On This Day
1888 – The Convention of Constantinople is signed, guaranteeing free maritime passage through the Suez Canal during war and peace.
The Convention of Constantinople[3][4] is a treaty concerning the use of the Suez Canal in Egypt. It was signed on 29 October 1888 by the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, the Russian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. The Khedivate of Egypt, through whose territory the Canal ran, and to whom all shares in the Suez Canal Company were due to revert when the company’s 99 year lease to manage the Canal expired, was not invited to participate in the negotiations, and did not sign the treaty.
The signatories comprised all the great European powers of the era, and the treaty was interpreted as a guaranteed right of passage of all ships through the Suez Canal during war and peace. During the 74 years of the United Kingdom’s military presence in Egypt, from 1882 to 1956, the British government was in effective control of the Canal. In 1956, the Egyptian government nationalised the Suez Canal Company. Future wars between Egypt and the State of Israel would see the Canal blocked and unusable for extended periods of time.
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Born On This Day
1711 – Laura Bassi, Italian physicist and academic, first woman to have doctorate in science (d. 1778)[12]
Laura Maria Caterina Bassi Veratti (29 October 1711 – 20 February 1778) was an Italian physicist and academic. Recognized and depicted as “Minerva” (goddess of wisdom), she was the first woman to have a doctorate in science, and the second woman in the world to earn the Doctor of Philosophy degree.[1][2] Working at the University of Bologna, she was also the first salaried female teacher in a university. At one time the highest paid employee of the university, by the end of her life Bassi held two other professorships.[3] She was also the first female member of any scientific establishment, when she was elected to the Academy of Sciences of the Institute of Bologna in 1732 at 21.
Bassi had no formal education and was privately tutored from age five until she was twenty. By then she was well versed in major disciplines including sciences and mathematics. Noticing her ability, Prospero Lambertini, the Archbishop of Bologna (later Pope Benedict XIV), became her patron. With Lambertini’s arrangement she publicly defended forty-nine theses before professors of the University of Bologna on 17 April 1732, for which she was awarded a doctoral degree on 12 May. A month later, she was appointed by the university as its first female teacher, albeit with the restriction that she was not allowed to teach all-male classes. Lambertini, by then the Pope, helped her to receive permissions for private classes and experiments, which were granted by the university in 1740.
Bassi became the most important populariser of Newtonian mechanics in Italy.[1] She was inducted by the Pope to the Benedettini (similar to modern Pontifical Academy of Sciences) as an additional member in 1745. She took up the Chair of Experimental Physics in 1776, the position she held until her death. She is interred at the Church of Corpus Domini, Bologna.
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FYI
Recipes
RecipeTinEats
- Spinach ricotta stuffed shells March 20, 2023There’s no need to pre-cook shells before you stuff them. Such a pain messing around with hot floppy shells! Just bake in loads of sauce and they’ll cook in the oven. These jumbo shells, called conchiglioni in Italian, are stuffed with spinach and ricotta. Serve with a Mega Italian Salad and garlic bread for the... […]Nagi
- Raspberry Jam Oat Bars March 16, 2023The charm of a crumble pie but in convenient hand-held form, Raspberry Jam Oat Bars have a buttery oatmeal biscuit base, a layer of jam, then topped with a crumble. Love how the same mixture is used for the base and crumbly topping. Handy – and fast to make! Easy raspberry jam oat bars These... […]Nagi
wikimedia
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for March 21 March 21, 2023Picture of the day Common blackbird (Turdus merula) chicks 2 days old.
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for March 20 March 20, 2023Picture of the day triumphal cross - St. Nikolai church - Kiel, Germany
AV Club Wiki Wormhole
- Grace Caroline Currey has conflicting feelings on robot love March 21, 2023Read more...Peter Scobel
- How I Met Your Father is coming to regular television March 21, 2023In a move that’s vaguely reminiscent of when Netflix’s One Day At A Time reboot moved to Pop TV, Hulu’s How I Met Your Father—which is also a reboot of an existing sitcom, though How I Met Your Mother is a lot more recent than the original One Day At A Time was—is going to […]Sam Barsanti
- The Bachelor drops a White Lotus homage during “Sex Week” March 21, 2023It finally happened. This season of The Bachelor has been flirting with greatness since the beginning, but this week really delivered. It’s fantasy suites week, or “Sex Week,” as Zach calls it, because he’s really a 13-year-old boy in a man’s body. Of course, this man tries to do “the right thing” by saying sex […]Lauren Chval
- Perry Mason is right where he should be: with the odds stacked against him March 21, 2023Three episodes into Perry Mason, that somewhat weak season opener now feels like the right move. Clearing the table from the last season, season two took what served it and moved on. I was pretty skeptical when I saw that the titles of each episode were “chapters,” a pet peeve of mine, namely because, in […]Matt Schimkowitz
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