 14, 1946 John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert Jr. put the first electronic computer into operation at the University of Pennsylvania. The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) weighs 30 tons and includes 18,000 vacuum tubes, 6,000 switches and 1,500 relays.

August 1, 1946 President Truman signs the Atomic Energy Act, transferring nuclear authority from the Army to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.

1947 Mass-produced, low-cost window air conditioners become possible as a result of innovations by engineer Henry Galson, who sets up production lines for a number of manufacturers. For the first time, many homeowners enjoy air conditioning without having to buy a new home or renovate their heating system.

October 14, 1947 U.S. Air Force pilot Capt. Charles “Chuck” Yeager pilots the first manned supersonic flight aboard the Bell X-1.

December 24, 1947 John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William B. Shockley, scientists at Bell Labs, build the first transistor that can amplify and switch electronic signals.

December 23, 1949 American physicist Willard Libby and his colleagues develop radiocarbon dating, revolutionizing the field of archeology.

1951 Isaac Asimov writes “Foundation,” a science fiction story about a group of scientists who try to preserve knowledge as civilization regresses.

October 1, 1951 Stanford University sponsors Stanford Industrial Park, a research facility containing Hewlett-Packard, General Electric and Lock-heed; area becomes known as Silicon Valley.

October 4, 1951 Henrietta Lacks dies at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore from cancer of the cervix; her living cancerous cells removed from her body and preserved in a lab later launch a medical revolution.

December 20, 1951 In Arco, ID, Experimental Breeder Reactor I produces the first electric power from nuclear energy, lighting four light bulbs.

1952 Grace Murray Hopper, a senior mathematician at the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and a programmer for Harvard’s Mark I computer, develops the first computer compiler, a program that translated computer instructions from English into machine language.

1953 Ray Bradbury writes “Fahrenheit 451,” a dystopian tale about a futuristic society where books are banned.

1953 Scientists James Watson and Francis Crick discover the structure of DNA, the substance that contains the genetic instructions for all living things.

December 8, 1953 President Eisenhower delivers his “Atoms for Peace” speech before the United Nations, calling for greater cooperation in the development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes.

1954 Gordon Teal, a physical chemist with Texas Instruments, creates transistors from pure silicon, thereby demonstrating the first mass-produced transistor.

April 25, 1954 Bell Labs demonstrates the first practical silicon solar cell.

1956 The first transatlantic telephone cable, the TAT-1, is installed from Scotland to Nova Scotia, providing telephone service between North Ameri-can and the United Kingdom. Additional circuitry links London to Western Europe.

June 29, 1956 President Eisenhower signs a new Federal Aid Highway Act, committing $25 billion in federal funding to link all state capitals and most cities with populations larger than 50,000.

December 8, 1956 Larry Curtiss, a junior at the University of Michigan, constructs the first glass-clad fibers and inaugurates the use of fiber-optics in medical research.

1957 FORTRAN (for FORmula TRANslation), a high-level programming language developed by IBM, becomes commercially available. Other programming languages quickly follow, including ALGOL in 1958 and COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language) in 1959.

December 2, 1957 The world’s first large-scale nuclear power plant begins operation in Shippingport, PA, supplying electricity to the Pittsburgh area.

December 12, 1958 Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments (and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor independently) invents the integrated circuit.

1958 The Seagram Building, Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe’s “glass box” master-piece opens in New York and shapes the appearance of many American cities.

September 2, 1958 The National Defense Education Act authorizes a $1 billion four-year program of federal financial assistance to strengthen science, mathematics and foreign-language instruction.

Valencia Community College students conduct a biology experiment, 2009.

Sheet music heralded the arrival of automobiles, electric railroads, and telephones, 1900.

B-24 bombers on the assembly line at Willow Run, MI, during World War II.

Art Reeves “Sensitester” used to examine the degree of contrast in the camera negative, 1939.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration consumer safety officer working at the border crossing at Nogales, AZ, prepares tomato samples for testing by the FDA mobile lab unit, c. 2011.

Baldwin locomotive at the Philadelphia Centennial Fair, 1876.

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1900S

Chuck Jennings and his stage coach vs. Air Mail, c. 1930.

Aeroplane Graflex camera in action, c. 1918.

Smoke-shrouded Pittsburgh in early afternoon, 1940s. Patent issued to the Wright Brothers for flying machine, 1906.

The Flip-Flop or Loop-the-Loop defied the laws of gravity at Coney Island, 1895.

1959 Research Triangle Park is created near Raleigh, NC, by state and local government, nearby universities, and business community; it’s home today to over 130 research and development facilities, including the largest IBM location in the world, employing 11,000.

December 29, 1959 Richard Feynman, a Cal Tech physics professor, delivers a speech on nanotechnology, declaring that storing vast amounts of data in minute objects was possible.

May 9, 1960 The era of modern contraception begins when the Food and Drug Administration approves the birth control pill for distribution.

May 16, 1960 Theodore Maiman creates the first working laser (an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) at the Hughes Research Laboratories in California.

1961 Robert A. Heinlein writes “Stranger in a Strange Land,” about a human who comes to earth from the planet Mars.

February 21, 1961 Otis Boykin invents the electrical resistor that is later used in computers, radios and televisions.

November 22, 1961 The U.S. Navy commissions the world’s largest ship, the U.S.S. Enterprise. It is a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with the ability to operate at speeds up to 30 knots for distances up to 400,000 miles without refueling.

1962 The U.S. military introduces ARPANET, a network of two computers that grew to more than a million computers by 1992.

1962 Consumer activist Rachel Carson writes “Silent Spring,” documenting the dangers of pesticide use to humans and wildlife, and leading to the ban on DDT.

February 20, 1962 John Glenn pilots the Mercury Friendship 7 spacecraft in the first U.S. human orbital flight.

July 11, 1962 The first transatlantic transmission of a television signal takes place using the TELSTAR satellite.

1963 The first touch-tone telephone is introduced, with the first commercial service available in Carnegie and Greensburg, PA, for an extra charge.

1963 Kurt Vonnegut writes “Cat’s Cradle,” about life in a post-Hiroshima world.

January 14, 1964 James E. West and Gerhard M. Sessler, working for Bell Labs, receive a patent for their “electroacoustic transducer,” a microphone that is used today in almost all telephones, camcorders, baby monitors and hearing aids.

1965 Frank Herbert writes “Dune,” set in an imaginary desert landscape.

1965 James Russell invents the compact disc.

1965 Ralph Nader writes “Unsafe at Any Speed,” charging that the American automobile industry is neglecting consumer safety issues.

1967 A Texas Instruments team led by Jack Kilby invents the first handheld calculator.

June 21, 1967 Stanford University professor Douglas Engelbart applies for a patent for his invention of the computer mouse as a pointing device. 1968 Philip K. Dick writes “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” a tale about a post-apocalyptic future.

1968 Arthur C. Clarke writes “2001: A Space Odyssey” in conjunction with the film directed by Stanley Kubrick.

July 20, 1969 Astronaut Neil Armstrong is the first man to step on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission.

October 29, 1969 The first ARPANET message is sent from UCLA to the Stanford Research Institute; the inauguration of sharing a message digitally launches the Internet revolution.

June 30, 1970 AT&T inaugurates picture-phone service in Pittsburgh, but the idea fails to catch on.

1971 Intel introduces a “computer on a chip,” the 4004 microprocessor. Costing $1,000, it was as powerful as ENIAC, the vacuum-tube computer of the 1940s. Executing 60,000 operations per second, it changes the face of modern electronics by making it possible to include data processing in hundreds of devices.

1973 Martin Cooper, the director of research at Motorola, invents the cell phone.

1975 The Altair 8800, widely considered the first home computer, is marketed to hobbyists. Bill Gates and Paul Allen form a partnership called Microsoft and write a version of BASIC for the new computer.

1976 Stanford University professor Martin Hellman and graduate student Whitfield Diffie invent public key cryptography, which enables users on the Internet to transmit private data securely.

1977 Citibank introduces the 24-hour automated teller machine (ATM), which revolutionizes customers’ access to their money.

Glider in flight, 1910. Herman Hollerith operating the Hollerith tabulator at the U.S. Census Office, 1904.

Patent for life-preserving coffin in doubtful cases of actual death, 1843.

Kaiser-Frazer motor car company assembly line, Willow Run, MI, 1946.

U.S. Marine Corps, bedding down a big barrage balloon at Parris Island, SC, 1942.

Patent issued to Steinway & Sons for wood bending machines, 1880.page 6

1900S

Mario Molina, Mexican-American Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry.

Dr. Jerome Tobis, of Coler Hospital, NYC, mid-1950s, researching ways to improve the mobility of severely disabled children.

Computer pioneer Grace Hopper examining the sequence mechanism of the Harvard Mark 1 electromechanical computing machine, 1944.

Mural of Benjamin Banneker, 18th century surveyor, inven-tor and astronomer.

Schematic mechanism for base-ball stitching machine, 1948.

Dr. Charles Drew developed the first blood plasma bank.

1977 Piers Anthony writes the first in his series of fantasy novels, “The Xanth.”

April 16, 1977 Apple Computer, founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, releases the Apple II, a desktop personal computer for the mass market that features a keyboard, video monitor, mouse and RAM that can be expanded by the user.

July 3, 1977 Dr. Raymond Damadian completes the first full-body magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in order to distinguish between cancerous and noncancerous tissue.

August 1977 Orson Scott Card’s “Enders Game” first appears in the magazine Analog Science Fiction.

