The Sixties: Science, Technology & Health

Source: Wiki Commons
Norman Borlaug (1914 - 2009) created a Green Revolution, beginning in the 1940s. By the 1960s, his agricultural revolution fed millions that would otherwise have starved.

• 1959. Boeing 707, the first long haul commercial jet airliner.
• 1960. Jacques Piccard & Don Walsh become the first humans to reach Challenger Deep, the ocean's deepest known point.
• 1960. Harry Hess develops theory of seafloor spreading.
• 1960. Laser beam first operated in US.
• 1960. Modern form of the metric system officially adopted.
• 1961. First industrial robot used in car construction at GM plant.
• 1962. Pilkington Compqny begins to make glass in sheets.
• 1962. Twin rotor helicopters introduced.
• 1963. Edward Lorenz coins the term "butterfly effect."
• 1964. Japanese begins Bullet Train service.
• 1964. IBM introduces first desktop computer, the IBM System/360.
• 1965. JOSS ( JOHNNIAC Open Shop System) introduces one of the very first interactive, time-sharing programming languages.
• 1965. First email sent from one computer to another.
• 1965. First  computer mouse tested.
• 1965. Stephanie Kwolek invents Kevlar.
• 1966. Harrier Jump Jet takes flight.
• 1966. Shakey, first artificial intelligence robot.
• 1967. First video game console developed.
• 1968. Feynman develops theory of partons.
• 1968. Intel Corporation founded.
• 1968, Soviet airliner Tupolev Tu-144 makes first supersonic flight.
• 1969. First ATM installed.
• 1969. Laser printer invented.
• 1969. Union of Concerned Scientists formed.
• 1969. ARPANET network links four computers, a forerunner of the Internet.
• 1970. Computer floppy discs introduced.
• 1970. First digital wristwatches with LED screens mass produced.
• 1970. NOAA (The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) founded.
• 1971. First commercial microprocessor goes on sale.
• 1971. Twin Towers in NYC completed.
• 1973. First handheld mobile phone call.

• Betsy Ancker-Johnson, physicist
• Jocelyn Bell Burnell, astrophysicist
• Norman Borlaug, agricultural scientist
• Rachel Carson, environmental scientist
• Richard Feynman, theoretical physicist.
• Andy Grove, engineer
• Harry Hess, geologist
• Grace Hopper, computer scientist
• Leonard Kleinrock, computer scientist
• Jack Kilby, engineer
• Stephanie Kwolek, chemist.
• Edward Lorenz, mathematician
• Theodor Maiman, engineer and physicist
• Gordon Moore, engneer
• Robert Noyce, physicist
• Frank Piasecki, aviation pioneer
• Vera Rubin, astronomer
• Marie Tharp, oceanographic cartographer

Tank respirator ("iron lung") used at Union Hospital, Terre Haute, Indiana, from 1953 - c. 1973. Indiana State Museum, 650 West Washington Street, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.​

At one time, polio was one of the most feared health challenges in the United States. It was a devastating disease. The disease caused paralysis, and even death, in its victims. President Franklin D. Roosevelt became one of those victims in the 1920s and couldn't walk for the rest of his life. Some of the victims couldn't breathe without the help of an iron lung. In the early 1950s, "polio outbreaks caused more than 15,000 cases of paralysis each year in the United States," according to the Center for Disease Control. Finally, in 1955, a vaccine through inoculation, developed by Jonas Salk, was licensed for release to the general public. An oral vaccination by Albert Sabin came in 1962. These vaccines eliminated the polio virus from the United States, making it one of the most successful health campaigns of the 20th century.

• 1951. Rosalind Franklin photographed DNA fibers for the first time.
• 1953. Jonas Salk develops first polio vaccine.
• 1953. James Watson and Francis Crick publish evidence of the double helix structure of DNA.
• 1960. Albert Sabin's oral polio vaccine introduced in the United States.
• 1960. The FDA approved the birth control pill.
• 1962. The drug thalidomide, which caused birth defects, prevented from entering the United States
• 1964. US Surgeon General's Report on the dangers of cigarettes.
• 1963. First blood transfusion given to unborn child, New Zealand.
• 1964. Fiberscope invented to photograph inside the human body.
• 1965. Judith Graham Pool discovers Factor VIII, the clotting factor in human blood.
• 1965. Battery powered defibrillator introduced.
• 1965. Scanning Electron Microscope produces 3D detailed images of crime scene samples.
• 1965. Leonard Hayflick: abnormal cells can keep dividing, causing cancerous tumors.
• 1965. Medicare became law.
• 1967. Kornberg, Goulian and Sinsheimer synthesize DNA molecule.
• 1967. First successful human heart transplant.
• 1968. First amniocentesis.
• 1968. Outbreak of flu pandemic in Hong Kong.
• 1968. Human embryo fertilized in test tube first time.
• 1969. First artificial heart transplant.
• 1969. Dorothy Hodgkin determines the structure of insulin.
• 1970. Congress bans cigarette ads from television and radio.
• 1971. First CT Scan.

• Christiaan Barnard, surgeon
• Francis Crick, molecular biologist, biophysicist and neuroscientist
• Min Chueh Chang, biologist
• Robert Edwards, reproductive medicine pioneer
• Rosalind Franklin, chemist
• Mehran Goulian, researcher
• Leonard Hayflick, researcher
• Rosalind Franklin, chemist and X-ray crystallographer
• Dorothy Hodgkin, chemist
• Arthur Kornberg, molecular biologist
• Frank Pantridge, inventor
• Gregory Pincus, biologist
• Judith Graham Pool, scientist
• Albert Sabin, physician and microbiologist
• Jonas Salk, physician and medical researcher
• Robert L. Sinsheimer, researcher
• James Watson, molecular biologist and geneticist
• Maurice Wilkins, physicist and molecular biologist