Felix Hoffmann
(21 January 1868 – 8 February 1946)

The German company Bayer patents aspirin on March 6, 1899.
Now the most common drug in household medicine cabinets, acetylsalicylic acid was originally made from a chemical found
in the bark of willow trees. In its primitive form, the active
ingredient, salicin, was used for centuries in folk medicine,
beginning in ancient Greece when Hippocrates used it to relieve
pain and fever. Known to doctors since the mid-19th century, it
was used sparingly due to its unpleasant taste and tendency to
damage the stomach.

In 1897, Bayer employee Felix Hoffmann found a way to create a
stable form of the drug that was easier and more pleasant to take.
(Some evidence shows that Hoffmann’s work was really done by
a Jewish chemist, Arthur Eichengrun, whose contributions were
covered up during the Nazi era.)

CBS News correspondent Walter Cronkite delivers the
news from behind a microphone in 1951.

Cronkite informs a shocked nation of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Walter Cronkite anchored CBS News’ coverage of the Apollo
11 moon landing, July 20, 1969.

On March 6, 1981, CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite
(above) signed off with his trademark valediction, "And that’s
the way it is, " for the final time. Over the previous 19 years,
Cronkite had established himself not only as the nation’s
leading newsman but as "the most trusted man in America,
" a steady presence during two decades of social and political
upheaval.  

 

 
Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009)