Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
In the early 1990s, William Pinkney became the first African-American – and only the fourth person in the world – to travel around the globe on his own via boat. Pinkney, who was born in Chicago in 1935, received post-high school training as an x-ray technician. From 1956 to 1960, he served in the U.S.... Continue Reading →
In an early and important aviation milestone for Siam (now known as Thailand), three army officers departed the kingdom to undergo flight training in France. The officers were Major Luang Sakdi Sanlayawut (Sakdi), Captain Luang Arwut Likitkam (Arwut), and Lieutenant Tip Ketuthat (Tip). Their training began just over a year after Belgian aviator Charles Van... Continue Reading →
In 1937, Willa Brown became the first African-American woman to earn an airplane pilot’s license in the United States. (Bessie Coleman, who had become the first African-American woman to earn a pilot’s license in 1921, had to go to France to train for and obtain her license.) Brown, who was born in Kentucky in 1906,... Continue Reading →
Just over two months before being completed, the Tetteh Quarshie Interchange in Ghana’s capital city of Accra was first opened to traffic. The two-level roadway junction, which features non-directional loop ramps, is formally known as a cloverleaf interchange because of its resemblance to a four-leaf clover when viewed from above or depicted on maps. The... Continue Reading →
Mary Fields (c.1832-1914) made transportation history as the first African-American woman to deliver the U.S. mail. Fields was born a slave in Tennessee, and she achieved her freedom in 1865 when slavery was abolished in the United States. By the mid-1880s, Fields had moved to the Montana Territory. (This territory became a state in 1889.)... Continue Reading →
This blog is a place that combines two passions: transportation and history. There are thousands of undiscovered stories from around the world that we want to share with you everyday. Stay tuned and bookmark us!
A pivotal moment took place in the development of the Simplon Tunnel, a railway tunnel running through the Alps in the vicinity of Simplon Pass and linking the city of Brig (now part of Brig-Glis) in southwestern Switzerland with northern Italy’s Piedmont region. More than six years after the construction project began, both halves of... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 