Open Database Connectivity. In computing, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard application programming interface (API) for accessing database management systems (DBMS). The designers of ODBC aimed to make it independent of database systems and operating systems.
The death toll from a yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia hits 100 on this day in 1793. By the time it ended, 5,000 people were dead. Yellow fever, or American plague as it was known at the time, is a viral disease that begins with fever and muscle pain.
It is thought that the disease originated in Africa and spread to the Americas in the 17th and 18th centuries through trading ships. The flavivirus that causes yellow fever was first identified in 1928 and the first vaccine against the disease was produced at the Rockefeller Institute in New York in 1937.