FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

Hymen L. Lipman (March 20, 1817 – November 4, 1893) is credited with registering the first patent for a pencil with an attached eraser on March 30, 1858 (U.S. Patent 19,783).

Hymen L. Lipman was born March 20, 1817, in Kingston, Jamaica, to English parents. He immigrated to the United States around 1829 with them, arriving in Philadelphia, PA, where he resided for the remainder of his life.

In 1840, Lipman succeeded Samuel M. Stewart, then the leading stationer in Philadelphia. Three years later, he started the first envelope company in the U.S.

In August 7, 1848, he was married to Mary A. Lehman, daughter of Peter Lehman, one of the founders of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy in Philadelphia. They had a son and two daughters.

In 1862, Lipman sold his lead-pencil and eraser patent for $100,000 to Joseph Reckendorfer, who went to sue the pencil manufacturer Faber for infringement. In 1875, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled against Reckendorfer, declaring the patent invalid because his invention was actually a combination of two already known things with no new use.

An incorrect picture of Hymen Lipman that surfaced on the internet in an April 3, 2012, YouTube post (Mr. Hymen Lipman – The Father of Modern Content Editing – This Day in SEO History – Vol 4 by Fathom) has been subsequently used by many others on the internet. The picture most often used is not of Hymen Lipman but rather Crawford W. Long of Georgia, credited with first using ether for surgical anesthesia on March 30, 1842. Another picture occasionally used as Lipman on the internet is an artist’s rendition of a younger Edgar Allan Poe.

TODAY’S ALMANAC

Born

• Moses Maimonides (rabbi) – 1135
• Anna Sewell (author) – 1820
• Vincent van Gogh (artist) – 1853
• Sean O’Casey (playwright) – 1880
• Jo Davidson (sculptor) – 1883
• Warren Beatty (actor) – 1937
• Eric Clapton (musician) – 1945
• Tracy Chapman (musician) – 1964
• Celine Dion (singer) – 1968
• Secretariat (racehorse) – 1970
• Norah Jones (singer) – 1979
• Scott Moffatt (musician, of The Moffatts) – 1983
• Anna Nalick (musician) – 1984

Died

• Queen Mother Elizabeth (Britain’s beloved Queen Mum”“) – 2002
• Timi Yuro (singer) – 2004

Events

• President Washington proclaimed boundary of new capital city on Potomac River– 1791
• Dr. Crawford Long of Jefferson, GA, placed an ether-soaked towel over the face of James Venable and removed a tumor from his neck. This was the first recorded use of anesthesia– 1842
• H. L. Lipman, of Philadelphia, patented the first pencil with eraser– 1858
• America bought Alaska from Russia due to pressure from Secretary of State William Seward (Seward’s Folly). The price was $7.2 million, or slightly more than $0.02 an acre– 1867
• Impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson began– 1868
• Texas readmitted to the Union– 1870
• Queensboro Bridge, the first double-decker, opened in New York City– 1909
• Official opening of Canada’s first subway (Toronto)– 1954
• Woody Guthrie’s song This Land is Your Land copyrighted– 1956
• Jeopardy! game show made its television debut– 1964
• The last rum ration was issued in the Royal Canadian Navy– 1972
• President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded outside a Washington, D.C., hotel– 1981
• An anonymous buyer paid over $39 million for Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers– 1987
• Possible UFO seen, Little Fox Lake, Yukon Territory– 2000
• Superathletes Kirill Shimko and Pavel Soroka pulled five railway cars more than 20 feet– 2007

Weather

• Hurricane-force winds uprooted trees and brought high tides to the coast and heavy snows inland from Pennsylvania to Maine– 1823
• In North Dakota, heavy rain and snowmelt around Fargo produced severe flooding– 2006
• A line of thunderstorms and tornadoes tore up homes and knocked down power lines in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska– 2006

COURTESY www.almanac.com