Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
In December 2006, Sunita Williams became only the second woman of Indian descent to travel to outer space when she was launched on board Space Shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station (ISS). Kalpana Chawla had become the first woman of Indian descent to travel to outer space when she flew on board Space Shuttle... Continue Reading →
Gino Bianco, who achieved fame as a racecar driver from Brazil, died in Rio de Janeiro at the age of 67. He had been born Luigi Emilio Rodolfo Bertetti in Milan, Italy, in 1916, and immigrated to Brazil as a child with his family. His original automotive career involved working as a car mechanic and... Continue Reading →
During the 19th century, Chin Lin Sou provided leadership and guidance to his fellow Chinese Americans in the construction of major railroads in the United States. Chin, who was born in the Chinese city of Guangzhou (also known as Canton), immigrated to the United States in 1859 at the age of 22. Chin first settled... Continue Reading →
The formal inauguration of Singapore’s navy took place during a ceremony at Telok Ayer Basin in the Southeast Asian nation. At 5:55 p.m., the men, and women of the new Singapore Naval Volunteer Force (SNVF) stood at attention while the Singapore naval force white ensign – featuring a crescent moon with five stars as well... Continue Reading →
During the first half of the 20th century, Samuel Apolo Amalu established himself as the dean of Hawaii’s lighthouse keepers. Amalu began his career in 1906 when he joined the U.S. Light-House Board (replaced four years later by the U.S. Lighthouse Service). The agency had jurisdiction over lighthouses in his native Hawaii, which was a... Continue Reading →
Engineer and helicopter designer Étienne Edmond Oehmichen established a new aviation record in his native France. He did so by flying his helicopter Oehmichen No. 2, which he had designed and built a couple of years earlier, around a triangular closed circuit of approximately six-tenths of a mile. This flight took seven minutes and 40... Continue Reading →
Narinder Singh Kapany has become widely known as “The Father of Fiber Optics” due to his pioneering work with fibers as a means to transmit light signals over long distances for such purposes as telecommunications. Kapany even coined the phrase “fiber optics” more than a half-century ago. Kapany’s extensive research and innovations involving fiber optics... Continue Reading →
A transportation milestone for the Tsar-ruled Russian Empire took place when the first two trams with electric motors arrived in Kiev. On the same day as their arrival, both trams underwent test runs on Sahaydachny Street in the city. The trams, which were built by renowned engineer Amand Struve (1835-1898), marked the start of the... Continue Reading →
Ellison Shoji Onizuka, who became the first Asian American to travel into outer space, was born in the community of Kealakekua on the Big Island of Hawaii in 1946. After earning both a B.S. and M.S. in aerospace engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Onizuka entered active duty with the U.S. Air Force.... Continue Reading →
Robert Gerwig, a civil engineer who specialized in designing railways for unusually challenging terrain, was born in the city of Karlsruhe in the Grand Duchy of Baden (now part of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany). Gerwig studied civil engineering at Polytechnische Schule (the present-day University of Karlsruhe), and initially focused on road construction.... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 