Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
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 →
A pioneering aviation event in England came to an end when Louis Paulhan finished first in a two-man London-to-Manchester plane race. The French aviator landed in Manchester early in the morning after he had begun his 186-mile flight from London. His competitor, an Englishman named Claude Grahame-White, had been hampered by everything from engine problems... Continue Reading →
Thorvald Ellegaard, one of Denmark’s leading track racing cyclists, died in the Danish community of Charlottenlund at the age of 77. He had been born on the Danish island of Funen in 1877. Ellegaard began competing as a cyclist in 1895, turning professional about three years later. He eventually established himself as an international champion... Continue Reading →
Alojz Knafelc, who created a now-iconic marker for hiking trails, died at the age of 77 in the city of Ljubljana in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (in a region that is now part of the Republic of Slovenia). Knafelc had been born in 1859 in the village of Šmihel in a section of modern-day Slovenia... Continue Reading →
Umberto Cagni, a captain in the Regia Marina (Italian Royal Navy), set a new transportation record when he and the small party he was leading reached the northernmost point achieved in polar exploration up to that time. Cagni was a close associate of Prince Luigi Amedeo, an Italian duke. When he departed from Norway in... Continue Reading →
Albéric “Briek” Schotte won the 32nd running of the Tour of Flanders, an annual one-day cycling race on cobbled roads in northern Belgium’s Flemish Region (also known as Flanders). The competition first took place in 1913, with the years during World War I marking the only time to date in which it has not been... Continue Reading →
A new station of the Brussels Metro, a rapid transit system serving Belgium’s capital city and several neighboring municipalities, was opened. The Sainte-Catherine metro station owes its name to a nearby historic Catholic church in the section of central Brussels known as the Lower Town. The station marked the western terminus of the Brussels Metro... Continue Reading →
A dedication ceremony was held for a new international airport in east-central France. French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing formally inaugurated the airport, which opened to passengers a week later. Lyon Satolas Airport was built in Colombier-Saugnieu; this commune is approximately 13 miles from Lyon, the third largest city in France. The facility was designed in... Continue Reading →
The first electric tram (streetcar) service on Tenerife – the largest and most heavily populated of the seven Canary Islands -- was inaugurated. (The Canary Islands, an Atlantic archipelago located approximately 60 miles west of the African coast, was made a Spanish province in 1821 and would become an autonomous region of Spain in 1982.)... Continue Reading →
Francis Goold Morony Stoney, an engineer whose accomplishments and influence extended to transportation infrastructure across the globe, was born in County Tipperary in Ireland. Early on in his career, he worked on building railways in Ireland. Ultimately, however, Stoney’s engineering efforts assumed international proportions. Starting in 1865, for example, he spent time in Peru on... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 