1978 The U.S. government launches a satellite-based navigation system for military purposes which, adapted to civilian life, becomes the GPS.

March 28, 1979 The worst accident in U.S. commercial reactor history occurs at the Three Mile Island nuclear power station near Harrisburg, PA.

June 6, 1980 Nobel Award winner in Physics Luis Alvarez and his son, geologist Walter Alvarez, publish a scientific paper in Science magazine theorizing that 65 million years ago a giant asteroid had struck earth, killing the dinosaur population.

1981 Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a new disease when symptoms are noted in many young men in Los Angeles and New York.

August 12, 1981 IBM introduces the Personal Computer using the Intel

8088 microprocessor and an operating system, MS-DOS, designed by Microsoft. Fully equipped with 64 kilobytes of memory and a floppy disk drive, it costs $1,565.

1982 “Tron” is the first motion picture to use computer-generated imagery.

1984 Apple introduces the Macintosh, a low-cost, plug-and-play personal computer. Although it doesn’t offer enough power for business applications, its easy-to-use graphic interface finds fans in education and publishing.

1985 Margaret Atwood writes, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a dystopian novel about a totalitarian Christian theocracy that has overthrown the U.S. government.

May 17, 1988 Dr. Patricia E. Bath invents a new device for cataract surgery known as the “laserphaco.”

1990 Tim Berners-Lee invents the Web by creating the first Web browser and Web pages, which could be accessed by the Internet.

1991 The World Wide Web becomes available to the general public.

1994 Linus Torvalds creates the Linux open source operating system.

1995 “Toy Story” is the first all computer-generated feature movie.

January 1, 1998 Larry Page files a patent for PageRank, the forerunner of Google, which revolutionized how we conduct research.

November 10, 2001 Apple starts selling the iPod, a portable digital audio player that revolutionizes listening to music.

April 11, 2003 The Human Genome Project is completed, identifying and mapping the approximately 20,000 to 25,000 genes of the human genome.

August 30, 2006 The California Senate passes the Global Warming Solutions Act, requiring a 25% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2025 (or back to 1990 levels).

January 9, 2007 Steve Jobs of Apple introduces the iPhone at a technology conference in San Francisco, forever changing the way we communicate.

2009 Kodak announces the discontinuance of Kodachrome film.

July 3, 2012 Scientists at the multinational research center CERN, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, announce that they have discovered a new subatomic particle (the Higgs Boson) that helps explain life in the universe.

August 15, 2012 NASA safely lands a one-ton robotic rover named Curiosity on Mars, over 150 million miles away from Earth.

August 17, 2012 IBM creates an efficient photovoltaic cell using materials abundant on Earth (copper, zinc and tin).

August 30, 2012 The U.S. federal government finalizes an agreement with the 13 leading automobile makers to achieve an average of 54.5 miles per gallon fuel economy by the model year 2025.

September 5, 2012 The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE), an immense federal project involving 440 scientists from 32 labs around the world, reveals how the non-gene parts of DNA, previously regarded as junk DNA, contribute to human diseases.

Frank Oppenheimer and Bob Thornton examine cyclotron at Lawrence National Laboratory.

Charles Adler Jr., inventor of the traffic light, tinkering with models

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George Sidney of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with film, cameras and lenses.

Wrought Iron Bridge Company, Canton, OH, c.1870. Aeroplane ambulance, c. 1918. Bridge on Orange & Alexandria (Virginia) Railroad, as repaired by army engineers, 1865.

Governor DeWitt Clinton celebrates the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825.

Moving the Brighton Beach Hotel 100 feet from the Atlantic Ocean required six locomotives, over 10,000 ropes and nearly a ton of chains, 1888.

Patent for telephone issued to Alexander Graham Bell, 1876.

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performed the first successful open-heart surgery, at Provident Hospital in Chicago, 1893.

Astronomy

What are the wonders in the sky that we see at night? Humans have been pondering this question since before recorded history, often giving supernatural powers to the stars and planets. Prehistoric farmers used the movement of constellations to know when to plant and harvest their crops. Early Chinese astronomers charted the paths of

comets, while the heelstone at Stonehenge in England was constructed in alignment with the Summer Solstice.The ancient Greeks first developed theories about the nature of the movement of stars and planets. Although heliocentric

theories (where the Earth revolves around the Sun) had first been advanced by Aristarchus in the 3rd century B.C.E., Aristotle’s 4th century B.C.E. hypothesis that the Sun and the other stars and planets revolved around the Earth (geocentrism), later codified by Greek mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy in the 2nd Century C.E., became the foundation of the Catholic Church’s (and the West’s) belief placing the earth at the center of the universe.

Not until 1543 did the Polish mathematician and astronomer Copernicus challenge geocentrism. The Church declared heliocentrism to be heretical in 1616, setting the stage for a confrontation with the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, whose astronomical observations proved Copernicus correct. Galileo’s pioneering use of the telescope helped him to discover sunspots, the phases of Venus, the four moons orbiting Jupiter and the mountains on the Moon. His findings fundamentally weakened the Ptolemaic theory and theological ideas placing humans at the center of the universe. In 1633, the Church’s Holy Inquisition judged Galileo “vehemently suspect of heresy,” and forced him to recant his views and spend the remainder of his life under house arrest.

Although persecuted in his own time, Galileo’s ideas later became the basis for modern astronomy, the scientific seed that ultimately led, centuries later, to the Apollo missions to the moon. Perhaps most importantly, the Inquisition’s judgment against Galileo is a lesson that scientific inquiry should not be restricted by any kind of influence from church, state or private donor, but must be based on free evidence. While the work of scientists and scholars will always reflect the larger society in which they live, that society should not place barriers in the way of knowledge.

LEFT Jupiter and its moon Io, NASA photo of the day, April 8, 2012.

BELOW Galileo’s observations of Earth’s Moon and the moons of Jupiter in “Starry Messenger, “1610

RIGHT Apollo 15 lunar module pilot Jim Irwin loads the lunar rover with tools and equipment in preparation for the first lunar spacewalk at the Hadley-Apennine landing site, 1971.

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1964 James E. West and Gerhard M. Sessler, working for Bell Labs, receive a patent for their “electroacoustic transducer,” a microphone that is used today in almost all telephones, camcorders, baby monitors and hearing aids.

1838 Samuel F.B. Morse uses electric signals to shift an electro-magnet in a patterned print across paper, known as Morse code.

1801 The Philadelphia Water Works opens, making Philadelphia the first major city in the U.S. to provide clean drinking water citywide.

1880 Thomas Edison receives a patent for the electric light bulb; the first successful test had occurred on October 22, 1879.

NEW YEAR’S DAY

KWANZAA ENDS

THREE KINGS DAY, FEAST OF THE EPIPHANY ORTHODOX CHRISTMAS

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF COMMEMORATION IN MEMORY OF THE VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST

DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. DAY (OBSERVED)

MAWLID AL-NABI (MUHAMMAD’S BIRTHDAY) TU B’SHVAT

RIGHT Dr. Jill Bargonetti, Profes-sor of Biological Sciences, Hunter College, researches the impact of chemotherapeutic drugs on DNA.

CUNY TV Science & U

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LEFT Astronaut Ellen Baker and colleague inSTS-71, Shuttle Atlantis, 1995.

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LaGuardia and Wagner Archives

Scientific and technological advances do not occur in a vacuum and many scientists have looked to science fiction as fuel for their imagination. CUNY physicist and co-creator of string field theory Michio Kaku has credited Flash Gordon as an early inspiration. So, too, Jules Verne’s 1865 novel, “From the Earth to the

Moon,” animated future generations of scientists to develop space travel and rocketry. Indeed, Verne’s story of a rocket-propelled trip to the moon eerily foreshadowed events that would occur100 years later.

In Verne’s story, three Americans blasted off to the moon from a giant cannon in a rocket named Columbiad and parachuted safely in the Pacific Ocean on their return. Apollo 11’s commander Neil Armstrong, the first man to step on the moon, acknowledged his crew’s intellectual debt to Verne during the mission. “A hundred years ago, Jules Verne wrote a book about a voyage to the Moon. . . It seems appropriate to us to share with you some of the reflections of the crew as the modern-day Columbia completes its rendezvous with the planet Earth and the same Pacific Ocean tomorrow.”

Connections between science fiction and space technology increased in the late 20th century, as television shows like “Star Trek” and “Lost in Space” helped kids imagine the technologies of the future. While NASA developed the Apollo program in the mid 1960s, “Star Trek’s” creators portrayed contemporary social and political conflicts in the 23rd century and imagined the technologies of the future. Although traveling faster than light “warp speed” appears impossible, “Star Trek’s” writers imagined devices like floppy disks, e-books and tablets years before scientists and engineers made them a reality.

In the late 1980s “Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Enterprise” introduced a holodeck, a virtual reality room where people could become characters in holo-novels and create scenarios of their own. Within the holodeck, the ship’s computer simulated all forms of matter, including people and other living organisms. This level of sophistication does not appear likely anytime soon, but the holodeck has captured the imagination of scientists, engineers and technology corporations as they refine and improve virtual reality.

Science Fiction

LEFT Jules Verne, “From the Earth to the Moon,” 1874.

ABOVE Lunar module on Apollo 11 mission to the moon, 1969.

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1946 John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert Jr. put the first electronic computer into operation at the University of Pennsylvania. The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) weighs 30 tons and includes 18,000 vacuum tubes, 6,000 switches and 1,500 relays.

