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Events on Saturday 18 May 1889 2
1889 – 1944Thomas Midgley JrTwo solutions, two disastersThomas Midgley solved two real engineering problems brilliantly. Engine knock was limiting compression ratios, so he found tetraethyl lead. Refrigerators were poisoning families with ammonia and methyl chloride, so he found Freon. Both worked perfectly, and between them they put lead into the bloodstream of most of the twentieth century and opened a hole in the ozone layer. The historian J. R. McNeill wrote that he had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in the planet's history. He held over a hundred patents and won every major prize American chemistry could give him.
1889Thomas Midgley Jr born in Beaver Falls, PennsylvaniaThe son of an inventorThomas Midgley Jr is born into a family of inventors — his father held tyre patents, his maternal grandfather invented an inserted-tooth saw. He grows up in Columbus, Ohio. As a schoolboy he works out that rubbing elm bark on a baseball makes it curve more sharply, which turns out to be a fair preview of his entire method.