Fernando de Magallanes(1480-1521)

FERNANDO DE MAGALLANES (1480-1521).

Best known for captaining the first European expedition across the Pacific Ocean. This was also the first successful attempt to circumnavigate the Earth, and the first to navigate the strait in South America connecting the Atlantic and Pacificic oceans.

Fernando de Magallanes, portuguese navigator and explorer, was born in Oporto into a noble family. He served from 1501 in expeditions to the East Indies under Francisco de Almeida and later under Alfonso de Alburquerque. However, while he was serving in Morocco, he was accused of financial irregularities, it made that he lost the favor of  king Manuel I. In that moment, he decides to go to Spain, where he presents to king Carlos I the plan that would give the ships of the Crown of Castilla full access to the lands of the Moluccas (Spice Islands), because he thought that the Moluccas were close to South America, and he wanted to find a westward route.

The main motive was economic, because Carlos I wanted to trade in the East Indies, but he did not know that the Moluccas were in Portuguese hands. In 1519 five ships ( San Antonio,Trinidad,Concepción,Victoria and Santiago) with about 265 men under  Magallanes´s command sailed from Sanlucar de Barrameda. Magallanes and his crew were the first Europeans to enter the Pacific through the Strait of Magallanes, which he discovered. Only three of the original five ships entere The Pacific on Nov.28 (1520), because two of them were lost, one by shipwreck, the other by mutiny. Magallanes reached Sebu in The Philipines in April 1521, where he became involved in a local war and was killed. Later, with the crew wasted from sickness, the survivors had to destroy the Concepción.

The Victoria, was commanded by Juan Sebastián del Cano, who continued n to the Moluccas, he picked up a small cargo of spices there, and then crossed the Indian Ocean, travelling around the Cape of Good Hope from the East.  Finally, with a reduced crew J.S. el Cano reached Sevilla on Sept. 1522, almost three years later they had departed.

The benefit economic that this project brought to Spain was  too small, although it was proved to be the greates of all the conquest undertaken by the gold, slaves , and spice-seeking overseas adventurers of early modern Europe. Furthermore, the geographical impact of the circumnavigation was enormous, not only by the new geographical data that it produced, but also by the irrefutable proof of the sphericity of the Earth, as well as the preponderance of water over continental masses on the Earth’s surface.

by Belen

Martin Cooper or the device that changed the world.

I’m going to talk you about a great engineer called Martin Cooper.

I saw the other posts and I read the tittle of one that is about the same “famous first”, but I’ll write about him because I think mobile phones are essentials for our daily life.

Martin Cooper invented the first mobile phone in 1973, and he made the first the first wireless call. I found this call very funny because he called  the other company that was investigating on  mobiles as well.

Weeks ago, Martin Cooper won the Principe de Asturias awards here in Oviedo and he went to Gijon to give a lecture to collegue stundents like me. I found it very interesting because he talked in a perfect English that I could understand and he explained lots of things he has done, like a patch that lets you know for certain diseases.

Talking about numbers, he said that in Spain there are 52.000.000 of mobile phones , approximately more than 8 million inhabitants, so there are people who has more than one phone-

You can imagine how difficult it would be our life without mobiles, so I think Martin Cooper will be my idol for a long time.

by Ruben

AN ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERY

Fleming’s accidental discovery and isolation of penicillin in September 1928 marks the start of modern antibiotic. His discovery of penicillin had changed the world of modern medicine by introducing the age of useful antibiotics; penicillin has saved, and is still saving, millions of people around the world.

Sir Alexander Fleming was born at Lochfield near Darvel in Ayrshire, Scotland on August 6^th, 1881. After having attended London Moor School, Darvel School and Kilmarmock Academy, he moved to London where he attended the Polytechnic. He spent four years in a shopping office and then he entered St. Mary`s Medical School, London University, where he qualified with distinction in 1906.

Early in his medical life, Fleming became interested in the natural bacterial action of the blood and in antiseptics. He settled to work on antibacterial substances which would not be toxic to animal tissues. In 1921, he discovered an important bacteriolytic substance which he named Lysozyme. By 1928 Fleming was investigating the properties of staphyllococci. He had a reputation as a brilliant researcher, but his laboratory was often untidy. On 3 September 1928, Fleming returned to his laboratory having spent August on vacation with his family. Before leaving he had stacked all his cultures of staphyllococci on a bench in a corner of his laboratory. On returning, Fleming noticed that one culture was contaminated with a fungus, and that the colonies of staphyllococci that had immediately surrounded it had been destroyed, whereas other colonies further away were normal. Fleming identified the mould that had contaminated his culture plates as being from the Penicillium genus, and named the substance it released Penicillin on 7 March 1929.

“When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer” Fleming said later “But I guess that was exactly what I did.”  Modern antibiotics are tested using a method similar to Fleming’s discovery.

by Manuel

WHO FIRST RECORDED A ROCK AND ROLL?

FAMOUS FIRSTS: WHO FIRST RECORDED A ROCK AND ROLL SONG?

From more than fifty years, the question “Which is the first rock and roll song?” is one of the most arguable subjects.

It was commonly assumed that Bill Haley and his band, The Comets, recorded the first rock and roll in 1954. The song’s title was “Rock around the clock”. Nevertheless, that’s no true.

Certainly, “Rock around the clock” was the first rock and roll which reached the number one spot on the American charts and it was called first “rock and roll” on the radio. In addition, Bill Haley was a white man and, from my view, people at that time prefered him to go down in the History to a black man.

