The Great Geek Manual

1684
Giovanni Domenico Cassini discovers Tethys and Dione, two moons of Saturn with a refractor telescope.

1859
The first Zoological Society is incorporated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Following the disruption of the Civil War, the society will establish the country’s first Zoo.

1925
Wolfgang Pauli publishes his “exclusion principle” at the young age of twenty-four, in an article in the journal Zeitschrift für Physik. The Pauli exclusion principle states that two fermions, such as electrons, cannot be in the same quantum state at the same time. In 1945, Pauli will be awarded a Nobel Prize for this fundamental contribution to the science of quantum mechanics.

1928
Charles Lindbergh is awarded the Medal of Honor for his first trans-Atlantic flight. Read more about Charles Lindbergh.

1942
Arthur C. Wahl and Glenn Seaborg submit a secret report suggesting the name “Plutonium” for artificial element 94, since it follows Uranium (element 92) and Neptunium (element 93) in the periodic table of elements. The paper will be remain secret until 1948, following World War II, when it will be published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
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Film

• It’s official: Linda Hamilton has a voice over in Terminator Salvation.
• Early reviews of Tales of the Black Freighter (from Watchmen) are in from Ain’t it Cool, IGN, UGO. The response is lukewarm at best.
• SFX has an interview with Alex Proyas, director of Knowing

Internet

• io9 covers the somewhat bizarre United Nations “summit” in which BSG actors took part in the article “The Night Battlestar Galactica Took Over The U.N.” (otherwise titled FEDERATION: UR DOIN IT WRONG. Those interested in the fine details can download audio and video from the U.N. website.

Literature

• Free Fiction: Download the pulp classic, “Deathworld” by Harry Harrison at ManyBooks.net.
• Free Fiction: Read the Shakespearean tale “We Haven’t Got There Yet” by Harry Turtledove at Tor.com.
• Free Fiction: Read “Trophy Wives” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman at the Penguin Group’s website.
• The BBC takes a look at How sci-fi moves with the times and asks “Can science fiction keep up with modern science?”
• The Guardian reflects upon The eternal allure of good v evil in children’s literature.
• Over at Ireland’s Independent, Kevin Myers questions the need for libraries in the modern day.

Television

• In preparation for tonight’s series finale, io9 rounds up the questions that need to be answered for BattleStar Galactica to make any fraking sense whatsoever. There are probably more than twelve plot holes in this series when you start to think about it, but io9 hits all the high points, like “What, exactly, is this ‘plan’ that the Cylons have?”
• Joss Whedon gives yet another interview that sounds more like an apology on the topic of Doll House. The best is yet to come, not what I originally planned, etc., etc. …

This morning, I watched the video clip accompanying an ABC News story entitled “Mexico Drug War Hangs Over ‘Spring Break’“. The story covers the dangers of spring break now that a drug war is being waged across Mexico so near its popular Spring Break hot spots like Cancun.

…the things is, every since I saw the video, all I can think of is what an AWESOME video game that would make. Just think of it: A first-person shoot that casts players in the role of a camo-wearing, M-16-toting Mexican federale trying to root drug dealers out of the Cancun resort strip, avoiding ambushes, and doing your best not to kill the scantily-clad spring break chicks and other assorted drunken by-standers mobbing the beaches. It would kind of be a hybrid of Call of Duty and The Guy Game.

Yeah, I’m probably a horrible person for thinking how much fun the carnage of a Spring Break massacre would be… but who are you to judge? You be right in the middle of that line wrapped around Best Buy on release night if it were a real game.

I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life
as badly as Victorians misrepresented life by leaving out sex.

- A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut, 2005

1800
In a letter, Alessandro Volta announces his invention of the voltaic pile, the earliest battery, to Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society in London, England.

1886
An alternating-current (AC) electrical system is demonstrated by lighting Main Street in Great Barrington, Massachusetts with electricity generated by the power planet of George Westinghouse.

1900
Nikola Tesla receives a patent for the wireless transmission of electric power. (US No. 645,576) View the patent online.

1916
Albert Einstein publishes an academic paper on his Theory of General Relativity entitled “Die Grundlagen der allgemeinen Relativitästheorie” in the journal Annalen der Physik. Einstein’s theory accounts for the slow rotation of the elliptical orbit of Mercury, which Newtonian gravitational theory failed to explain.

1934
The first practical radar system is tested by Rudolf Kuhnold, Chief of the German Navy Signals Research Department, in Kiel Harbour, Germany. The systems uses a 700-watt transmitter on a frequency of 600 megacycles. During the test, the system successfully receives echoes off the battleship Hesse, 600 yards away. Read more about the history of the Radar.
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Honor your family, fight the rain, scare the crap out of passers-by in fair weather, and stay dry in fowl weather with this sleek black nylon umbrella sporting a katana handle. Recommended for anime fans of all types. Price: US$30.00

Source: Uncommon Goods

1474
The Republic of Venice passes the Venetian Patent Statute, the first patent law of its kind in the world. It declares that “each person who will make in this city any new and ingenious contrivance, not made heretofore in our dominion, as soon as it is reduced to perfection… It being forbidden to any other in any territory and place of ours to make any other contrivance in the form and resemblance thereof, without the consent and licence of the author up to ten years.” The law is intended to stimulate the economy by attracting inventors to Venice.

1800
Alexander von Humoldt and Aimé Bonpland capture the first specimen of Electric eels (Electrophorus electricus) during a five-year expedition through the jungles of South America. Humboldt will later write about his discovery in an article entitled, “Observation on the Electric Eel of the New World” in 1808.

1831
The City Bank of New York becomes the site of the first bank robbery in United States history. Approximately US$245,000 is stolen and only a small portion of the money will ever be recovered.

1915
The planet Pluto is photographed for the first time, though it isn’t recognized as a planet.

1921
The silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, directed by Robert Wiene, is released to US theaters. The film will strongly influence many future directors, most notably Tim Burton. The film tells the story of the mysterious Dr. Caligari, a hypnotist, his faithful sleepwalking Cesare, and their connection to a string of murders in the German mountain village of Holstenwall. Read more about The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. IMDB listing Running Time: 1 hr 12 min
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The faculty of art is to change events; the faculty of science is to foresee them.
The phenomena with which we deal are controlled by art; they are predicted by science.

- Henry Thomas Buckle
“The Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge,” a discourse delivered at the Royal Institution, March 19, 1858.