25 January 1627 - Robert Boyle born. 

Born in Ireland the seventh son and 14th child of the 1st Earl of Cork Boyle is regarded as the first modern chemist and physicist for his methodical studies and experiments in a variety of fields. Best known for Boyle's Law involving the volume and pressure of gases.  

26 January 1926 - The first public demonstration of television.

The Scottish electrical engineer John Logie Baird had been working on a means of transmitting moving pictures for two years when in his laboratory in Frith St, London in October 1925 he first transmitted an image of a dummy's head then a man he persuaded to sit for him. The following January he invited members of the Royal Institute to Frith St where he demonstrated his invention including an image of his business partner Oliver Hutchinson. 

A year later he transmitted images from London to Glasgow and in 1928 across the Atlantic to New York.

27 January 1851 - John James Audubon died.

French-American naturalist and artist born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (modern Haiti). He emigrated to the USA from France aged 18 where he developed an interest in wildlife, especially birds.

His skill as an artist enabled him to embark on the huge project of compiling and publishing a book illustrating all the birds of the Americas. However he was unable to find a publisher in the USA, so in 1826 he sailed to England where the following year the first volume of The Birds of America was published. It was another nine years before the project was complete. In the 1840s he began work on The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America and was still working on it when he died in New York aged 65.

28 January 1884 - Auguste Piccard born.

Swiss physicist and explorer who in 1931, along with a German companion, ascended in a hydrogen balloon to a then record height of 9.8 miles thus becoming the first to enter the stratosphere. 

In the 1950s he turned to deep sea diving descending with his son to a then record depth of just under two miles.

His son Jacques would later set a world record, still standing today, of a descent to just over two miles.

29 January 1886 - the first motor car patented.

Built in 1885 by German engineer Karl Benz at Mannheim his 600lb 954cc Benz Patent-Motorwagen was issued patent no DR 37435 140 years ago today. It is considered the forerunner of the modern motor vehicle. 

He gave the first public demonstration of his vehicle in July in Mannheim reaching a top speed of 10 mph. It is preserved today in a museum in Munich.

30 January 1826 - The Menai Suspension Bridge opened. 200 years ago today.

At the time the longest suspension bridge in the world. 1368 feet long and 98 feet high it connects north Wales to the island of Anglesey. Built by Thomas Telford construction took nearly seven years; it has seven arches, five in the water and originally had a wooden deck replaced by steel in the 1890s. In the 1930s the wrought iron chains were replaced by a new arrangement of steel ones. 

Telford was nicknamed The Collossus of Roads. Here is one of his famous structures, the LLangollen viaduct, which carries the Llangollen canal over the valley. As you can see in the picture on the right there is the canal with a narrowboat crossing. That fence you see on the right is a fairly new addition for when I crossed it some years back you could literally could step off the side of your barge and plummet to your death, with nothing to stop you. It was quite scary for those without a head for heights. Harrison Ford was partial to canal boat holidays and was seen at Llangollen on a few occasions. 

31 January 1858 - SS Great Eastern launched.

At the time by far the largest ship in the world, a record it held for 30 years.

Designed by I K Brunel and built by John Scott Russell & Co at the Millwall Iron Works on the river Thames for the Eastern Steam Navigation Co the Great Eastern was 692 ft long and displaced over 32,000 tons. She had both sails and steam engines and could carry 4000 passengers and crew. 

The first attempt to launch her in November 1857 failed with two workmen killed. The second attempt was successful. 

Her career as a passenger liner on the north Atlantic route was not a success proving unprofitable and unstable. From 1865 she served as a cable-laying vessel  laying cables across the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. 

Sold for scrap in 1888 she was broken up and her parts sold off.

Far advanced by the standards of the time the Great Eastern was a genuine marvel, but perhaps 30 years too early.  

1 February 1904 - CQD introduced as the recognized Morse distress signal for ships at sea.

With a growing number of ships equipped with wireless the Marconi Company decided in 1904 to introduce a standard Morse distress signal of CQD for all vessels equipped with its wireless sets. Previously a whole variety of messages had been used by ships in trouble at sea.

The new code however did not last long, within a few years it was replaced by SOS, but CQD continued to be used years later, including on the Titanic in 1912 whose wireless operator transmitted both CQD and SOS in the liner's final hours. 

You'll know more about this than me having learnt Morse Code. Apparently CQ was a general call sign to anyone listening and the D meant distress, therefore CQD. It was replaced with SOS around 1907, but continued to be used for years after in conjunction with SOS. 

2 February 1907 - Dmitri Mendeleev died.

Russian scientist who devised the periodic table of elements in 1869. The element Mendelevium is named in his honour.

An endlessly fascinating story. I watched a new documentary on the scanning of the whole disaster site in the minutest detail, every single item still on the ocean floor, quite something.

3 February 1468 - Johannes Gutenberg died.

German inventor of the printing press, one of the most important inventions in human history.

His first publication on his new invention was the bible printed in Mainz in 1455. 180 copies were produced of which 21 survive in their entirety with another 49 partially. 

I've only flown in a helicopter once, a Chinook in 2002.