Linda Hall Library

Join us in wishing the best of luck to all of our Kansas City Invention Convention - KCIC winners who will be venturing to Dearborn, Michigan, next week to represent Kansas City at the Invention Convention US National competition!

Over eight decades, the Linda Hall Library has gone from a generous civic bequest to a globally recognized destination for scientific history right here in Kansas City. To celebrate this milestone, we're launching a stunning new book, The Linda Hall - A Visual History, and you’re invited to the party!

Join us on June 18 for a look through our archival history with Emmy winner Nick Haines (Kansas City PBS) and a panel of the book's contributors, sharing forgotten stories and rare photographs from our past eight decades.

📅 Date: Thursday, June 18, 2026 🕖 Time: 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM 📍 Location: Linda Hall Library 🎟️ Cost: FREE, registration encouraged

RSVP TODAY: https://bit.ly/4u4J7oZ

Scientist of the Day: Hsue-Shen Tsien 🚀

Hsue-Shen Tsien, a brilliant aerodynamicist and protégé of Theodore von Kármán at Caltech, was not only a co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory but also played a vital role in American rocketry during WWII. In fact, in 1945, he was sent to Germany to interview Wernher von Braun. A moment of deep irony, as Tsien would eventually lead China’s space program while von Braun led America’s.

Despite his immense contributions, Tsien fell victim to the Red Scare of the 1950s. After five years of house arrest in the U.S., he was finally "exchanged" for American POWs. When he departed for China in 1955, he took with him a lifetime of expertise that would eventually launch the first Chinese satellite and develop their nuclear program.

His story is a powerful reminder of how geopolitics can shift the course of scientific history.

Read more about his incredible journey: https://bit.ly/48Nl4Df

📷 Image 1: Hsue-Shen Tsien at the blackboard, photo, 1940s, Caltech archives (http://digital.archives.caltech.edu/)

📷 Image 2: Hsue-Shen Tsien at his deportation hearing, 1950, looking none too pleased, after which, ironically, he was prevented from leaving the country until 1955, photograph, 1950, UCLA library (http://digital.library.ucla.edu/)

📷 Image 3: Hsue-Shen Tsien and Chairman Mao, 1956, Caltech archives (http://digital.archives.caltech.edu/)

Welcome to the chaos! Happy Gemini Season ♊️

📖: The Gemini constellation depicted here can be found in Astrognosie oder Anleitung zur Kenntnis der Sterne (1826) by Franz Niklaus König. These rare lantern slides are based on John Flamsteed's "Atlas céleste" and feature a stunning collection of celestial bodies and astrological figures.

Unlike traditional bound books, the constellations featured in this set of cards are printed on thick cardstock, with each star hand-cut and sealed with a thin piece of tissue paper, allowing them to be illuminated from behind.

See the full work here: https://bit.ly/3H175hU

Scientist of the Day: Pei Wenzhong ⛏️

In 1929, at just 25 years old, Pei Wenzhong was leading excavations at “Dragon Bone Hill”, where he made one of the most significant archaeological finds of the 20th century: the first skullcap of "Peking Man" (Sinanthropus pekinensis).

The discovery was a global sensation, but the work was grueling. Pei had to smuggle the fossil past guards to get it to the lab, and later, during the looming threat of WWII, he was the one who oversaw the careful replication of these priceless fossils before the originals mysteriously vanished during the war.

Without Pei’s meticulous field notes and casts, one of the most important chapters of human evolution might have been lost to history forever.

Read more: https://bit.ly/4cU3rUG

📷 Image 1: Portrait of an older Pei Wenzhong, undated (wiki.cina.org.cn)

📷 Image 2: The first Sinanthropus skull, found by Pei Wenzhong, Dec. 2, 1929, only partially removed from the burlap wrapping applied by Pei in the field, photograph, accompanying Davidson Black’s paper in Bulletin of the Geological Society of China, vol. 8, 1929 (Linda Hall Library).

📷 Image 3: Group portrait of the scientists involved in excavating the site at Chou Kou Tien in 1929; Pei Wenzhong is at far left (fossilhunters.xyz)

📷 Image 4: Diagram of the deposits at Locality 1 at Chou Kou Tien; Pei found the Sinanthropus skull at the very bottom of heap of deposits at bottom center, in a tiny cave, shown in an inset at left and marked “SE”, from a paper by Pierre Teihard du Chardin and G.C. Young in Bulletin of the Geological Society of China, vol. 8, 1929 (Linda Hall Library)

📷 Image 5: Detail of first page of paper by Pei Wenzhong, "An account of the discovery of an adult Sinathropus skull in the Chou Kou Tien deposit," Bulletin of the Geological Society of China, vol 8, 1929 (Linda Hall Library).

Scientist of the Day: Tetsuya Theodor Fujita 🌪️

Tetsuya “Ted” Fujita, the man famously known as "Mr. Tornado" helped change the way we see severe weather. He didn't just give us the Fujita Scale (F0–F5), he was also the first to study downdrafts and propose the existence of microbursts. These powerful downdrafts were once dismissed by other scientists but have now led to new technology that has saved countless lives.

Read the full story of this meteorological pioneer: https://bit.ly/4nhiZFA

📷 Image 1: Cover of the January 2001 issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, with a photo of Tetsuya Fujiki (Linda Hall Library)

📷 Image 2: Photo reproduction of the original 1971 diagram comparing the proposed Fujita tornado scale to the Beaufort wind scale and the Mach number scale, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2001 (Linda Hall Library)

📷 Image 3: Reproduction of 5 photos from Fujita’s original 1971 publication, showing differences in damage from F0-F5 tornados, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2001 (Linda Hall Library)

📷 Image 4: Sequence of three photos of the outflow and curl from a microburst, provided by the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NOAA Photo Library via Wikimedia commons)

We want to extend a big thank you to our Kansas City Invention Convention - KCIC title sponsor, Kansas City National Security Campus (KCNSC) managed by Honeywell FM&T. Their partnership ensures this program remains free and accessible to all students, opening the door for young innovators across our community. Students competed on April 16th with creativity and confidence, and our top teams are now preparing for national competition. Thank you to KCNSC and the 70+ volunteers who showed up to support these students!