1903 (MCMIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Wednesday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson ( /ˈtʃɑrlz ˈlʌtwɪdʒ ˈdɒdʒsən/ CHARLZ LUDT-wij DOJ-sən; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll (/ˈkærəl/ KARR-əl), was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky", all examples of the genre of literary nonsense. He is noted for his facility at word play, logic, and fantasy, and there are societies dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of his works and the investigation of his life in many parts of the world, including the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, and New Zealand.
Dodgson's family was predominantly northern English, with Irish connections. Conservative and High Church Anglican, most of Dodgson's ancestors were army officers or Church of England clergy. His great-grandfather, also named Charles Dodgson, had risen through the ranks of the church to become the Bishop of Elphin. His grandfather, another Charles, had been an army captain, killed in action in Ireland in 1803 when his two sons were hardly more than babies. His mother's name was Frances Jane Lutwidge.
The Wright brothers, Orville (August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948) and Wilbur (April 16, 1867 – May 30, 1912), were two Americans credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903. In the two years afterward, the brothers developed their flying machine into the first practical fixed-wing aircraft. Although not the first to build and fly experimental aircraft, the Wright brothers were the first to invent aircraft controls that made fixed-wing powered flight possible.
The brothers' fundamental breakthrough was their invention of three-axis control, which enabled the pilot to steer the aircraft effectively and to maintain its equilibrium. This method became standard and remains standard on fixed-wing aircraft of all kinds. From the beginning of their aeronautical work, the Wright brothers focused on developing a reliable method of pilot control as the key to solving "the flying problem". This approach differed significantly from other experimenters of the time who put more emphasis on developing powerful engines. Using a small homebuilt wind tunnel, the Wrights also collected more accurate data than any before, enabling them to design and build wings and propellers that were more efficient than any before. Their first U.S. patent, 821,393, did not claim invention of a flying machine, but rather, the invention of a system of aerodynamic control that manipulated a flying machine's surfaces.
Jerry Miculek is a speed shooter and competition shooting instructor. He is renowned as one of the fastest revolver shooters in the world, emptying a five-shot revolver in 0.57 seconds in a group the size of a playing card.[citation needed] Miculek currently holds five world records in exhibition revolver shooting.[citation needed] He is married to Kay Clark Miculek, herself an accomplished shooter, holding numerous national and world titles.
In addition, Miculek is an experienced gunsmith who tunes and adjusts his own revolvers for optimum function.
He is endorsed by Smith & Wesson, who created the S&W Model 625JM model in honor of him.
An avid shooter, Jerry holds numerous national and world shooting titles:[citation needed]
Miculek also demonstrated the ability to fire five shots from a revolver on target with a S&W Model 64 ported barrel revolver in 0.57 seconds on September 25, 2003. This nearly matches the record held by Ed McGivern of 0.45 sec (first shot on 9/13/1932, reproduced 4 times on 12/8/1932). Originally recorded as "two-fifths of a second", the resolution of the timing equipment in 1932 was only 1/20th of a second, so the actual figure could have been anywhere between 0.40 and 0.45 seconds.[citation needed]
Harry Edward Nilsson III (June 15, 1941 – January 15, 1994) was an American singer-songwriter who achieved the peak of his commercial success in the early 1970s. On all but his earliest recordings he is credited as Nilsson. He is known for the hit singles "Everybody's Talkin'" (1969), "Without You" (1971), and "Coconut" (1972). Nilsson's career is also notable for the fact that he was one of the few major pop-rock recording artists of his era to achieve significant commercial success without ever performing major public concerts or undertaking regular tours.
He was awarded Grammys for two of his recordings; best male contemporary vocal in 1969 for "Everybody's Talkin'", the theme song to the Academy Award-winning movie Midnight Cowboy, and best male pop vocal in 1972 for "Without You."
Nilsson was born in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, New York, in 1941. His paternal grandparents were Swedish circus performers and dancers, especially known for their "aerial ballet" (which is the title of one of Nilsson's albums). His father, Harry Edward Nilsson, Jr., abandoned the family when young Harry was three. An autobiographical reference to this is found in the opening to Nilsson's song "1941":