Jorge Alejandro Newbery Malagarie (27 May 1875 – 1 March 1914) was an Argentine aviator, civil servant, engineer and scientist. Early and personal life His father, Ralph Lamartine Newbery Purcell (born 1848) was a dentist who emigrated from Long Island, New York, and settled in Argentina after the American Civil War, in which he fought on the Union side of the Battle of Gettysburg and was recognized for his courage. Historical context Newbery was in the public eye between the 1890s and the first fifteen years of the 20th century, a very important time for Argentina which was characterised by an enormous immigration of Europeans which multiplied the country's demographic importance by a factor of five. The population of Argentina, which represented 0.12% of the global population in 1869, would come to make up 0.57% of mankind in 1930. and the expansion of an economy of agricultural export which increased the GDP per capita from $334 in 1875 to $1,151 in 1913. The Newbery years were years of unshakeable faith in the possibilities of Argentina, when Rubén Darío wrote in his famous Canto a la Argentina y otros poemas: "Argentina, your day has come!" These years saw the appearance of tango, Vaslav Nijinsky dancing in the Teatro Colón, the opening of the Buenos Aires Metro, the arrival of Guglielmo Marconi in Argentina in order to carry out the first radio-telephonic communication with Ireland and Canada. Biography Son of American-born dentist Ralph Newbery, Jorge was born 27 May 1875 in the family home on Florida Street, Buenos Aires. At the age of eight he visited the United States alone. Later, back in Argentina, he studied at Saint Andrew's Scots School, graduating from secondary school in 1890, and subsequently traveled to the United States to study engineering at Cornell University. In 1893 he continued his studies at the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia, where he was a student of Thomas Edison, and in 1895 earned a degree in electrical engineering. On returning to his home country he began working as the head of the "Rio de la Plata Light and Traction Company". In 1897 he joined the Argentine Navy as electrical engineer during the border conflicts with Chile. He worked as a swimming teacher at the Naval School, and in 1899 he was sent to London to acquire electrical materials. His naval career lasted until 1900, when he was named Director General of