1888 The nation’s first electric streetcar system opens in Richmond, VA. Frank Sprague and the Richmond Union Passenger Railway Company operate 10 street-cars in its nascent network.

1962 John Glenn pilots the Mercury Friendship 7 spacecraft in the first U.S. human orbital flight.

1961 Otis Boykin invents the electri-cal resistor that is later used in computers, radios and televisions

1928 Charles Adler, Jr. invents the first electric traffic signal, which is installed at a Baltimore intersection.

1935 DuPont chemist Gerard Berchet of the Walter Carothers research group invents nylon, intend-ing it to replace silk in stockings.

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CUNY TV Science & U

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LEFT Science Fiction tale, “The Rocket,” by Allyn Draper, 1899.

LEFT “The Steam Man of the Prairies,” by Edward S. Ellis, 1868.

LEFT Frank Reade, Jr’s “Weekly Magazine,” 1902.

LEFT “Modern Electrics,” 1911.

RIGHTHolodeck from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

RIGHT CUNY Vice Chancellor for Research Dr. Gillian Small researches organelle biogenesis and molecular regulation of lipid metabolism.

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Bridges

Verrazano-Narrows Bridge linking Brooklyn and Staten Island under construction, c.1962

RIGHT Plan for a Tappan Bridge Park by Milagros Lecunda, 2012.

On May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge opened to the public, revolutionizing bridge construction and transportation in the United States. John Roebling and his son Washington had connected New York and Brooklyn, the nation’s first

and third largest cities, using the new suspension bridge technology and spinning of steel cables. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, new bridges utilizing suspension cables, cantilevers and arches made it possible to conquer previously unspannable distances.

While bridge technology incorporated more concrete and steel, engineers gained a greater understanding of the fundamentals of physics, and bridges of a longer span, like the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge (below left) were built. In the post-World War II era, these bridges helped connect highways through the Interstate Highway System that began in 1956. One such structure, the Tappan Zee Bridge, spans the Hudson River between Tarrytown and Nyack, NY, north of New York City at its second greatest width (to avoid the jurisdiction of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey), and is a key connection of the New York State Thruway, which stretches from New York City to Buffalo.

However, the Tappan Zee Bridge was not built to last. Unable to reach the bedrock 300 to 800 feet below sea level, the engineers designed its foundation to float above bedrock. Like many other post-World War II bridges, it was built to be “non-redundant,” based on a belief that computer technology made redundancies unnecessary. This means that a loss of structural integrity in any load-bearing member could lead to bridge collapse because the weight or load in that area can’t be transferred and supported by another section. Designed to carry 100,000 vehicles per day, it now averages 140,000 and has peaked at 170,000. The New York State Thruway Authority is currently developing a plan for a new bridge and a debate is taking place whether to include rail and/or bus rapid transit on it.

Building on the success of the High Line in New York City and the Walkway-Over-The-Hudson, which reuses an abandoned railway bridge in Poughkeepsie, the Tappan Bridge Park Alliance has begun a campaign to turn the existing structure into a park and pedestrian/bicycle path. While the Thruway Authority proposes its demolition, the Alliance hopes to create a large recreational park and transportation alternative beyond the automobile (sketch of proposed redevelopment below right).

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1876 Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone, signaling the decline of the telegraph industry.

1883 Jan Ernst Matzeliger invents a shoe and boot-lasting machine that increases shoemaking speed by 900%.

1857 The first safety elevator for passengers in America, designed by Elisha Otis, is installed at 488 Broad-way in New York in E.V. Haughwout’s porcelain and glassware import shop.

1979 The worst accident in U.S. commercial reactor history occurs at the Three Mile Island nuclear power station near Harrisburg, PA.

1806 Thomas Jefferson signs legislation committing the federal government to build the Cumber-land (later National) Road west from Cumberland, Maryland, MD.

ST. PATRICK’S DAY

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The New York Times

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LEFT Digging the caisson for the Brooklyn Bridge.

LEFT Dr. Marie Filbin, Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences, Hunter College, investigates spinal cord injury.

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V

“He was building a sod house. The walls had now risen breast-high; in its half-finished condition, the structure resembled more a bulwark against some enemy than anything intended to be a human habitation. And the great heaps of cut sod, piled up in each corner might well have been the storesof ammunition for defence of the stronghold.”

— A description of a 19th century sod house on the Great Plains by Norwegian immigrant O. E. Rölvaag in “Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie”

Available materials shape and influence the structures we live, work and play in. Nowhere was this truer than in the Great Plains of the United States. In the late 19th

century, as settlers came into Nebraska, Kansas, the Dakotas, Montana and Wyoming, they found few trees to build homes. They turned to sod as their building material, using wood only for the door and windows. Sod worked as an insulator keeping homes cool in the summer and warm in the winter. However, a sod roof did not completely seal out the weather, and a heavy

rainstorm could often lead to wet clothes and bedding. Settlers would later add wood lean-tos for additional rooms and white-wash the interiors to lighten the space and protect it from the elements. The sod house was a practical response by the pioneers, but they generally built wood homes as soon as they could afford them, showing that culture plays a large role in our material choices.

Sod houses no longer play a role in contemporary architecture, but designers still attempt to create environmentally sustainable buildings. The Wedge House (below) is a three bedroom house built to reduce energy consumption, using stack effect cooling and structural insulated panels. This home provides a model for reducing energy in a single family home environment.

While architects today use synthetic materials more than ever before, some of them have also returned to the sod roof, in particular, the rooftop garden pictured above. Agriculture had been integral to the urban environment into the early 20th century, but planning ideas removed food production from the city in favor of a more remote agribusiness based system. With the rising popularity of locavore and organic agriculture and concern that industrial agriculture is a contributor to global warming, rooftop gardens and other forms of urban agriculture are becoming increasingly popular as they shorten the distance required to supply food and use less energy-intensive means to grow them.

TOP LEFT Sylvester Rawling family in front of sod house, north of Sargent, Custer County, NE, 1886;

ABOVE Atop the 1919 Standard Motor Products building on Northern Boulevard in Long Island City sits the flagship farm of the Brooklyn Grange, 2012.

Green Architecture

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1917 Wisconsin is the first state to adopt a numbering system as the network of roads increases. The idea gradually spreads across the country.

1977 Apple Computer, founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, releases the Apple II, a desktop personal computer for the mass market that features a keyboard, video monitor, mouse and RAM, which can be expanded by the user.

1954: Bell Labs demonstrates the first practical silicon solar cell.

1852 Boston establishes the first electric-powered fire alarm system with call boxes to indicate the location of the fire.

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CUNY TV Science & U

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LEFT Dr. Lesley Davenport, Professor of Chemistry, Brooklyn College, investigating complex biomolecules with her lab group.

RIGHT The Wedge House, designed by the San Francisco architectural firm Min/Day for a location in Phippsburg, Maine, 2011.

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“modern Times” “Modern Times, “ 1936.

Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times” brilliantly satirized the assembly line, which dominated U.S. manufactur-ing during the Great Depression. The film highlighted the power, efficiency and increased productivity of the machine age, while showing how it dehumanized the lives of workers. In 1913, Henry Ford adapted

the assembly line to automobile production, reducing the chassis assembly time of the Model T from 14 to 1.5 hours. From 1908 to 1927 Ford was able to reduce the price of his revolutionary car from $950 to $280, while increasing his company’s revenues and profits. These improvements to productivity and price reductions transformed the automobile from a toy of the wealthy to a mass-produced product for the middle classes.

These and other advances in industrial manufacturing benefitted the consumer and the owner, but Chaplin made the human costs clear in his comical dance through the monotony and alienation of the assembly line. The film implicitly critiques Frederick W. Taylor’s theory of scientific management. “Taylorism,” used scientific analysis of the workplace to streamline, simplify and speed up the work process and increase productivity, but strengthened management’s control and reduced workers’ power. Taylor argued that in bricklaying,

“management must also see that those who prepare the bricks and the mortar and adjust the scaffold, etc., for the bricklayers, cooperate with them by doing their work just right and always on time; and they must also inform each bricklayer at frequent intervals as to the progress he is making, so that he may not unintentionally fall off in his pace.”

Chaplin charmed the audience with his antics, but he tapped into a brutal reality; machines once designed to aid humans were now their masters, improving profits but not working lives. As Phil Stallings, a Ford assembly line worker in Chicago, recounted to Studs Terkel in “Working,” “I don’t understand how come more guys don’t flip. Because you’re nothing more than a machine when you hit this type of thing. They give better care to that machine. And you know this. Somehow you get the feeling that the machine is better than you are.” In the last century, technological advances and increases in productivity have made consumer items from the automobile to the computer tablet less expensive. The greater cost is the dehumanizing of factory workers, whether they are producing cars in Chicago or smart phones at Foxconn factory in China.

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1988 Dr. Patricia E. Bath invents a new device for cataract surgery known as the “laserphaco.”

1933 Congress passes legislation establishing the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a federal corpora-tion providing electrification to homes and businesses in the Tennessee Valley.

1960 The era of modern contracep-tion begins when the Food and Drug Administration approves the birth control pill for distribution.

1869 The Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads forge link at Promontory Point, UT, opening train travel between the eastern U.S. and California.

1927 Charles Lindbergh completes the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, traveling 3,600 miles from to New York to Paris.

1883 The Brooklyn Bridge opens, connecting the nation’s largest and third largest cities, New York and Brooklyn. Its towers were the tallest structures in America.

