On this day
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THAT old phrase about the motion picture giving a window onto the world has had more than usual demonstration in the crop of recent films. The range of geographical inspection has been from Texas to Tibet in the dozen or so varied items that have come along in the past two weeks.
by Forrest
Stockholders of the $38,000,000 Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway Company at the annual meeting on May 11 will vote for one of two propositions:
Home air-conditioning this year should be a bigger business than ever. Best estimates indicate that about $2,500,000,000 worth of room and year-round air-conditioning equipment will be sold.
The heads of the country's two largest steel companies -- Benjamin F. Fairless of United States Steel and Eugene G. Grace of Bethlehem -- are expected to provide arresting news in the business world this week.
1954Melvin Burgess, English author[†]
Melvin Burgess is a British writer of children's fiction. He became famous in 1996 with the publication of Junk, about heroin-addicted teenagers on the streets of Bristol. In Britain, Junk became one of the best-known young adult books of the decade. Burgess won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British author. For the 10th anniversary in 2007 it was named one of the top ten Medal-winning works, selected by a panel to compose the ballot for a public election of the all-time favourite.
1954Randy Cross, American football player and sportscaster[†]
Randall Laureat Cross is an American football analyst and former player. He played as a guard and center in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the UCLA Bruins and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2011.
1954Róisín Shortall, Irish educator and politician[†]
Róisín Shortall is an Irish former Social Democrats politician who served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin North-West constituency from 1992 to 2024. She was previously founding joint leader of the Social Democrats from 2015 to 2023 and served as Minister of State for Primary Care from 2011 to 2012.
1954The first practical solar cell is publicly demonstrated by Bell Telephone Laboratories.[†]
A solar cell, also known as a photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by means of the photovoltaic effect. It is a type of photoelectric cell, a device whose electrical characteristics vary when it is exposed to light. Individual solar cell devices are often the electrical building blocks of photovoltaic modules, known colloquially as "solar panels". Almost all commercial PV cells consist of crystalline silicon, with a market share of 95%. Cadmium telluride thin-film solar cells account for the remainder. The common single-junction silicon solar cell can produce a maximum open-circuit voltage of approximately 0.5 to 0.6 volts.
In 1954, the world population was approximately 2,685,894,860 people[†]