RONALD ROSS: On 20 August, 1897, Ross, from a Ross-shire family and born in India, inspected a dissected mosquito in Secunderabad, and in 1902 became Scotland's first Nobel Prize winner. He found the malaria parasite and went on to prove the role of mosquitoes in the transmission of malaria. In addition to a distinguished scientific career in tropical medicine, he was a novelist, dramatist, composer and poet.
ST KILDA: A good day for the gannets: 29 August, 1930, was when the last of the St Kildans were evacuated on the Admiralty sloop Harebell. For centuries they had snared gugas, wrung their necks, roasted and ate them and split, hung and dried the carc
ases; boiled the skin for fat to sauce their porridge; snatched their eggs and drunk them raw; and used their necks for slippers. They had also snacked on puffins and feasted on fulmars.
EDINBURGH FESTIVAL: Post-war austerity put paid to floodlighting the castle, but every policeman had been issued with a new helmet and a clean pair of white gloves for the opening of the first Edinburgh International Festival on 17 August, 1947. The opening concert had an underwhelming programme of Haydn's Surprise Symphony and works by Schumann and Franck.
FAT BOY GEORGE: King George IV, the lascivious lardy, landed at Leith on 15 August, 1822, for the festival of tartanalia put on by Sir Walter Scott. Swathed in a bright red Royal Stuart outfit, Hanoverian knees and bloated pins encased in pink tights, Georgie Porgie's sole kilted appearance, at a Highland Ball held by the peers of Scotland, occasioned some cruel caricature. The catering contract was won by Ebenezer Scroggie who later lent his name to Dickens' Scrooge.
COMET: The Greenock Advertiser of 15 August, 1812, announced the 42ft paddle-boat Comet would sail three times a week between Glasgow, Greenock and Helensburgh by "wind, air and steam". It was the first commercially successful steamboat service in Europe. The Comet was wrecked near Oban in 1820 and the engine is now in the Science Museum in London.
The full article contains 345 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