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LEFT Dr. Mandë Holford, Assistant Professor of Chemical Biology at Hunter College, focuses on reconstructing the evolution-ary history of venomous marine gastropods (cone snails, terebrids, and turrids), and investigates their toxins as biochemical tools for characterizing cellular communica-tion in the nervous system and as potential drug development targets.

The New York Times

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That’s entertainment

Technological innovations of the late 19th century transformed the American entertainment industry and increased the privatization of American life. Today, Americans experience more entertainment in their home rather than in public movie theaters and concert halls. Technological changes in instrument design

have transformed more than just the entertainment mediums; they have changed the way people interact with each other.

Americans embraced the radio and especially the television at an unprecedented rate. In the 1920s, a culture that had previously emphasized communal participation in piano-based live entertainment now turned to the phonograph and the radio, which created passive listeners. The broadcasting power of radio also intensified the possibilities of mass culture, as stations across the country sent public events, from political rallies to sporting competitions and vaudeville shows, into the private homes of millions. When Texas Instruments put the transistor inside the Regency TR1 pocket-sized radio in 1954, entertainment became even more personal. Radio now fit into the pocket of American teenagers eager to listen to rock and roll on the go.

Television intensified the trend that began with radio, as it reinforced the culture of social isolationism in home entertainment. The advent of nationally broadcast television shows in the 1960s emphasized a normative culture across America, although they sometimes exacerbated the country’s deep racial, class and gender divisions.

Today, the top-down economic business model of the entertainment industry has given way to the more democratic DIY entertainment option. In 2001, the iPod’s ability to store lots of music in a relatively small device revolutionized the music industry. Now consumers control how and when they listen to music by utilizing electronic media. Since home entertainment systems have become more affordable, pay services such as Internet access and on-demand cable television provide both entertainment and communication for the majority of American households at a cost of $1,000 a year per person. As more Americans opt to stay home, movie theaters across the country have closed. Technological and stylistic changes such as IMAX, digital images, and social media have forced directors, cinematographers, producers and actors to reinvent their craft. Social media also offers cheaper and faster outlets for marketing greater musical diversity.

AbOVe leFt Soldiers gathered around a Steinway “victory piano” and several guitars in the field during World War II, c. 1943.

AbOVe Men gather around a radio in Harlem to listen to music, c. 1930s.

right La Guardia Community College, CUNY, stu-dents Anthony Williams, Kellian Quallo, Moenette Alston, Drá Vicki Bartholomew and Nveka Charles during break between classes, 2012.

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1980 Nobel Award winner in Physics Luis Alvarez and his son, geologist Walter Alvarez, publish a scientific paper in Science magazine theorizing that 65 million years ago a giant asteroid had struck earth, killing the dinosaur population.

1967 Stanford University professor Douglas Engelbart applies for a patent for his invention of the computer mouse as a pointing device. Engelbart also develops the graphical user interface (GUI).

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1868 Christopher Latham Sholes and his associates patent the first practical typewriter.

CUNY TV Science & U

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LEFT Dr. Vicki Flaris, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Bronx Community College, researches polymer and material science.

RIGHT Nikola Tesla’s transmission of electrical energy (radio), 1900.

FAR RIGHT James West (pictured) and Gerhard Sessler received a patent for their electroacoustic transducer, a microphone that is used today in almost all telephones, camcorders, baby monitors and hearing aids.

RIGHT James West’s patent for the Electroacoustic Transducer.

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CUNY NOBEL LAUREATES IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING AND MATH

CUNY TV Science & U

JULIUS AXELRODNobel Prize for Medicine, 1970City College Class of 1933

JEROME KARLENobel Prize for Chemistry, 1985City College Class of 1937

ROBERT HOFSTADTERNobel Prize for Physics, 1961City College Class of 1935

HERBERT HAUPTMANNobel Prize for Chemistry, 1985City College Class of 1937

ARTHUR KORNBERG Nobel Prize for Medicine, 1959City College Class of 1937

ARNO PENZIASNobel Prize for Physics, 1978City College Class of 1954

LEON LEDERMANNobel Prize for Physics, 1988City College Class of 1943

ROSALYN YALOWNobel Prize for Medicine, 1977Hunter College Class of 1941

GERTRUDE ELIONNobel Prize for Medicine, 1988Hunter College Class of 1937

STANLEY COHENNobel Prize for Medicine, 1986Brooklyn College Class of 1943

CornAn ear of fresh

sweet corn is one of the

joys of summer, but it represents a small

fraction of the more than 10 billion bush-els of corn produced in the United States in 2012. Although corn yields increased slowly from 1870 to World War II (1.1 billion to 2.2 billion), the advent of war and the resulting manpower shortage en-couraged the use of technology to rapidly increase production. J.L Anderson, a lead-ing historian of the agrarian Midwest, has pointed to the close relationship between corn and cattle and argued that in the immediate post-war period, too, “farmers decreased production costs by substitut-ing machines for labor, used pesticides to destroy weed and insect pests that were obstacles to high crop yields and livestock gains, fertilized fields with chemicals, installed automated feeding systems, and added feed supplements that accelerated animals’ ability to absorb nutrients and calories.” Without nitrogen-based fertil-izer (pioneered by German scientist Fritz Haber), mechanical harvesting equipment and hybrid corn (advanced by Vice Presi-dent and Agriculture Secretary Henry Wallace) this unprecedented growth would not have been possible. Later, in the mid-1990s, genetically modified organisms, developed by corporations like Monsanto, came to represent more than 75% of the acreage devoted to the production of corn. Today corn plays an ever-present role in our lives.

Scientific advancements to increase corn yields have made it easier to feed a growing population in the United States and the world, but these chang-es have also meant the industrialization of the food systems which bring food from the farmer’s field to our plates. These advancements have transformed corn into a primary ingredient in the cattle, poultry and pork feed and the ethanol used in gasoline. Indeed, corn used for fuel alcohol production in-creased from less than 1% of total U.S.

domestic corn use in 1980-81 to almost 25% in 2007-08.

Corn’s omnipotence today owes much to federal government policy. In the 1970s government farm policy increased subsidies for corn farmers, making corn less expensive. Although processors began converting corn starch into high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in the 1940s and 1950s as a cheap alternative to sugar, it was only in the 1970s when they began using it in large quantities. In 1980, Coca-Cola, for instance, began using HFCS in soft drinks; by 1984 both Coke and Pepsi no longer used sugar at all. Using HFCS rather than sugar has kept the price of the product down, but both HFCS and sugar have the same number of calories. Consumption of soda in America has skyrocketed since the 1960s, when soda manufacturers sold their product in 6 ½ ounce bottles; today, their bottles contain 20 ounces. Over the past 25 years, for instance, American per capita consumption of soda per year has grown from 28 gallons to nearly 45 gallons.

The revolution in corn production has also affected cattle feeding and the modern beef diet. Modern beef factories congregated on the southern plains in western Kansas hold as many as 100,000 cattle in confined feedlots in contrast to the late 19th century feedlots which rarely contained more than 1,000 head. Cattle in today’s giant feedlots are fattened for about six months on cheap, surplus corn, protein supplements and drugs, including antibiotics and growth hormones, in order to reach a “finished” weight of 1,250 pounds because those raised solely on grass take longer to reach slaughter weight, and the modern meat industry wants to extinguish a beef calf ’s life at 14-16 months, as opposed to the life span of 4-5 years in the early 20th century.

Ironically, corn growers have not benefitted from the increased yields that scientific breakthroughs and subsidies have made possible. Growers are often plagued by overproduction, which leads to lower commodity prices and little or no profit. They sell their corn primarily to a few large processors, which process it for use in soda, animal feed, and ethanol.

joys of summer, but

Advertisement for Ratekin’s Seed House, Iowa, 1913

JULY

TISHA B’AVBASTILLE DAY

FAST OF TISHA B’AV (BEGINS AT SUNDOWN)

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1902 Willis Carrier designs an air-conditioning system for a Brooklyn printing plant.

1969 Astronaut Neil Armstrong is the first man to step on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission.

1962 The first transatlantic transmis-sion of a television signal takes place using the TELSTAR satellite.

1925 Cleveland opens the first municipal airport in the U.S. in continuous operation; 100,000 visitors celebrate the occasion.

1866 The Transatlantic cable opens between Newfoundland and Valentia, Ireland, forever changing communi-cation between America and Europe. Communication that once took two to three weeks now takes minutes.

INDEPENDENCE DAYCANADA DAY

LEFT Maize was the staple crop of North Americans in the pre-Columbian era.

CUNY TV Science & U

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RIGHT Dr. Eleanore Wurtzel, Professor of Biological Sciences at Lehman College, incorporates genomic tools to investigate carotenoid accumulation in important food crops such as maize, wheat and rice.

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The scientific breakthroughs that led to the creation of nuclear fission and the atomic bomb began with Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity in 1905 and his formula E=mc² (Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared). Bringing this to fruition would

require four decades of research experiments and the military impetus to create a bomb during World War II. Like most scientific breakthroughs, it was not the work of a single scientist, but a long-term effort in which scientists built upon the theories and experiments of others, including Ernest Rutherford, Lise Meitner, Otto Hahn, Niels Bohr, Frédéric Joliot, Hans von Halban, Lew Kowarski, Enrico Fermi, Ernest Lawrence and Leo Szilard. As these scientists collaborated and competed to advance nuclear physics, they thought more about the science and potential economic implications of applying atomic energy for domestic industrial uses, such as the generation of power, than the military implications of splitting the atom.

