Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
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 →
Inventor and engineer Narcís Monturiol i Estarriol, who made significant contributions to maritime transportation, was born in Madrid. Monturiol invented the first air-independent and combustion-engine-driven submarine. He died in 1885 at the age of 65. For more information about Narcís Monturiol i Estarriol, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcís_Monturiol.
Champion bicyclist Stanisław Szozda was born in the village of Dobromierz in southwestern Poland. He represented Poland at Summer Olympics in Munich (1972) and Montreal (1976), winning a silver medal in each of those games for the men’s cycling team time trial (in which cyclists race in groups of four from participating nations). Szozda’s other... Continue Reading →
The first section of France’s first high-speed rail line officially began operations. The LGV Sud-Est was being built as a transit link between Paris and Lyon, and the inaugural festivities for the new line included a special train running on the completed segment between Lyon and the commune of Montchanin. As the train sped north... Continue Reading →
Sampo, a pioneering icebreaker that the British manufacturer Armstrong-Whitworth (AW) had just built for the Finnish government, left the AW shipyard in northeastern England for her second sea trial. The first sea trial for Sampo took place about a month earlier and quickly ended in failure when the new vessel’s bow propeller shaft malfunctioned. Sampo’s... Continue Reading →
Yacht designer Gustaf Estlander was born in the city of Helsinki in what was then the Grand Duchy of Finland (an autonomous region of the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917). Estlander demonstrated a strong enthusiasm for water transportation early on in life; when he was about 18, for example, he used a canoe to... Continue Reading →
La Vieille lighthouse on the northwest coast of France was first lit. The stone tower is specifically located on a rock known as Gorlebella (meaning “farthest rock” in the Breton language) at the commune of Plogoff. (That commune is the department of Finistère, an administrative division of France’s Brittany region; Finistère is the Breton phrase... Continue Reading →
A new main line railway in the eastern region of present-day Germany began operations. The railway line was constructed within the Kingdom of Prussia to connect the cities of Berlin and Görlitz. (Just over four years after the railway made its debut, Prussia and several other independent states came together to form the German Empire.)... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 