On This Day-15th February

Tarvinonline brings you news from the past with our regular "On This Day" feature.

All these events took place on 15th February

On This Day in 1797 Henry Steinweg (Steinway), the founder of the piano company Steinway & Sons, was born in Wolfshagen im Harz, Duchy of Brunswick in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation which is known today as Germany!

In 1822 he began to work as a carpenter, and later he became an apprentice to an organ builder in the town of Goslar. He soon discovered his love for music and became an organ player in the church.
In 1835 he made the first square piano, which he presented to his bride Juliane at their wedding. In 1836 he built his first grand piano in his kitchen, this piano was later named the "kitchen piano", and is now on display at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art .
Steinweg decided to leave the country. He emigrated from Braunschweig to New York City in 1850 with five of his sons but before leaving he gave the company to his son, Christian Steinweg and the rest is history.
Henry Steinway died in New York City, United States, on February 7, 1871

On This Day in 1954 Matt Groening was born, in Portland, Oregon.
Who is he you may ask, well he created The Simpsons.

Matt Groening attended Evergreen State College and was the editor of the campus newspaper. He moved to LA in 1973 and sold his comic strip "Life in Hell" to the LA Weekly.
Producer James L. Brooks, asked Groening to create animated shorts for The Tracey Ullman Show and The Simpsons was born. The show went on to earn multiple Emmy Awards, and in 2009, it surpassed Gunsmoke to become the longest-running entertainment series in primetime television.

On This Day in 2003 the human genome project was completed by the US Department of Energy (DOE) and National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The human genome project was started in 1990 and was originally scheduled to last 15 years but technological advances in DNA sequencing resulted in its early completion in 2003.

The primary goal of this project was to determine the entire sequence of the DNA found in human cells (the human genome). In addition to DNA sequencing, the project goals included identifying all of the genes (i.e. coding DNA) in the human genome, developing and improving techniques for gene sequencing and genomicdata analysis and sharing the data and technologies with the private sector.
Data collected on the genome sequence and newly developed techniques for screening DNA, resulted in an unprecedented boom in medical research and an abundance of discoveries linking genetic variants to an assortment of diseases such as various cancers, Altzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.
To bring you up-to-date, the British Government only this week passed a bill for 3 parent babies, which has resulted from the mapping of our genome!

On This Day in 1979 at the 21st Grammy Awards, the 'Saturday Night Fever' soundtrack won Album of the Year

and The Bee Gees were named Best Pop Group and Best Arrangement for Voices for 'Staying Alive'.
Billy Joel's 'Just the Way You Are' won Record and Song of the Year.
Donna Summer's 'Last Dance' won two Grammys: Best Female R&B Vocal and Best R&B Song.