Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
December 13, 1937 The Reading Railroad’s express passenger train Crusader made its first regular run along a 90.3-mile (145.3-kilometer) route between the Reading Terminal in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the Communipaw Terminal in Jersey City, New Jersey. The train received its name thanks to a contest that offered $250 to the winning entry, which was selected by... Continue Reading →
December 12, 1933 Indian National Airways Ltd began operations. This airline had been established seven months earlier in Delhi, India, by British industrialist R.E. Grant Govan as part of his business Govan Bros Ltd. (At the time, the Indian subcontinent was still under British rule.) Indian National Airways was only the second commercial airline to... Continue Reading →
December 11, 1922 The Nevada State Department of Highways (forerunner of the present-day Nevada Department of Transportation) completed work on a section of road in Humboldt County in the state’s northern region. This 10.8-mile (17.4 -kilometer)-long section was located between the unincorporated community of Stonehouse and the county’s border with Lander County. The work done... Continue Reading →
December 10, 1954 Flight surgeon and U.S. Air Force Colonel John Paul Stapp earned the nickname of “Fastest Man on Earth” when he rode a rocket-powered sled up to 632 miles (1,017 kilometers) per hour in five seconds. The 44-year-old Stapp rode that sled, which was called the Sonic Wind, at Holloman Air Force Base... Continue Reading →
December 9, 1892 A large amount of money was unexpectedly made available for the funding of a new lighthouse in northwestern France. The disbursement of this money for a lighthouse was one of the provisions in the will of a noblewoman who had died two months earlier at the age of 77. Adélaïde-Louise Davout, Marquise... Continue Reading →
December 6, 2015 In northeastern Japan, a new subway line began operations in the city of Sendai in the Tōhoku region. The east-west Tozai Line was the second of the Sendai Subway’s two lines to go into service, with the north-south Namboku Line having been opened in 1987. The Tozai Line encompasses a total of... Continue Reading →
December 5, 1885 A new system of horse-drawn trams (streetcars) was inaugurated in the vicinity of Bridgetown on the Caribbean island of Barbados. At the time, Barbados was a British colony; it has been an independent state and Commonwealth realm (with Queen Elizabeth II reigning as the current monarch) since 1966. As far back as... Continue Reading →
December 4, 2013 The first-ever double roundabout in Ohio was officially opened to traffic at the interchange of State Route 664 (SR 664) and U.S. Route 33 (US 33) in the city of Logan in the southern part of the Buckeye State. This interchange has long been regarded as an important gateway to both Logan’s... Continue Reading →
December 3, 2015 The first segment of a cycleway (a special path intended primarily for use by bicyclists) was opened in the city of Auckland on New Zealand’s North Island. This route, which is known as the Nelson Street Cycleway, also includes sections that can be used for both bicycling and walking. This initial portion... Continue Reading →
December 2, 2018 In the state of Assam in northeastern India, a road-rail bridge began service when a freight train chugged across the newly built structure. Piyush Goyal, India’s minister of railways, used his Twitter account that same day to highlight this crossing. He tweeted that the inaugural train trip on December 2 was “a... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 