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Discovery of Oxygen by Joseph Priestly
Society: ACSMain Category: ChemicalSub Category: Frontiers of KnowledgeEra: 1750-1799DateCreated: 1774Joseph Priestley HouseNorthumberlandState: PAZip: 17857Country: USAWebsite: Priestley, Joseph

When Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen in 1774, he answered age-old questions of why and how things burn. An Englishman by birth, Priestley was deeply involved in politics and religion, as well as science. When his vocal support for the American and French revolutions made remaining in his homeland dangerous, Priestley left England in 1794 and continued his work in America until his death. His library of some 1,600 volumes and his chemical laboratory, where he first isolated carbon monoxide, were probably the best in the country at that time.

Image Credit: Public Domain; Produced prior to 1/1/1923Image Caption: Joseph Priestley: Discoverer of OxygenEra_date_from: 1774
Eiffel Drop Test Machine and Wind Tunnel
Society: ASMEMain Category: MechanicalSub Category: Research and DevelopmentEra: 1900-1909DateCreated: 1903, 1912Auteuil LaboratoryParisZip: 75016Country: FranceWebsite: Eiffel, Gustave

Late in life, the renowned structural engineer Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923) embarked on aeronautical research. Reliable data and repeatable research methods were rare in the early 1900s, but Eiffel brought an engineer's discipline to the field. In the process, he produced the most accurate aeronautical data of the time, confirmed a long-held theory about fluid flow that had never been unequivocally proven, and established a laboratory that became a model for future practice.

Image Caption: Floor plan of Eiffel's 1912 laboratory at Auteuil, Paris, with two open-return wind tunnelsEra_date_from: 1903, 1912
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