This changed when a war with Nazi Germany, which had its own atomic weapons program, seemed inevitable. On August 2, 1939, Albert Einstein, together with Leo Szilard, wrote President Franklin Roosevelt that Germany could develop an atomic bomb and that the United States must begin its own program. In 1942 this became the Manhattan Project. Under the leadership of Lieutenant General Leslie Groves and physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, it brought together 200 of the world’s leading physicists and chemists, many of them Jewish refugees, to develop an atomic bomb in Los Alamos, NM, while nuclear reactors in Oak Ridge, TN, and Hanford, WA, created the fissionable elements Uranium 235 and Plutonium as the fuel for the atomic bombs. At a cost of $2 billion, the United States had created the first atomic weapons. Completed after Nazi Germany had surrendered, the United States dropped two atomic weapons, in a still highly debated decision, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leading the Japanese to surrender.

Atomic Energy

ABOVE LEFT Norris Bradbury, group leader for bomb assembly, stands next to the partially assembled Gadget atop the test tower in the New Mexico desert, 1945.

ABOVE Albert Einstein visits City College, where he delivers lecture to faculty, 1921.

RIGHT Ernest O. Lawrence, Glenn T. Seaborg and J. Robert Oppenheimer control the magnet of the 184-inch cyclotron, which is being converted from its wartime use to its original purpose as a cyclotron, 1946.

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1981 IBM introduces the Personal Computer using the Intel 8088 microprocessor and an operating system, MS-DOS, designed by Micro-soft. Fully equipped with 64 kilobytes of memory and a floppy disk drive, it costs $1,565.

1807 Robert Fulton takes the steam-boat Clermont up the Hudson River from New York to Albany; reliable upriver steam travel revolutionizes intercity trade and transportation.

1945 The atomic bomb nicknamed Little Boy is dropped on Hiroshima, Japan; three days later another bomb, Fat Man, is dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.

1939 Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard write a letter to President Roosevelt explaining the need to build a nuclear bomb to counter Nazi Germany’s effort.

1912 Garrett Morgan files a patent for his “breathing device” to be used by the Cleveland Fire Department. His invention is later incorporated into the gas masks used by the U.S. military in World War I.

V-J DAYFEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY

HIROSHIMA DAYEID AL-FITR (RAMADAN ENDS)

WOMEN’S EQUALITY DAY

RAKSHA BANDHAN (HINDU OBSERVANCE)

INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR THE REMEMBRANCE OF THE SLAVE TRADE AND ITS ABOLITION

LEFT Dr. Ruth Stark, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, City College, uses NMR techniques to study the molecular structure of fatty acid binding proteins.

LEFT The 90-inch cyclotron, installed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1954 was a leading particle accelerator in its time. The machine operated until 1971.

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JULY

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ToysThe popularization of new, middle-class

conceptions of childhood as a period of life largely free of adult responsibilities

helped create a consumer market for toys in the United States by the late 19th century. Urban department stores and specialty retailers met the growing demand for toys by stocking the latest imported and domestically-manufactured playthings. Some amusements—such as Milton Bradley’s enormously successful board game The Checkered Game of Life (1860), which encouraged players to avoid temptations like idleness and intemperance on their path to wealth and success—carried strong moral lessons; others were designed purely for fun. Animated clockwork toys from Germany—whose subjects included running animals, oarsmen rowing boats, boys riding velocipedes, and, later, automated suffragettes—joined simple, less-expensive, offerings from American manufacturers such as dolls, wood blocks, and vehicles or figures cast in iron or tin. Despite the popularity of animated toys, however, some observers warned these toys risked robbing children of the chance to exercise their own imaginations. Popular children’s novelist Kate Wiggin, for example, argued that the “more imagination and cleverness the inventor has put into the toy, the less room there is for the child’s imagination and cleverness and genius.”

The American toy industry remained small throughout the nineteenth century, but its fortunes brightened considerably in subsequent decades as increasing prosperity and a general trend to more indulgent parenting styles helped foster year-round demand for toys. Manu-facturers maintained close ties with retailers to gauge changing consumer tastes, advertising budgets swelled, and toy makers adopted modern production methods. These developments, coupled with boycotts of German-made goods during the First World War, allowed the U.S. toy industry to expand some 1,300 percent between 1905 and 1920.

In the early decades of the 20th century, toys reflected a widespread public fascination for science and technology, while at the same time reinforced social norms concerning gender-appropriate play. Girls, for example, received dolls, kitchen sets, and other child-sized domestic technologies to socialize them as future homemakers, while boys got construction toys, tools chests, and scientific-oriented offerings like chemistry outfits, toy microscopes, and wireless radio sets. An entire category of ‘career-oriented’ toys promised to train young minds and hands for the modern world. The success of Erector (pictured abaove right), created by the A.C. Gilbert Co. in 1913, placed Connecticut—which was also home to model train maker, the Ives Company—at the center of the American toy industry, and, more significantly, helped spur innovations in child-centered advertising. Inspiring boys to aspire to engineering careers remained constant. In the wake of Charles A. Lindbergh’s historic transatlantic flight in 1927, the American Boy magazine established the Airplane Model League of America—a nationwide club for boys sponsored, in part, by the Ford Motor Co.—to encourage boys’ dreams of aviation industry careers. Similarly, the Fisher Body Company sponsored an annual model- making contest from 1930 onward for teenage boys with an eye on training future generations of car designers. During the Cold War, the popularity of model rocketry clubs nationwide fueled young visions of exploring space.

Innovations in modern computing crept into toy design in the 1970s. In 1972, for example, Magnavox released ‘Odyssey,’ the first home video game system and a precursor to more advanced systems by Atari, Nintendo, and X-box, and in 1978, Texas Instruments developed the first toy to utilize a computer chip, the Speak and Spell, a learning toy replete with a speech synthesizer. Interestingly, the development of the multi-billion dollar video game industry— as well as efforts to incorporate wearable computing, like those from Valve (pictured right) and Google glasses—has only renewed debates about the player’s passivity and lack of creativity that first arose in the 19th century.

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1868 Bessemer Steel’s first “blow” is made at the Cleveland Rolling Mills, inaugurating an American industrial revolution; the cities of Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Chicago would soon anchor the new industrial heartland of the nation.

1882 Thomas Edison’s Pearl Street Station in New York begins the first successful commercial production of electricity in America, distributing direct current to 203 customers in lower Manhattan within four months.

1905 Albert Einstein publishes his special theory of relativity.

EL GRITO DEL DOLORES (MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE DAY)

SUKKOT (BEGINS AT SUNDOWN)

SUKKOT

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GRANDPARENTS DAY

WORLD TRADE CENTER REMEMBRANCE DAY

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NATIVE AMERICAN DAY

CUNY TV Science & U

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LEFT Patent issued to La Marcus A. Thompson for the first roller coaster in America, 1885.

RIGHT Dr. Myriam Sarachik, Dis-tinguished Professor of Physics, City College, researches superconductiv-ity, disordered metallic alloys and metal-insulator transitions in doped semiconductors.

RIGHT Schematic mechanism for baseball stitching machine, 1948.

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Computers

Like most advances in science and technology, the computer has no single inventor or eureka moment of creation. The word computer once described people, predominantly women, who did repetitive mathematical calculations. Only in the 20th century did it come to mean an electronic-based

calculating machine. One of the roots of the modern computer lay in Herman Hollerith’s punch card tabulating machine, used to count the 1890 U.S. census. Hollerith’s Tabulating Machine Company was consolidated into the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. in 1911, which was renamed IBM in 1924.

World War II gave rise to an alliance between the military and academia that marked a turning point for computer development. During WW II, Harvard scientist Howard Aiken and U.S. WAVE Grace Hopper designed an electromechanical computing machine that IBM built and sent to Harvard in 1944. The Mark I solved complicated math calculations for the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ships. The ENIAC, developed by John Mauchly and John Presper Eckert at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946, utilized 17,000 vacuum tubes to make math calculations a thousand times faster than earlier machines. Military and academic researchers were the primary users of the ENIAC and its successors, the EDVAC and ORDVAC. In the early 1950s,

John von Neumann at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton led a group of engineers and scientists in developing the MANIAC computer, which made the calculations necessary to develop the hydrogen bomb in 1952.

In the 1950s, computers were very large and few in number, but transistors made them smaller and commercialization driven by IBM made them more common in the 1960s. However, few would have predicted in 1970 that computers would become a ubiquitous part of the home and office. By the late 1970s, computers had advanced from hobbyist kits to the Apple II and Radio Shack TRS 80 and within a few years IBM had entered the personal computer market, run with Microsoft software. The progressive increase in computer speed and memory made it possible to transform the Internet, a computer network created by the U.S. Defense Department and research universities in the 1970s, into the locus of informa-tion and commerce that has transformed our world. As computer microchips have become smaller and faster, computers can now fit in our phones, eyeglasses and perhaps our bodies. The possibilities seem limit-less, but threats to privacy are real as is the specter of a world in which technology dominates our lives..

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1842 The Croton Aqueduct provides New York with its first clean supply of water needed to combat disease, fight fires and meet the demands of a rapidly growing city.

1951 Henrietta Lacks dies at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Balti-more from cancer of the cervix; her living cancerous cells removed from her body and preserved in a lab later launch a medical revolution.

1825 The Erie Canal connects the port of New York to the Great Lakes via the Hudson River. By 1840, New York moved more freight than the ports of Boston, Baltimore and New Orleans combined.

