November 29
1590: Philologist, mathematician, astronomer, and poet Philipp Nicodemus Frischlin dies, killed by a fall in attempting to let himself down from the window of his cell. His prolific and versatile genius produced a great variety of works, but his reckless life and libelous letters led to imprisonment.
1646: Theologian, astronomer, astrologer, and Archbishop of Uppsala Laurentius Paulinus Gothus dies. He wrote numerous theological and astronomical works, and also published calendars.
1694: Physician and biologist Marcello Malpighi dies. Malpighi made pioneering contributions to anatomy, histology, physiology, embryology, and microscopy.
1759: Mathematician and theorist Nicolaus I Bernoulli dies. He introduced a successful resolution to the St. Petersburg paradox.
1803: Physicist and mathematician Christian Doppler born. Doppler will propose the principle (now known as the Doppler effect) that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer. He will use this concept to explain the color of binary stars.
1877: Thomas Edison demonstrates his phonograph for the first time.
1918: Writer Madeleine L'Engle born. She will write the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels.
1924: Composer Giacomo Puccini dies. He is remembered as "the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi".
1955: The EBR-1 in Arco, Idaho suffers a partial meltdown during a coolant flow test.
1964: Debut of The Man From K.E.S.S.E.L., an American science fiction buddy television series about a pair of space pilots (Robert Vaughn and David McCallum) who work for K.E.S.S.E.L., a secret interplanetary smuggling ring.
2009: Signed first edition of Mountains stolen from the Louvre in a broad-daylight robbery by criminal mathematical functions generated by the Forbidden Ratio gang.
2010: Computer scientist and physicist Maurice Wilkes dies. He pioneered several important developments in computing, including microcode, symbolic labels, macros, subroutine libraries, and timesharing.