On this date, Joseph Priestley began an experiment in which he discovered photosynthesis, although he did not give it that name. He described his experiment in 1772 in a paper entitled “Observations on Different Kinds of Air”:
…I flatter myself that I have accidentally hit upon a method of restoring air which has been injured by the burning of candles, and that I have discovered at least one of the restoratives which nature employs for this purpose. It is vegetation. In what manner this process in nature operates, to produce so remarkable an effect, I do not pretend to have discovered; but a number of facts declare in favour of this hypothesis…
One might have imagined that, since common air is necessary to vegetable, as well as to animal life, both plants and animal had affected it in the same manner, and I own that I had that expectation, when…
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‘Awe-inspiring Anglo-Saxon royal burial site’ is how the National Trust describes Sutton Hoo. I can’t argue with that. I think this must have been my third visit to the site of one of the most important archaeological excavations in Britain. The visit began with the beautifully laid out and richly furnished exhibition building, complete with exquisite reproduction Anglo-Saxon jewelry and a concise, but gripping story of Anglo-Saxon Britain and the discovery of the site in the 1930’s. We went from there (following a light lunch) to explore the mounds which covered burial ships and other graves…..





