Abbot, Charles Greeley(C. G. Abbot)

1872 - Born on the 31st of May in Wilton, New Hampshire.

1894 - He graduated from Massachusetts Institute Of Technology located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1895 - He was hired because of his skill at laboratory work, despite his lack of experience in astronomy.

1896 - He became acting director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory when Langley died.

1900 - He designed and built devices for measuring solar radiation, including a greatly improved

               Bolometer which measured the Sun's inner corona at the solar eclipse in Wadesboro, North Carolina.

1907 - He succeed as a  director, and Charles Walcott became Smithsonian secretary.   

1910 - He won the Henry Draper Medal of the National Academy of Science.

1915 - He won the  Rumford Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

1918 - He became Assistant Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute.

1928 - He was a secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

        - He succeeded Walcott as Secretary and guided the Institute through the turbulent years of the

               Great Depression and World War II.

1938 - He authored perhaps his most singular study, although anonymously and this was his contribution

              to the Journal of Parapsychology detailing his studies into clairvoyance.

1944 - He retired as both  Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory director and Smithsonian Secretary ,

               being the first Smithsonian Secretary not  to die in office.

       - He delegated the National Museum largely to his Assistant Secretary, Alexander Wetmore who

               succeeded him as Secretary.

1949 - He published a replication of his findings, this time under his own name, in the Journal.

1973 - He obtained his last patent at the age of 101, the oldest inventor to ever receive a patent.

        - He died on the 17th of December in Washington.