On This Day (nonfiction)
February 24, 2025
1588: Physician and occultist Johann Weyer dies. Weyer criticized the Malleus Maleficarum and witch hunting by the Christian and Civil authorities; he declared that not only were examples of magic largely incredible, but that the crime of witchcraft was literally impossible, so that anyone who confessed to the crime was likely to be suffering some mental disturbance.
1709: Inventor and artist Jacques de Vaucanson born. Vaucanson created impressive and innovative automata; was the first man to design an automatic loom; and built the first all-metal lathe.
1755: Artist and social critic William Hogarth’s satirical print, "An Election Entertainment," is published. It contains a Tory sign bearing the inscription "Give us our eleven days." This refers to the fact that eleven dates were removed from the calendar when England converted to the Gregorian calendar on September 14, 1752.
1810: Chemist, physicist, and philosopher Henry Cavendish dies. He discovered "inflammable air", later named hydrogen.
1842: Osman Hamdi Bey dies. He was an administrator, intellectual, art expert, painter, and archaeologist.
2001: Mathematician, engineer, and information scientist Claude Shannon dies. He is known as "the father of information theory".
2020: Physicist and mathematician Katherine Johnson dies. Johnson computed orbital mechanics as a NASA employee which were critical to the success of the first and subsequent U.S. crewed spaceflights; she also helped pioneer the use of computers to perform these tasks.