Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
ICGV Thor (Þór), a new patrol vessel built for the Icelandic Coast Guard (ICG), arrived in Iceland’s capital city of Reykjavík two-and-a-half years after being launched at the ASMAR Naval Shipyard in Talcahuano, Chile. The ship was named after the Norse god Thor. The origins of ICGV Thor can be traced to a proposal drafted... Continue Reading →
Jens Theodor Paludan Vogt, a civil engineer, and public transportation pioneer died at the age of 62 in Norway’s capital city of Kristiania. (In 1924, the city formally readopted its original name of Oslo.) Vogt had been born in 1830 in the Norwegian parish of Fiskum. To say that Jens Vogt came from a highly... Continue Reading →
Carlo Abarth, whose accomplishments spanned various modes of surface transportation, died in Vienna, Austria, just a few weeks before his 71st birthday. He had been born Karl Albert Abarth in 1908 in Vienna, which at that time was the main capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When Abarth later became a naturalized Italian citizen, his first... Continue Reading →
The initial segment of a railway in present-day Italy was opened between the cities of Turin and Novara. At the time, this region was part of the Kingdom of Sardinia. This railway was built by renowned English civil engineering contractor Thomas Brassey, who carried out the project on behalf of the Società Vittorio Emanuele (Victor... Continue Reading →
In southeastern Norway, a new railway line connecting the village of Eidsfoss with the municipality of Tønsberg was dedicated. Jørgen Løvland, who was the minister of labor at the time and would briefly serve as prime minister of Norway later in the decade, officially opened the Tønsberg-Eidsfoss Line (Tønsberg-Eidsfossbanen, or TEB). At the time of... Continue Reading →
In present-day Poland, a new railway station was opened in the city of Kraków. (At the time, the city had recently become part of a section of the Austrian Empire known as the Grand Duchy of Kraków.) On the same day of the station’s formal debut, the first train to operate at the facility departed... Continue Reading →
Automotive entrepreneur August Horch was born in the municipality of Winningen in the Kingdom of Prussia (now part of Germany). After graduating from Mittweida Technical College with a degree in engineering, Horch pursued a career in shipbuilding before shifting his focus to another mode of transportation. In 1896, he began working for automobile pioneer Karl... Continue Reading →
The rebuilt Mária Valéria Bridge, which spans the River Danube between the Slovak Republic (formed after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993) and Hungary, was officially opened to the public. This structure measures approximately 1,640 feet (500m) in length and connects the Slovak town of Štúrovo with the Hungarian city of Esztergom. The bridge was... Continue Reading →
The Lindau Lighthouse in the then-Kingdom of Bavaria began operations. The 108-foot-tall lighthouse, which took three years to build, is in the town of Lindau on Lake Constance. The structure is the southernmost lighthouse in present-day German; it is also the only lighthouse in the German federal state of Bavaria. The lighthouse has been automated... Continue Reading →
Citroën, a major French automobile manufacturer, officially celebrated its 90th anniversary. The company, which was founded by French industrialist André-Gustave Citroën in 1919, has contributed a number of key innovative technologies to the automotive world over the decades. One example was the Traction Avant automobile, which Citroën introduced in 1934. This vehicle was the first... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 