Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
July 7, 1860 The Swallowtail Lighthouse first went into service on Grand Manan Island, a section of the Bay of Fundy that is part of the present-day Canadian province of New Brunswick. At the time of that lighthouse’s debut, New Brunswick was a British colony; in 1867, it became one of the four original provinces... Continue Reading →
June 30, 1887 A yacht named Volunteer, which had been built by the Pusey and Jones Company for that year’s edition of the international sailing competition known as the America’s Cup, was officially launched. Volunteer was specifically a sloop (a sailboat with a single mast) equipped with a centerboard, which is a retractable keel that... Continue Reading →
June 27, 1898 Joshua Slocum completed the first solo circumnavigation of the world at 1:00 a.m. when he sailed into the harbor at Newport, Rhode Island, on board his oyster sloop (a type of one-masted sailboat) named the Spray. The Canadian-born Slocum had first set sail in that vessel from Boston on April 25, 1895,... Continue Reading →
June 23, 1964 The Theodore Roosevelt Bridge, which spans the Potomac River and serves as a highway link between Washington, D.C., and Virginia, was officially dedicated. Plans for a new bridge across this section of the Potomac River first took significant shape during the early 1950s. Finally, in 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into... Continue Reading →
June 22, 1909 Talk about being multimodal! The firm of Wyckoff, Church & Partridge (WCP), automobile dealers based in New York City, formally became the first corporate entity in the United States to sell planes. As far as automobiles were concerned, WCP had already established itself by that time as an early pioneer in showrooms... Continue Reading →
June 17, 1928 Aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart was among those departing on a plane from Trepassey Harbor at Newfoundland for what would be a pioneering flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Wilmer Stultz was the pilot of that plane, a Fokker F.VIIb/3m aircraft known as the Friendship, and Lou Gordon was on board as the co-pilot... Continue Reading →
June 15, 2013 The final section of the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP), a rail trail spanning 150 miles (240 kilometers) between Pittsburgh and the city of Cumberland in western Maryland, was opened to the public. The GAP is heavily used by both bicyclists and hikers, and it connects with the towpath for the Chesapeake and... Continue Reading →
June 13, 1888 Construction on a swing-span railroad bridge spanning the body of water known as the Arthur Kill and linking Staten Island, New York, with mainland New Jersey was completed at 3:00 p.m. At the time, the 800-foot (240-meter)-long Arthur Kill Bridge was the world’s largest drawbridge. It was also the only land connection to Staten... Continue Reading →
June 8, 2016 Fireboat 20, a ship equipped with state-of-the-art firefighting apparatus, was officially commissioned into service at Long Beach, California, as one of the vessels to be used by that city’s fire department. During the Wednesday afternoon commissioning ceremony at the Port of Long Beach Joint Command and Control Center, the vessel was renamed... Continue Reading →
June 3, 2006 A marked canoeing trail that runs through a region between the hamlet of Old Forge in New York and the town of Fort Kent in Maine was officially opened. This trail was developed within the Northern Forest, a combination of hardwood and boreal forests that collectively comprise the largest continuous forest in... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 