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Eli Lilly (1838–1898) was a soldier, pharmaceutical chemist, industrialist, and founder of the eponymous Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical corporation. Lilly enlisted in the Union Army during the American Civil War, he recruited a company of men to serve with him, and was later promoted to colonel and given command of a force of cavalry. After the war, he attempted to run a plantation in Mississippi but failed and returned to his pharmacy profession after the death of his wife. He opened his own business in 1876 with plans to manufacture drugs and market them wholesale to pharmacies. His company was successful and he soon became wealthy after making numerous advances in medicinal drug manufacturing. Two of the early advances he pioneered were creating gelatin capsules to hold medicine and fruit flavoring for liquid medicines. Eli Lilly & Co. was the first pharmaceutical company of its kind; it staffed a dedicated research department and put in place numerous quality assurance measures. Lilly was an advocate of federal regulation of the pharmaceutical industry and many of his suggested reforms were enacted into law in 1906, resulting in the creation of the Food and Drug Administration. He was also among the pioneers of the concept of prescriptions. (more...)

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May 11:

• 1745 – War of the Austrian Succession: French forces defeated the Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian "Pragmatic Army" at the Battle of Fontenoy in the Austrian Netherlands in present day Belgium.
• 1792 – Merchant sea captain Robert Gray (pictured) first entered the Columbia River, becoming the first recorded European to navigate the largest river flowing into the Pacific Ocean from North America.
• 1812 – In the lobby of the British House of Commons, Spencer Perceval became the first, and to date only, British Prime Minister to be assassinated.
• 1867 – The major powers in Europe signed the Second Treaty of London to solve the Luxembourg Crisis between France and Prussia over the political status of Luxembourg.
• 1949 – Siam was officially renamed Thailand, a name unofficially in use since 1939.
• 1960 – Israeli Mossad agents captured Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi leader and fugitive war criminal who was sometimes referred to as "the architect of The Holocaust", hiding in Argentina.

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