Timeline February 1897

Events in February 1897 5

• 1815 – 1897 Karl Weierstrass (1815-1897) Died 19 February 1897, aged 81 Karl Weierstrass was a German mathematician known as the father of modern analysis for his rigorous formulation of calculus and continuous functions. He taught at the University of Berlin and mentored a generation of mathematicians including Sofia Kovalevskaya. He died in Berlin on 19 February 1897.
• 1897 The first working diesel at Augsburg Twenty-six per cent efficient After four years of explosions and near-fatal failures at the MAN works in Augsburg, Diesel demonstrates an engine achieving around twenty-six per cent efficiency at a time when steam engines manage ten. It weighs five tonnes and produces twenty horsepower. Diesel becomes a millionaire, then loses most of it, then disappears over the side of a cross-Channel ferry in 1913.
• 1897 – 1992 Judith Anderson (1897-1992) Australian-born actress of stage and film, famous as Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca and as Medea on Broadway.
• 1897 Judith Anderson born in Adelaide Judith Anderson is born in Adelaide.
• 1897 – 1993 Marian Anderson (1897-1993) Died 8 April 1993, aged 96 Marian Anderson was an American contralto whose 1939 open-air concert at the Lincoln Memorial, arranged after she was barred from a segregated concert hall, became a landmark moment in the civil rights movement. She later became the first African American to perform as a member of the Metropolitan Opera. She died in Portland, Oregon.