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October 19 – Happy Birthday, Marguerite Perey!

Posted October 19, 2020

Today’s famous birthday was a French physicist, a student of Marie Curie, and the first woman elected to the French Académie des Sciences. 


(If you can believe it, Curie never was!!!)

One of Perey’s biggest accomplishments was discovering the element francium. You may have guessed that the name, francium, was chosen because the element was discovered in France.
 


Francium (symbol Fr, atomic number 87) is really unstable, highly radioactive. Its half-life is just 22 minutes. That means that it only takes 22 minutes for half of a clump of pure francium to break down into astatine, radium, and/or radon (depending on the isotope – the number of neutrons – in the francium).

Also on this date:


Samora Machel Day in Mozambique 


Constitution Day in Niue



Bettara-Ichi – Pickle Fair in Tokyo 



Anniversary of a Venus Fly-by









Mountaineer Annie Smith Peck’s birthday





Wear It Pink Day in the U.K.





Anniversary of Heidelberg University’s first lecture






Plan ahead:



Check out my Pinterest boards for:

And here are my Pinterest boards for:


  • November holidays
  • November birthdays
  • Historical anniversaries in November

See also  April 9 – Happy Birthday, Eadweard Muybridge
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