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Category Archives: Technology
“3½ or 4 miles per hour”
This year is the 200th anniversary of the official opening of the original Erie Canal. On October 26, 1825 New York Governor DeWitt Clinton boarded the packet boat Seneca Chief in Buffalo at the western terminus of the canal. The … Continue reading
technoween
According to the Library of Congress, the above picture was created/published in 1909 or 1910. Since the Wright brothers’ first 59 second flight at Kitty Hawk occurred in December 1903, I’d call that witch an early adopter, at least by … Continue reading
Fall River Fire
On September 19, 1874 a very destructive fire at a mill in Fall River, Massachusetts killed or injured many of the employees. In its October 10, 1874 issue Harper’s Weekly analyzed the fire and highlighted the heroism of a young … Continue reading
Spirit in St. Louis
July 4, 1874 was a big day in the St. Louis area. People celebrated the official opening of a new bridge that connected Missouri and Illinois. The Eads Bridge was the first bridge to span the Mississippi River after its … Continue reading
up in the air
A duck, a sheep, and a rooster take off in a hot air balloon. … Already heard this one? … No? Well, actually, according to the Château de Versailles, this isn’t a joke. In 1782 the Montgolfier brothers, Joseph and … Continue reading
Posted in 150 Years Ago, Technology
Tagged Alfred Lord Tennyson, Balloons, Battle of Fleurus (1794), Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin O'Neale Stratford (Sixth Earl of Aldborough), Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, Francesco Lana de Terzi, Franco-Prussian War, François Laurent d'Arlandes, George Washington Parke Custis, Jacques Alexandre César Charles, Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, John LaMountain, Joseph-Michel Montgolfier, Léon Gambetta, mitrailleuse, Nicolas-Louis Robert, Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, Union Army Balloon Corps
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under the influence
150 years ago a newspaper doubted the truth of what it called a “verdict of Science” regarding earth’s next-door neighbor. From Harper’s Weekly May 22, 1869: THE MOON’S INFLUENCE WHATEVER be the influence exercised upon the earth by the varying … Continue reading
Posted in 150 Years Ago, Technology
Tagged Apollo 11, Galileo Galilei, Luigi Palmieri, the moon, the telescope
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prize fliers
World War I was disruptive, and while it was a boon to aviation, it caused the postponement of an aerial competition. In 1913 the Daily Mail offered a prize of £10,000 to “the aviator who shall first cross the Atlantic … Continue reading
more trans in transportation
Our society seems to like historical anniversaries , so I wondered if May 1919 headlines in The New York Times would mention the 50th anniversary of the completion of the United States’ First Transcontinental Railroad. I searched in vain. Certainly … Continue reading
Posted in 100 Years Ago, Technology, World War I
Tagged Albert Cushing Read, Douglas MacArthur, Eddie Rickenbacker, First Transatlantic Flight, Harry George Hawker, Henry Morgenthau Sr., Naval Air Station Rockaway, Orville Wright, RMS Lusitania, Rudolf W. Schroeder, The Wright Brothers, Transatlantic flight, Treaty of Versailles
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At the junction …
… Promontory junction North and South America had been a big impediment to free-flowing and relatively quick world trade. Even though way back in 1513 an expedition led by Vasco Núñez de Balboa discovered how near the Atlantic and Pacific … Continue reading
Posted in 150 Years Ago This Week, Aftermath, Postbellum Society, Technology
Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Asa Whitney, Butterfield Overland Mail, California, Donner Pass, First Transcontinental Railroad, George Pullman, Jefferson Davis, Leland Stanford, Native Americans, Promontory Point Utah, Pullman Car Company, Rev. Dr. Francis Vinton, Thomas Hart Benton (Missouri politician)
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conservative counterpoise
In an editorial on December 25, 1868 The New-York Times stressed that Christmas was a traditional, family time in a world of great technological change, especially the transportation revolution caused by steam power. The technological innovation led to social change: … Continue reading