COLUMBUS DAYEID AL-ADHA (FEAST OF SACRIFICE) NATIONAL BOSS’S DAY

UNITED NATIONS DAY

HALLOWEEN

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LEFT Dr. Corinne Michels, Distinguished Professor of Biology, Queens College, researches the regulation of gene expression.

RIGHT Mathematician Mina S. Rees served as president of the Graduate School and University Center at CUNY.

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Collective Innovation

Innovations applying fiber optics, mobile phones and satellites have been the result of simultaneous inventions and incremental improvements rather than the achievement of the lone inventor enjoying an eureka moment. The myth of the sole inventor persists because

it supports our celebration of the rugged individualist, who by (usually his) own bootstraps rises to conquer all obstacles. This self-reliance of independent scientists and engineers from Eli Whitney to Samuel F. B. Morse, Thomas Edison and on to Henry Ford has been the mainstay of our folklore.

In reality, scientific discoveries result from steady increments in knowledge, the uninterrupted social interaction between scientists, systematic methods of inquiry and the consequences of their time. Robert K. Merton, the noted sociologist, argued that “the pattern of independent multiple discoveries in science is in principle the dominant pattern, rather than a subsidiary one.”

The laboratories of Thomas Edison (see above) in Menlo Park, New Jersey and New York provide a good example of the collective basis of innovation. In Menlo Park, Edison and Francis Upton developed a carbon filament that did not melt; this new design led to a long-lasting (up to 40 hours) lamp. Thus, in late 1879 Edison introduced the first practical incandescent bulb.

The Edison Electric Illuminating Company developed a central generating station on Pearl Street in lower Manhattan, which opened on September 4, 1882. Edison’s team at the Pearl Street station installed six “Jumbo” dynamos, each weighing 27 tons and capable of powering more than 1,100 lights. His collaborators included Lewis Latimer, holder of a patent for improved carbon filaments, (see photo above and left, patent), who worked at the Edison Electric Light Company in New York from 1884 to 1896 as a patent investigator and draftsman.

In the 20th century Bell Labs offers the best evidence of collaborative innovation. Opened in Manhattan in 1925, Bell Labs moved to the New Jersey suburbs after World War II, where its long corridors and mandatory open-door policy fostered interaction among en-gineers, physicists, chemists, materials scientists and mathematicians. Bell Labs believed that innovation best occurs when people of different talents work in an environment conducive to open dialogue. The transistor (1947) resulted from the teamwork of William Shockley, Walter Brattain and John Bardeen which sparked the invention. Bell Labs contributed greatly to the telecommunications system of the mid-20th century through its innovations in transistors, lasers, communication by satellites, charge-couple devices (CCD), silicon solar cells and the UNIX computer operating system.

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2001 Apple starts selling the iPod, a portable digital audio player that revolutionizes listening to music.

1913 The Los Angeles-Owens River Aqueduct opens, bringing water by gravity to the Los Angeles basin from the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains, more than 230 miles to the north.

1920 Pittsburgh’s Westinghouse-owned KDKA, the first commercial radio station in the United States, broadcasts election results. By 1922, three million Americans own radios.

1942 The Alaska Canada Military Highway (the Alcan) is completed, linking Dawson Creek, British Columbia, and Delta Junction, Alaska. Built by African American and white soldiers of the Army Corps of Engineers, the Alcan has been called “the road to civil rights.”

1874 Joseph Glidden introduces barbed wire fencing, enabling herds to remain on private ranches.

THANKSGIVING DAY

FIRST DAY OF CHANUKAH

ALL SAINTS DAY ALL SOULS DAY

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME ENDS

DIWALI (HINDU FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS)

MUHARRAM (ISLAMIC NEW YEAR) ELECTION DAY

CHANUKAH (BEGINS AT SUNSET)

LEFT Dr. Maribel Vazquez researches brain cancer infiltration and nano-technology approaches for protein labeling. She is currently Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at City College.

RIGHT Patent for transistor issued to Bell Labs, 1950.

CBS Morning News

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In the late 18th and early 19th century Philadelphia, Boston, New York and other coastal cities in the United States grew rapidly, powered by increased trade, manufacturing and immigration. These changes led to increased demand for water and public health problems arising from polluted water supplies. The first U.S.

city to confront this problem was Philadelphia, which grew from 41,000 in 1800 to 1.3 million in 1900. After outbreaks of yellow fever in the 1790s killed thousands of people, Philadelphia sought cleaner supplies. Its leaders turned to the engineer Benjamin Latrobe, who developed a waterworks by diverting the Schuylkill River and using steam engines to pump water to a high level to distribute to the population. Philadelphia completed the first section in 1801, but it quickly became inadequate and turned to an expanded system in what is now Fairmount Park between 1812 and 1815. (See above).

Urban areas have continually struggled to meet increased demand for water, but conservation has become an increasingly important tool. This is particularly true in the desert environments of the west and

southwest of the United States. Las Vegas, one of the fastest growing urban areas of the last decade, annually receives only 4.5” of rain and has to rely on Lake Mead, a reservoir created by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, for 90% of its water. A severe drought threatens this supply and it is possible that the lake could run dry by 2021.

To look at the fountains on the strip in Las Vegas, the city and its economic engine appear to be profligate users of water, but the reality is different. For instance, the spectacular water show at the Bellagio Hotel uses recycled ground water so it places minimal strain on Lake Mead. On a larger scale, the Southern Nevada Water Authority recycles 40% of its wastewater to use in power plants, construction and irrigation, compared to a national average of 6%. With a growing population and worsening droughts that many scientists regard as due to global warming, the United States will have to increase conservation and wastewater recycling to maintain adequate supplies of water to cope with these changes.

Water

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1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright conduct the first motor-powered flight at Kitty Hawk, NC.

1880 New York’s Broadway receives its first electric lights between 14th and 34th streets. The Broadway theater district would eventually move north and become known as The Great White Way for its blazing illumination.

1953 President Eisenhower delivers his “Atoms for Peace” speech before the United Nations, calling for greater cooperation in the develop-ment of atomic energy for peaceful purposes.

1942 The first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction occurs at the Univer-sity of Chicago in an experiment led by physicist Enrico Fermi.

1947 John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William B. Shockley, scientists at Bell Labs, build the first transistor that can amplify and switch electronic signals.

WINTER SOLSTICE/WINTER BEGINS

WORLD AIDS AWARENESS DAY

FIRST DAY OF ADVENT

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RIGHT Professor Thomas Onorato, LaGuardia Community College, stud-ies the fertilization of star fish and is trying to create the first star fish cell line, 2012.

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bio Art

Bio-art blurs the distinction between science and art by using new technologies to manipulate living organisms into artwork. An early example in the 1990s was a genetically modified phosphorescent rabbit named Alba. Other examples

include using electron microscopes to look at things like muscle cells or bacteria. However, the ethics of using living organisms for art remains controversial.

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1964 James E. West and Gerhard M. Sessler, working for Bell Labs, receive a patent for their “electroacoustic transducer,” a microphone that is used today in almost all telephones, camcorders, baby monitors and hearing aids.

1838 Samuel F.B. Morse uses electric signals to shift an electro-magnet in a patterned print across paper, known as Morse code.

MAWLID AL-NABI (MUHAMMAD’S BIRTHDAY) TU B’SHEVAT

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THREE KINGS DAY, FEAST OF THE EPIPHANY ORTHODOX CHRISTMAS

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DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. DAY (OBSERVED)

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LEFT Dr. Neepa Maitra, Associate Professor of Physics at Hunter Col-lege, has a background in theoretical chemical physics and focuses her studies more specifically on time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT), a method to describe electronic excitations and dynamics in atomic, molecular, chemical systems and solids.

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1801 The Philadelphia Water Works opens, making Philadelphia the first major city in the U.S. to provide clean drinking water citywide.

1880 Thomas Edison receives a patent for the electric light bulb; the first successful test had occurred on October 22, 1879.

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Albert Einstein, Rabbi Stephen A. Wise and Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia celebrate Rabbi Wise’s 60th birthday at the Hotel Astor in New York, 1934.

PHOTO CREDITS

FRONT COVERWright Brothers Model Plane: photo courtesy of John DeVilbiss, Utah State University; Supersonic Jet Plane, Nick Kaloterakis @ collected.

INSIDE FRONT COVER Photo courtesy of CUNY.

MILESTONES CREDITSPAGE 1U.S.S. Monitor, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-B8171-0490, James F. Gibson photographer; Mammoth California orange, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-19095; Linus Paul-ing, courtesy of the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers, Special Col-lections, Oregon State University Libraries; Aerodyne, courtesy of Iowa State University Archives; Dr. Patricia Bath courtesy of Dr. Bath; Bell Labs patent, courtesy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office; Tetrahedral kite, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Gilbert H. Grosvenor Collection of Photographs of the Alexander Graham Bell Family; Carl Rakeman macadam road, courtesy of the Federal Highway Administration, United States Department of Transportation; Broadway elevated, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-108312, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper; Howard Coffin, courtesy of the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, BL000228.

PAGE 2Edison storage battery department and Edison battery-operated truck, courtesy of the Thomas Edison National Historical Park, National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior; Promontory Point, courtesy of the Oakland Museum of California; Transistor inventors, courtesy of Alcatel Archives; Air Mail delivery, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division; von Neumann and Oppenheimer, courtesy of The Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center, Institute for Advanced Study, Digital Collections, Princeton, New Jersey; Giant magnet, courtesy of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, United States Department of Energy; Hampton Institute, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-62376, Frances Benjamin Johnston photographer; Telstar, courtesy of Alcatel Archives.

