Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
In the late 1980s, Surekha Shankar Yadav became India’s first woman to operate a train. Yadav was born in the city of Satara in India’s state of Maharashtra in 1965. After graduating from St. Paul Convent High School in Satara, she earned a diploma in electrical engineering at Polytechnic Government College in the city of... Continue Reading →
In 1896, Helga Estby and her 17-year-old daughter Clara made national headlines when they walked across the United States from Spokane, Washington, to New York City. Helga had been born in 1860 in the city of Christiana (present-day Oslo) in what is now Norway (at the time part of the United Kingdoms of Sweden and... Continue Reading →
March 19, 1932 Australia’s Sydney Harbour Bridge, which carries traffic between that New South Wales (NSW) city’s central business district and North Shore area, was officially opened in ceremonies attended by hundreds of thousands of people. The lavish festivities on that Saturday for the steel through-type arch bridge included decorated floats in a nearby parade in... Continue Reading →
March 18, 1940 With the first day of spring only a couple of days away, the California Division of Highways (part of the present-day California Department of Transportation) announced that a section of U.S. Route 50 (US 50) in the Golden State that had been blocked by snow was again available for traffic. This section... Continue Reading →
March 17, 1817 In the northern region of the present-day Republic of Ireland, a new lighthouse first went into service at the end of a peninsula known as Fanad. (At that time, the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland were merged together as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; this sovereign state remained... Continue Reading →
In 1922, Brazilian airplane pilot Anésia Pinheiro Machado was granted Brevet No. 77 from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (the international regulatory organization for flying). This certification, which was specifically given to Machado by Aeroclube do Brasil, made her only the second licensed female pilot in Brazil. (The first woman in Brazil to earn such a... Continue Reading →
In the spirit of the female African-American mathematicians whose efforts to strengthen and advance the U.S. space program despite discrimination are depicted in the movie Hidden Figures, Raye Jean Jordan Montague played an important if often overlooked pioneering role when it came to military seacraft. Montague, who was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1935,... Continue Reading →
March 12, 1910 The first steel bridge in the present-day Republic of Singapore made its official debut. (At that time, Singapore was part of the British territories collectively known as the Straits Settlements.) The dignitaries attending the Saturday opening ceremony for the bridge included Sir John Anderson, for whom the new structure was named. Anderson... Continue Reading →
March 11, 1937 The Indiana state legislature passed a measure authorizing the Indiana State Highway Commission to work with Purdue University on methods to further improve and better maintain highways throughout the Hoosier State. (The Indiana State Highway Commission, which was established in 1917, remained in existence until being replaced by the Indiana Department of... Continue Reading →
March 10, 1985 A major breakthrough – both literal and figurative – took place for the construction of the Seikan Tunnel in Japan when the entire tunnel was finally opened from one end to another. This long-awaited boring through of the tunnel was made possible after Tokuo Yamashita, Japan’s minister of transport, detonated a dynamite... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 