50 Years Ago

We have obtained what we believe to be a unique photograph of a pinched lightning discharge ... Over the years we have taken hundreds of photographs of lightning discharges, and this is our first photographic evidence of a pinched lightning. We estimate the distance of the lightning to the camera at between 200 to 1,000 metres, and thus, the transverse dimension of the lightning between 1 and 5 m. Somewhat puzzling is the apparent much larger intensity of the integrated luminosity of the pinched lightning when compared with the luminosity of the aforementioned standard lightning stroke.

From Nature 28 April 1962

100 Years Ago

Prof. Milne ... has now further increased the debt of seismologists to him by compiling, at the cost of several years' labour, a “Catalogue of Destructive Earthquakes from A.D. 7 to A.D. 1899,” ... Though containing only half as many entries as the earlier version, its value, it may be anticipated, will be even greater. Being confined to shocks of an intensity sufficient to damage buildings, it deals with those movements which are of chief consequence in the moulding of the earth's crust. An analysis of the catalogue for different epochs should reveal to us some of the laws which govern the distribution of seismic energy within extensive regions, such, for instance, as the Pacific coast of the America continent.

From Nature 25 April 1912