PAGE 3Michigan State University women, courtesy of the Michigan State University Archives & Special Collections; Mastodon Corn, courtesy of Archives Center, NHAM, Smithsonian Institution; Frank Meyer, courtesy of the NARA, Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Horticultural Crops Research Branch; Lower Manhattan Elevated Railroad, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-96204; East Texas farmer with barbed wire, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-ISF33-012120, Russell Lee photographer; Biologists, courtesy of the Elwyn B. Robinson Department of Special Collections, Chester Fritz Library, University of North Dakota; University of Arkansas Hong Wen, courtesy of the University of Arkansas; Seed Distribution Bureau, courtesy of the NARA, Depart-ment of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industry; Slide rule, courtesy of the Michigan State University Archives and Special Collections; Washing Machine, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, LC-USF33-012689-M4, Russell Lee photographer.

PAGE 4Federal Art Project, courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, NARA; Garrett Morgan, public domain; Milky Way, courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech; Alvarez, courtesy of The Regents of the Univer-sity of California, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; University

of Maryland Rocket program, courtesy of the Office of Digital Col-lections and Research, University Libraries, University of Maryland; Coney Island Athletic Club, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-102696; Dr. Volkow, courtesy of the National Institute on Drug Abuse; Philco television, courtesy of the Museum of the Moving Image; Purdue University student working in food chemistry laboratory, courtesy of Purdue University Archives and Special Collections; Tennessee road paving machine, courtesy of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Blount County Public Library, Maryville, Tennessee.

PAGE 5Valencia Community College biology students, courtesy of Valencia Community College; B-24 bombers on assembly line, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division; Baldwin Loco-motive, courtesy of the Print and Picture Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia; Aeroplane Graflex, courtesy of the NARA, Department of Defense, Department of the Army; Checking tomatoes, courtesy of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration; Smoke-shrouded Pittsburgh, courtesy of Archives Service Center, University of Pittsburgh, Smoke Control Lantern Unit; Dawn of the Century sheet music, courtesy of Wikipedia Commons; Loop-the-Loop, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-63370; Wright Brothers patent, courtesy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office; Sensitester, courtesy of the Museum of the Moving Image; Stage coach courtesy of Cull A. White Collection, MASC, Washington State University Libraries, ID# pc086b01f048_1.

PAGE 6Glider in flight, courtesy of the Digital Collections and Archives, Tufts University; Hollerith tabulator, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-45687; Life Preserving Coffin, courtesy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office; Dr. Charles Drew, courtesy of NARA 43-0937a; Kaiser-Frazer, courtesy of the Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University; Mario Molina, courtesy of the Nobel Foundation; Baseball stitching machine, courtesy of Archives Center, NHAM, Smithsonian Institution; Banneker mural, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-highsm-09905; Barrage balloon, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information,LC-USW361-1055, Alfred T. Palmer photographer; Steinway and Sons patent, courtesy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office; Grace Hopper, courtesy of Archives Center, NHAM, Smithsonian Institution; Dr. Jerome Tobis, courtesy of David Tobis, Principal, Maestral International.

PAGE 7Traffic light inventor, courtesy of the Archives Center, NMAH, Smith-sonian Institution; Brighton Beach Hotel, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-53843; George Sidney, courtesy of the Museum of the Moving Image; Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, courtesy of the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health; Governor Clinton, mural located in DeWitt Clinton High School, New York City, courtesy New York State Canals; Wrought Iron Bridge Canton, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division; Aeroplane Ambulance, courtesy of the National Museum of the History of Medicine, Otis Historical Archives, AFIP, Reeve Collection 63082; Bell Telephone patent, courtesy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office; Civil War railroad bridge, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-4589; Frank Oppenheimer, courtesy of The Regents of the University of California, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

JANUARY 2013 ASTRONOMY Io: courtesy of NASA/JPL/University of Arizona; Lunar landing, courtesy of NASA; Astronaut Ellen Baker courtesy of NASA STS-71, Shuttle Atlantis, 1995; Dr. Jill Bargonetti, courtesy of CUNY.

FEBRUARY 2013 SCIENCE FICTIONVerne book cover courtesy of Wikipedia Commons; Lunar module, courtesy of NASA; Rocket, courtesy of Bowling Green State Uni-versity Commons; CUNY Vice Chancellor Gillian Small, courtesy of CUNY; StarTrek Holodeck, courtesy of CBS Licensing and Paramount Pictures.

MARCH 2013 BRIDGESVerrazano Narrows Bridge, courtesy of MTA Bridge and Tunnel Special Archive; Tappan Zee Bridge Park, courtesy of Milagros Lecu-ona; Dr. Marie Filbin, courtesy of CUNY; Brooklyn Bridge drawing, courtesy of the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, CUNY.

APRIL 2013 GREEN ARCHITECTURENebraska sod house, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-8276; Rooftop farm, courtesy of the Brooklyn Grange; Dr. Lesley Davenport, courtesy of CUNY; Wedge House, courtesy of Min/Day.

MAY 2013 MODERN TIMES Modern Times © Roy Export S.A.S. Scan courtesy Cineteca di Bologna; Dr. Mande Holford, courtesy of CUNY.

JUNE 2013 THAT’S ENTERTAINMENTWW II Soldiers, courtesy of LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, CUNY and U.S. Army Air Corps; Harlem radio listeners, courtesy of the New York Public Library, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; LaGuardia Community College students, courtesy of Tara Jean Hickman; Dr. Vicki Flaris, courtesy of CUNY; Tesla patent and West patent, courtesy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office; Jim West, courtesy of Jim West.

CENTERFOLD AWARD-WINNERS Mentor Award and CUNY’s 2012 Science All Star Team and CUNY Nobel Winners, courtesy of CUNY.

JULY 2013 CORNCorn seeds advertisement, courtesy of the Archives Center, NMAH, Smithsonian Institution; Dr. Eleanore Wurtzel, courtesy of CUNY.

AUGUST 2013 ATOMIC ENERGY Gadget, courtesy of the United States Department of Energy; Einstein photo courtesy of the City College of New York Archives; Oppenheimer photograph, courtesy of The Regents of the University of California, Law-rence Berkeley National Laboratory; Dr. Ruth Stark, courtesy of CUNY; Cyclotron, courtesy of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, United States Department of Energy Digital Archive.

SEPTEMBER 2013 TOYSSee-Saw patent and Thompson patent, courtesy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office; Erector set, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division; Valve Software, courtesy of Stuart Isett/The New York Times; Baseball stitching machine, cour-tesy of the Archives Center, NMAH, Smithsonian Institution; Dr. Myriam Sarachik, courtesy of CUNY.

OCTOBER 2013 COMPUTERSWomen holding motherboards, courtesy of the U.S. Army Photo number 163-12-62; Google glasses courtesy of Shutterstock.com; Computer technicians, courtesy of the Regents of the University of California, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; CUNY twitter page, Dr. Mina Rees and Dr. Corinne Michels, courtesy of CUNY.

NOVEMBER 2013 COLLECTIVE INNOVATIONEdison workers, courtesy of the Thomas Edison National Historical Park, National Park Service, United States Department of the Inte-rior; Lewis Latimer, courtesy of the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, CUNY and the Queens Borough Public Library; Latimer patent and Bell Labs, courtesy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office; Dr. Maribel Vazquez, courtesy of CUNY.

DECEMBER 2013 WATERFairmount and Waterworks, courtesy of the American Philosophical Library; Professor Thomas Onorato, courtesy of Steven A. Levine.

JANUARY 2014 BIOARTBioArt image, courtesy of Dr. Douglas Cowan, Harvard Medical School, Children’s Hospital Boston; Dr. Neepa Maitra, courtesy of CUNY.

PHOTO CREDITSEinstein, Wise and LaGuardia photograph courtesy of the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, CUNY.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTSHospital for Special Surgery, courtesy of Tara Jean Hickman.

BACK COVERAll WPA posters courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, NYC Municipal Airports, 3g04242, Keeping Up With Science, 3b48702, Museum of Science and Industry, 3b48895, Occupations Related to Mathematics, 3b49003, Plains Farms Need Trees, 3b48715, Adler Planetarium, 3b48791.

LaGuardia Community College, CUNY, student Laura Aguilera and Rima Coleman, PhD, of the Hospital for Special Surgery conduct mineralized tissue research.