Nowadays, “Rocket 88” is widely claimed to be the first. This song was recorded in 1951 by the saxophonist Jackie Breston and Tina Turner’s former husband, Ike Turner.

Alternatively, others believed that the talented pianist Fat Domino was the first person who succeeded in rock and roll music. In fact, in 1949 his song “The Fat Man” sold over a million copies. In spite of the fact that this song might be considered pure Rhythm and Blues, Fat Domino said in the fifties: “what you people call now rock n’ roll, I have been playing in New Orleans for the past fifteen years”

To conclude, it is obvious that rock and roll roots stem from the first decades of the 20^th century, when some people in the South of USA decided to put Country and Western together with Rhythm and Blues. As a result, the new musical genre was born in the middle of the last century to become the most influental and widespread kind of music.

For this reason, I’m afraid the question “Which is the first rock and roll song?” hasn’t got an answer.

However, I wanted to let you know three great songs. I recommend you to listen to them on You Tube.

Rock Around The Clock

Rocket 88

The Fat Man

By Conchi

Two firsts for Halle Berry

Halle Maria Berry,was born in Ohio (United States) in 1966. She is a model and a famous actress for cinema and television.Halle Berry is the first African American to win an Oscar for the best actress by her performance in “Monster´s Ball” and she has won another thirty one awards and forty seven nominations.

Also,she was the first African American to represent the United States in the Miss World Competition where she achieved the second position,Halle has been named at least seven times in People magazine´s list of the fifty most beautiful people on the world,however she has also received a lot of praises for her acting skills.She and Kim Basinger have the distinction of being the only “Bond girls” ever to win an Oscar.

Halle Berry lived her babyhood in a tough inner city where she had to deal with racism because she attended an all white public school,his father is an African American who worked as a former hospital assitant and her Caucasian mother is a retired psychiatric nurse.When Halle was four,her parents divorced then she was education by her mother.Halle  has said in some occasion that she has been estranged for her father since her childhood.

By Maria

Larra, the first Spanish journalist

Larra was an excellent street observer. He used the nickname “Fígaro” to publish his articles in some short-lived satirical newspapers made entirely by him.

Larra was a Spanish writer from nineteenth-century, who especially contributed to the knowledge of the Spanish culture, values, feelings, believes, prejudices and the national character with his significant articles. While some conservative writers limited their social and cultural comments to costumbrist prose, Larra put forward a different point of view without moral message. He thought about the human condition and saw the success of social progress in the colective efforts of all persons. Already in this period, this author associated the development of Spain with its integration in political and business life of Europe, when the journalism like it’s today did’nt exist. But he criticized the dependance of the Spaniards on foreign models (basically French model). So he provided an alternative view of spanish society and culture to change for the better, by means of the humor, the self-criticism and the positive critique of his articles.

To sum up, with these fundamental ideas, a joung Larra showed several social complaints, a view of social progress very modern and he achieved to reflect the Spanish reality of his time.

By Inma

“Saving lives by accident”

Many social advances have been discovered by accident, showing the great observation and intuition researchers’ capacity. For instance, penicillin has saved millions of lives since 1928, which had importance a drastic change to the modern medicine, starting “Antibiotic’s Era”.

Alexander Fleming, who used to be interested in new treatments for the diseases, was a famous scientific for discovering the antimicrobial protein called lysozyme, and also, penicillin antibiotic from Penicillium chrysogenum.

In due time, while he was working in his laboratory, a mucus, coming from a sneeze, fell down on a Petri plate where it was growing up a germ culture. Few days later, he noticed that germs had been destroyed around the place where the nose fluid had been settled, the lysozyme’s discover.

Fortunately, Fleming’s laboratory was regularly disordered, which turned out an advantage for the next achievement. He was expanding some experiments, when supervising the cultures, a mushroom colony had grown up spontaneously on a Staphylococcus aureus plate. Also, the colinies around the mushroom were transparent due to a germ lysis. Penicillium is a mushroom which produces a natural substance with antimicrobial effects, the penicillin, causing germs’ death.

Science community believed that penicillin would have been helpful to take care of trivial diseases; for it, they did not gave it attention. Finally, Fleming did not register patents thinking that it would make easy its spreading to take care of the several infections which beat population in those years.

On 1945, Fleming won the Medicine Nobel with Boris Chain and Walter Florey. He did a double contribution finding a chemical molecule (penicillin) and a protein (lysozyme) with antimicrobial activity. By that reason, it is considered like the first on discovered a antimicrobial protein.

By Reina

Bankbusiness seeing by a woman

Maggie Lena Walker was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1864 and was the first woman in the United States to become a president of a local bank and also was a successful businesswoman. She was always near woman’s rights , civic affairs and African-American problems, achieving real improvements for African-Americans and women, in spite of her family and health problems.

After the  death of her father when she was a child, she could manage to help her mother´s  laundry business and attend classes. When she was fourteen, she joined the Grand United Order of St. Luke, and African-American cooperative insurance society founded by a former slave (she was the daughter of former slaves too). The order was in debt, but implementing successful programs and joining new people with her speaking ability to the order, she reached the leadership position in it.

In 1903 she opened the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank and became its president. The bank’s goal was to facilitate loans to the community. In 1930, the Bank merged with two other black-owned banks in Richmond to become the Consolidated Bank and Trust Company. It continues today being the oldest minority owned-bank in the United States.

She was also an active member of different associations all related with colored people.Her energy and ability for public relations made people with less opportunities were helped by a bank managed from a woman’s point of view.

by Carmen