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After Joachim Neumann, a civil engineering student, escaped East Berlin by pretending to be a Swiss tourist, he spent the next five months digging a tunnel from West to East Berlin. He ultimately helped his girlfriend and 57 other people escape.

That dewd was determined & persistant and accomplished a hell of a feat - he gets a Yuengling

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: 

Anthracite Coal First Burned as Residential Heating Fuel (1808)
Anthracite is a compact variety of coal that was first burned as a residential heating fuel in the US by Judge Jesse Fell in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. It differs from wood in that it needs a draft from below. By burning it on an open grate in a fireplace, Fell proved that it could be a viable heating fuel. Fell's experiment took place 18 years after anthracite coal was said to have been discovered in Pennsylvania by hunter Necho Allen.

5 of history's strangest scientific theories - Big Think
5 of history's strangest scientific theories - Big Think

Some humans will believe rather strange things at times, including today.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: 

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Founded (1909)
The oldest and largest US civil rights organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was formed as a result of the 1908 race riots in Springfield, Illinois. In 1939, it organized the Legal Defense and Education Fund as its legal arm, which sued for school desegregation in Brown v. Board of Education. During World War II, it pressed for desegregation of the armed forces, which was achieved in 1948.

Some of you may find this interesting... @utee94 especially as a fellow gEEk. 


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF8d72mA41M

Cliff notes please?

The blue LED was a holy grail of electronics but was an AMAZINGLY difficult nut to crack. A Japanese engineer who was working for a Japanese company whose semiconductor business was mostly failing convinced the company president to let him work on it. He started doing so, and slowly chipping away at the big unsolved problems with the blue LED. The president retired and his son took over and kept threatening the engineer to stop work on it, which he ignored. Eventually he solved all the problems--largely following the paths that most in the industry thought were the least possible paths of development, and the rest is history. 

Sort of a story of one man's dogged pursuit of something and succeeding against nearly all odds or expectations. 

Yup, not sure if y'all remember, but red LEDs were by far the most common for indicator lights on electronics panels, for household calculators, and the original digital wristwatches.

I'd heard that story about the blue LED saga but it's been years.