Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
Nearly a year-and-a-half after the U.S. Congress appropriated $25,000 to build a lighthouse on the section of Fenwick Island in Delaware, the federal government paid someone named Mary C. Hall a mere $50 for a 10-acre (4.1-hectare) tract of land for the new structure. This location for the planned Fenwick Island Lighthouse was widely believed... Continue Reading →
Construction began on the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway (ITH) – formally classified as Highway 10 – in Canada’s Northwest Territories. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper broke ground on the new project, which was undertaken to provide a long-awaited all-season road connecting the town of Inuvik on the East Channel of the Mackenzie River delta with the community... Continue Reading →
The Cadillac Motor Car Division of General Motors (GM) formally unveiled a pioneering type of automobile at the 30th annual National Auto Show at Grand Central Palace in New York City. “The first sixteen-cylinder engine to appear on an American motor car is introduced by Cadillac in its V-16 ‘super’ automobile exhibited for the first... Continue Reading →
The Connecticut Turnpike was formally opened. Ribbon-cutting ceremonies for the new expressway were held in the morning at its western terminus in the town of Greenwich and then during the afternoon at the eastern end in the town of Killingly on the Rhode Island border. Abraham A. Ribicoff, Connecticut’s incumbent governor, took part in both... Continue Reading →
More than a half-century after establishing a record for walking around the world, Dumitru Dan died in the city of Buzău in his native Romania at the age of 88. His path to international fame began in 1908 while he was a student in Paris. The Touring club de France initiated a contest for circumnavigating... Continue Reading →
A French crew of 14 sailors on board the vessel Banque Populaire V began an ambitious round-the-world voyage. The voyage was undertaken to win the Jules Verne Trophy for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe by a yacht. Starting in 1993, the Jules Verne Trophy – named for the acclaimed French writer whose works included... Continue Reading →
Airline transport pilot and certified flight instructor Wang Zheng (also known as Julie Wang) became the first Asian woman to circumnavigate the Earth in an airplane, and the first Chinese person to fly solo around the world, when she returned to the Texas town of Addison in the Dallas area 33 days after starting her... Continue Reading →
Metro San Lázaro, one of the earliest stations of the Mexico City Metro rapid transit system, was opened in the Venustiano Carranza municipality in Mexico’s capital city. Metro San Lázaro is located near the permanent meeting place of the Chamber of Deputies, which is the lower house of the Mexican government’s legislative branch (Congress of... Continue Reading →
Aviation pioneer, Gustave Whitehead, may or may not have flown a powered aircraft two years before the Wright Brothers. Whitehead (or Weisskopf in his native German) emigrated to the US in the late 1800s, after a troubled childhood in Bavaria. He was trained as a mechanic and then forcibly ganged onto a ship in Hamburg... Continue Reading →
The first commercial electric railway began service in Baltimore, Maryland. Replacing the mule-drawn cars on the Hampden line, the pioneering system used electricity in a third rail running down the middle of the track to power the cars. English inventor and professor, Leo Daft began work on the railway line in the early 1880s, having... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 