Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
February 28, 1900 The U.S. Navy vessel USS Dart (YFB-308) was launched at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard (MINSY) at the waterfront city of Vallejo, California. MINSY, which is located 25 miles (40 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco, had been built during the 1850s and was the first U.S. Navy base established on the Pacific... Continue Reading →
February 25, 1851 In Wisconsin, the first passenger train of the Milwaukee & Mississippi (M&M) Railroad made its inaugural trip between Milwaukee and the town (now city) of Waukesha. This railroad had actually begun operations just a little over three months earlier. The debut of passenger service on that line, however, proved to be an exuberant celebration. ... Continue Reading →
February 24, 1909 In Detroit, eight businessmen met to establish a company under Michigan state law that would produce automobiles selling for less than $1,000. This meeting marked the start of the Hudson Motor Car Company. The company was named after Joseph L. Hudson, who was a Detroit department store entrepreneur and one of those eight businessmen. ... Continue Reading →
February 23, 1970 The Indian Pacific passenger train began its inaugural coast-to-coast trip in Australia. After what the Canberra Times called “a glittering lace-gowned ceremony,” the westbound train left Central Railway Station in Sydney on Australia’s southeastern coast along the Pacific Ocean at 10:50 p.m. “Train Sets Out to Span the Continent,” proclaimed a headline in... Continue Reading →
Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in 1849. She subsequently risked her life to help others in that region of Maryland escape to freedom. As an Underground Railroad conductor in the years prior to the American Civil War, Tubman made approximately 13 trips to the Eastern Shore and led about 70 enslaved... Continue Reading →
February 21, 1900 A newly constructed lighthouse began operations on Somes Island (now officially known as Matiu/Somes Island) in the northern half of Wellington Harbour on the southern tip of New Zealand’s North Island. At the time of this lighthouse’s debut, New Zealand was a British colony; it gained semi-independent status as a dominion of... Continue Reading →
February 18, 2015 A newly built train station was officially dedicated in the city of Tukwila in Washington’s King County. (Tukwila is located just south of Seattle.) Tukwila station was constructed by Sound Transit (ST), a public agency serving the Seattle metropolitan area, as a replacement for a temporary station that had been at that... Continue Reading →
February 17, 2005 In Japan’s Chubu (Central) region, an international airport was officially opened on an artificial island in Ise Bay within the city of Tokoname. Chubu Centrair International Airport – widely called Centrair -- was built to replace Nagoya Airport (now a domestic secondary airport known as Nagoya Airfield) as that area’s primary access... Continue Reading →
February 16, 1882 The iron-hulled Great Lakes freighter SS Onoko was launched from the shipyard of Globe Iron Works in Cleveland. The steam-powered Onoko, which measured 302.6 feet (92.2 meters) in length and 24.8 feet (7.6 meters) in height, was the first large commercial ship on the Great Lakes to be made of iron. Globe... Continue Reading →
Charles Richard “Rich” Patterson started out life as an enslaved person but ultimately gained his freedom. He went on to achieve prominence as both a carriage manufacturer and civil rights champion. Patterson was born into slavery on a plantation in Virginia in 1833. While there are conflicting accounts of how exactly Patterson became free, census... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 