SENIOR PROJECT DIRECTOR Jay Hershenson, Senior Vice Chancellor for University Relations

and Secretary of the Board of Trustees, CUNY

PROJECT ADVISOR Gail O. Mellow, President, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

PROJECT DIRECTOR Richard K. Lieberman, Director of the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives

and Professor of History, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

ASSOCIATE PROJECT DIRECTORS Steven A. Levine, Coordinator for Educational Programs, LaGuardia and

Wagner Archives, LaGuardia Community College, CUNYStephen Weinstein, Assistant to the Director, LaGuardia and Wagner

Archives, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

ASSISTANT PROJECT DIRECTOR Tara Jean Hickman, Educational Associate, LaGuardia and Wagner

Archives, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

ADMINISTRATION Eduvina Estrella, Assistant to the Director, LaGuardia and Wagner

Archives, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

WEB DESIGN Livia Nieves, Web Designer, CUNY

CALENDAR DESIGN Sandy Chase, Fluid FilmAbigail Sturges, Sturges Design

LAGUARDIA AND WAGNER ARCHIVES STAFFSoraya Ciego-LemurMarian ClarkeDouglas Di CarloNadeen ElakkadOleg KlebanBrian PortararoJuan RodriguezMichael RothbardJean Carlos SanchezJoshua Whitaker

EDITORIAL SCHOLARSCarol Groneman, Professor Emerita, John Jay College and

The Graduate Center, CUNYGerald Markowitz, Distinguished Professor, John Jay College and

The Graduate Center, CUNY

SENIOR CONSULTING SCHOLARGeoffrey Zylstra, Assistant Professor, New York City College

of Technology, CUNY

CONSULTING SCHOLARSPennee Bender, Associate Director, American Social History Project,

CUNY Graduate CenterJoshua Brown, Executive Director, American Social History Project,

CUNY Graduate CenterBlanche Wiesen Cook, Distinguished Professor, John Jay College, CUNYCharles Liu, College of Staten Island, CUNY Andrea Vasquez, Associate Director, American Social History Project,

CUNY Graduate Center

SPECIAL THANKS Deena Adelman, Federal Highway Administration Research LibraryAllen Adon, Jr., Federal Highway Administration Research LibraryLaura Aguilera, Hospital for Special Surgery, NYCAaron AlcornChristopher Alexander, LaGuardia Community College, CUNYTom Angotti, Hunter College, CUNYPaul Arcario, Provost, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs,

LaGuardia Community College, CUNYMichael Arena, University Director of Communications and Marketing,

Office of University Relations, CUNYThomas Baione, American Museum of Natural HistoryDr. Ellen Baker, NASA Astronaut (Former)Walter Barleycorn, Education Account Manager, The New York TimesAndré Beckles, Photographer/Production Coordinator,

Office of University Relations, CUNYJoyce Bedi, Smithsonian InstitutionSusanne Belovari, Tufts UniversityFelisa Bienstock, Business Office/Purchasing,

LaGuardia Community College, CUNYCarly Bogen, Museum of the Moving ImageEdward Busch, Michigan State UniversityKim Buxton, Office of University Relations, CUNYAlan B. Carr, Los Alamos National LaboratoryPeter Catapano, New York City College of Technology, CUNYRobert Clark, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential LibraryBrian Cohen Associate Vice Chancellor and University Chief

Information Officer, CUNYJim Cohen, Emeritus Professor, John Jay College, CUNYRobert Colburn, IEEE History Center, Rutgers UniversityDr. Rhima Coleman, Hospital for Special Surgery, NYCPhyllis Collazzo, Permissions, The New York TimesDiane Colon, Director, Administrative and Support Services,

LaGuardia Community College, CUNYMarian Cordry, CBS LicensingDr. Douglas B. Cowan, Harvard Medical School,

Children’s Hospital BostonKelle Cruz, Hunter College, CUNYJeff Day, Min/Day ArchitectsLeonard DeGraaf, U.S. Department of the Interior,

National Parks Service, Thomas Edison National Historic ParkAurora Deshauteurs, Free Library of PhiladelphiaTheresa Desmond, Special Assistant to the Chancellor

and Senior Writer, CUNYJohn DeVilbiss, Utah State UniversityStephanie Doba, Education Manager, The New York Times Allan Dobrin, Executive Vice Chancellor and Chief Operating Officer,

CUNYDonnelly Marks PhotographyRobert Edelstein, Marketing, The New York TimesRichard Elliott, Vice President for Administration, LaGuardia

Community College, CUNYJackie Esposito, Pennsylvania State UniversityRandy Fader-Smith, Marketing and Communications Office,

LaGuardia Community College, CUNYSusan Farkas, President, Farkas MediaErin Faulder, Tufts UniversityStephanie Fiorenza, Graduate Center, CUNYJohn Fleckner, Smithsonian InstitutionSharon Forde, Office of University Relations, CUNYRobert Friedel, University of MarylandTom Glieden, Education Account Manager, The New York TimesPatricia Gray, Director of Corporate Relations and Special Events,

Office of University Relations, CUNYSarah Gustafson, Tufts UniversityShanique Haile-Francois, U.S. Department of EnergyRichard Hanley, New York City College of Technology, CUNYCurt Hanson, University of North Dakota

Mary Hedge, MTA Bridge and Tunnel Special ArchiveThomas Hladek, Executive Director of Finance and Business,

LaGuardia Community College, CUNYBruce Hoffacker, Executive Associate to the Vice-President for

Academic Affairs, LaGuardia Community College, CUNYNalband Hussain, LaGuardia Community College, CUNYRobert Isaacson, Executive Director, CUNY-TVPaul Israel, Thomas A. Edison Papers, Rutgers UniversityKaren Jania, University of MichiganRichard Jensen, University of Illinois, ChicagoLuz Jimenez, Executive Assistant to the Vice Chancellor for Research,

CUNYSeth Jordan, University of TennesseeLiz Kalodner, CBS LicensingNick Kaloterakis@kollectedMaribeth Keitz, National Academy of EngineersJohn Kotowski, Director of City Relations,

Office of University Relations, CUNYKim Lange, WET DesignStacee Gravelle Lawrence, The Monacelli PressMilagros Lecuona, Lecuona AssociatesJanet Lieberman, Professor Emerita,

LaGuardia Community College, CUNYSamuel Lieberman, Student, SUNY PurchaseMail Center Staff, LaGuardia Community College, CUNYLarry McAllister, Paramount PicturesSean McNally, Museum of the Moving ImageDiane McNulty, Executive Director, Marketing, The New York TimesMiriam Meislik, Archives Service Center, University of PittsburghHourig Messerlian, Deputy to the Secretary, CUNY Board of TrusteesBarbara Miller, Museum of the Moving ImageMichael Miller, American Philosophical SocietySusan Mills, Managing Director, Education, The New York TimesJohn Mogulescu, Senior University Dean for Academic Affairs

and Dean of the School for Professional Studies, CUNYAngela Leimkuhler Moran, United States Naval AcademyErica Mosnery, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJJoe Nasr, Ryerson UniversityBarbara Niss, Mount Sinai Medical CenterMark O’English, Washington State UniversityThomas Onorato, LaGuardia Community College, CUNYRene Ontal, Office of Communications and Marketing, CUNYPeter Parides, New York City College of Technology, CUNYRobert Passwell, University Transportation Research Center,

City College, CUNYGabriella Petrick, George Mason UniversityKimberly Porter, University of North DakotaPreethi Radhakrishnan, LaGuardia Community College, CUNYGregory Raml, American Museum of Natural HistoryMark Renovitch, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential LibraryEd Rhodes, Campaign Officer, Marketing, Invest

in CUNY Campaign OfficeEneida Rivas, College and Community Relations Office, LaGuardia Community College, CUNYRita Rodin, Senior Editor, Office of Communications and Marketing,

CUNYNeill Rosenfeld, Staff Writer, Office of Communications and Marketing,

CUNYErin Clements Rushing, Smithsonian Institution LibrariesHenry Saltiel, Vice President for Information Technology,

LaGuardia Community College, CUNYSamuel Sanchez, The Morris Raphael Cohen Library, City College, CUNYFrederick Schaffer, Senior Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs

and General Counsel, CUNYWendy Shay, Smithsonian InstitutionRichard Sheinaus, Director of Graphic Design,

Office of Communications and Marketing, CUNYNadine A. Shelbert, WET Design

Sigmund Shen, LaGuardia Community College, CUNYClaire Shulman, Former Queens Borough PresidentDaniel Shure, Managing Editor of CUNY.edu,

Office of Communications and Marketing, CUNYGillian Small, Vice Chancellor for Research, CUNYMelanie Sorsby, Los Alamos National LaboratoryVanda Stevenson, Business Office/Accounting,

LaGuardia Community College, CUNYShanequa Terry, Office of University Relations, CUNYDavid Tobis, Principal, Maestral InternationalKim Thomas, Federal Highway Administration Research LibraryJohn Van Citters, CBS LicensingSydney Van Nort, The Morris Raphael Cohen Library, City College,

CUNYMary Beth Wallace, Wayne State UniversityJames E. West, Johns Hopkins UniversityPaul West, LaGuardia Community College, CUNYStan Wolfson, Office of University Relations, CUNYBurl Yearwood, LaGuardia Community College, CUNY

THIS PUBLICATION IS MADE POSSIBLE IN PART BY GRANTS FROM

THE MAYOR’S OFFICE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK Michael Bloomberg, MayorPatricia Harris, First Deputy Mayor

THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF NEW YORKChristine Quinn, SpeakerLeroy Comrie, Deputy Majority LeaderDomenic M. Recchia, Jr., Chair, Finance CommitteeYdanis Rodriguez, Chair, Higher Education CommitteeJames Van Bramer, Council Member

JPMORGAN CHASE Jamie Dimon, Chairman and C.E.O.Leonard Colica, Senior Vice PresidentKimberly Davis, President, JPMorgan Chase FoundationMichael Nevins, Senior Vice PresidentTimothy G. Noble, Senior Vice PresidentKim Jasmin, Executive Director, Northeast Division,

Global Philanthropy and Community Relations, JPMorgan Chase

Copyright © 2012 The City University of New York

The “Inventing the Future” Web site and calendar did not involve the reporting or editing staff of The New York Times.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

www.cuny.edu/inventingthefuture

LaGuardia and Wagner Archives