Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
September 27, 1825 The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) made its debut in northeastern England’s County Durham, thereby launching the first service of locomotive-hauled passenger trains. It linked the village of Witton Park with the market town of Stockton-on-Tees and also provided connections to several coal-mining facilities near the town of Shildon. The S&DR, covering a... Continue Reading →
September 26, 1944 With the United States still fighting the Axis powers during World War II, the U.S. Navy cargo ship USS Beltrami was launched. Beltrami, which had been named after a county in northwestern Minnesota, was built by the Kaiser Shipbuilding Company at its shipyards in Richmond, California. The launch of Beltrami at Richmond... Continue Reading →
September 25, 1955 Emma Rowena Gatewood became the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail on her own. The 67-year-old Gatewood was also the oldest person up to that time to complete the trek. Gatewood reached the summit of Maine’s Mount Katahdin, which is the northern terminus of the trail, 146 days after starting her... Continue Reading →
September 24, 1946 Cathay Pacific Airways was officially established in Hong Kong. The airline’s founders were Roy C. Farrell of the United States and Sydney H. de Kantzow of Australia. Both of these men had served in the military during World War II and were among the pilots who regularly flew over “The Hump,” a vital Allied... Continue Reading →
September 21, 2014 In New York City, the third and final section of a linear park featuring an innovative and eco-friendly trail was opened on the west side of Manhattan. A CBS news story called the Sunday opening of this section “perfect timing for New Yorkers looking to soak up the last of summer’s warmth.”... Continue Reading →
September 20, 1935 Railroad magnate William Wallace Atterbury died in Philadelphia at the age of 69. He had been born in the city of New Albany in Indiana in 1866. After graduating from Yale University, Atterbury started out in the railroad business as an apprentice earning five cents per hour at the shops of the Pennsylvania... Continue Reading →
September 19, 1919 Construction officially began on a major road along Australia’s southeastern coast. At the time, this region of the Australian state of Victoria was mostly accessible to the outside world only by sea. The building of the Great Ocean Road was seen as an opportunity to better connect isolated settlements in the area... Continue Reading →
September 18, 1948 A first-of-a-kind flight took place in the skies above Muroc Dry Lake (part of present-day Edwards Air Force Base) in the Mojave Desert in southern California. The pioneering jet plane was the Convair XF-92A, which had been designed and built for the U.S. Air Force (USAF) by the aircraft manufacturing company Consolidated... Continue Reading →
September 17, 1965 A day after becoming the first individuals to travel across the English Channel in automobiles, four Englishmen arrived in the city of Frankfurt in what was then West Germany for a major automobile show. The men arrived at the event in the two Amphicars which they had used for the waterborne trip. The... Continue Reading →
September 14, 1716 1729 illustration showing signal cannon in right background The first lighthouse to be built in the present-day United States began operations on what is now called Little Brewster Island at the entrance to Boston Harbor. The first keeper of the structure known as Boston Light was George Worthylake, who also served as... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 