picture of the day

https://ift.tt/3h3QUQn

New Rochelle 250th Anniversary half dollar

New Rochelle 250th Anniversary half dollar.
The New Rochelle 250th Anniversary half dollar is a fifty-cent piece struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1937 as a commemorative coin to mark the 250th anniversary of the settling of New Rochelle in Westchester County, New York. The coin's obverse (pictured) depicts a fatted calf being led by John Pell, who sold the land on which New Rochelle now stands; a "fatt calfe" was to be presented to him annually on June 24 if he asked for it, lest New Rochelle's land be forfeited back to him. The other side shows a fleur-de-lis, an element of the city seal of New Rochelle and of France's La Rochelle, its eponym. The piece is dated 1938 but was minted the previous year. Artist Gertrude K. Lathrop designed the coin; she was hired based on her work on the 1936 Albany Charter half dollar. New Rochelle's coin committee sold the half dollar for $2.00 both locally and by mail order, sending them to all 48 states and internationally, distributing them during 1937 and early 1938. Lathrop's work has been both praised and criticized by numismatic commentators.

picture of the day

https://ift.tt/3vSjABk

Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog.
Sonic the Hedgehog is a Japanese video game series and media franchise created and owned by Sega. The franchise follows Sonic, an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog who battles Doctor Eggman, a mad scientist. In addition to video games, Sonic incorporates printed media, animations, a 2020 feature film, and merchandise. The first Sonic game, released for the Sega Genesis on June 23, 1991, was developed after Sega requested a mascot character to compete with Nintendo's mascot Mario. Sonic's success helped Sega become one of the leading video game companies during the fourth generation of video game consoles in the early 1990s. When Sega exited the console market and shifted to third-party development in 2001, it continued the series on Nintendo, Xbox, and PlayStation systems. Sonic the Hedgehog is Sega's flagship franchise and one of the bestselling video game franchises, having sold more than 140 million copies by 2016. Several Sonic games have been listed among the greatest of all time. Although later games, notably the 2006 series reboot, have been criticized for a perceived decline in quality, Sonic is influential in the video game industry and is frequently referenced in popular culture.

picture of the day

https://ift.tt/3d7ld7I

Discovery of nuclear fission

Discovery of nuclear fission.
Nuclear fission was discovered in December 1938 by physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch, and chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann. Fission is a nuclear reaction and process of radioactive decay in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller, lighter nuclei. The fission process releases a very large amount of energy. The discovery that a nuclear chain reaction was possible led to the development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Hahn and Strassmann bombarded uranium with slow neutrons, and discovered that barium had been produced (illustration pictured). Meitner and her nephew Frisch theorised, and then proved, that the uranium nucleus had been split, and published their findings in Nature. Meitner calculated that the energy released by each disintegration was approximately 200 megaelectronvolts, and Frisch observed this. By analogy with the division of biological cells, Frisch named the process "fission". Hahn was awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery.

picture of the day

https://ift.tt/3wOHcI6