Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
August 27, 1910 The first known wireless transmission of a message between an airplane and the ground below took place in Brooklyn, New York. Canadian aviator John Alexander Douglas McCurdy sent this pioneering message from the Curtiss biplane he was piloting 500 feet (152.4 meters) above the earth. He had a 50-foot (15.2-meter) antenna trailing... Continue Reading →
August 24, 1945 The Yosemite Valley Railroad (YVRR) in central California went out service following the run of its last regularly scheduled train. YVRR had been incorporated in San Francisco in 1902 by John S. Drum, William B. Bosley, Sydney M. Ehrman, Thomas Turner, and Joseph D. Smith. The short-line railroad transported both passengers and... Continue Reading →
August 23, 1869 The Milburn Wagon Company was incorporated in Mishawaka, Indiana. The company’s founder was George Milburn, who had been born in England in 1820. Not long after his father’s death in 1835, he and the remaining members of his family left England for what was then British Canada. They settled in the province... Continue Reading →
August 22, 1986 In Utah, a milestone in the development of the Interstate Highway System took place with a ceremony commemorating the completion of I-80 near Salt Lake City. This was the final segment of that east-west route to be opened. The formal debut of that 4.5-mile (7.2-kilometer) section also gave I-80 – running an... Continue Reading →
August 21, 1960 David B. Steinman, a structural engineer who designed a number of notable bridges across the globe, died in New York City. It is not completely clear where he had been born. Several sources indicate that Steinman was born in the town of Chomsk in the present-day Republic of Belarus in 1886 and... Continue Reading →
August 20, 1963 If at first, you don’t succeed . . . Charles Fehn applied for the third time for a patent for a pioneering type of motorcycle that he invented five years earlier. The entrepreneurial Fehn developed a strong familiarity with motorcycles early on in life. Over time, he even began routinely taking motorcycles... Continue Reading →
August 17, 1939 Beverly Rae Kimes, a writer who became known as the First Lady of Automotive History, was born in West Chicago, Illinois. Kimes developed a strong interest in writing early on in life, focusing at the time on the fine arts and the performing arts rather than automobiles. She earned two degrees in... Continue Reading →
August 16, 1983 The first subsea (underwater) tunnel in Norway made its formal debut. This two-lane vehicular tunnel, measuring 9,480 feet (2,890 meters) in length, was built during the course of three years beneath the Bussesundet strait in northeastern Norway. The tunnel connects the town of Vardø on the island of Vardøya with the village... Continue Reading →
August 15, 1892 In Canada, the first electric streetcar to operate in Toronto officially went into service. This streetcar, which was part of the Toronto Railway Company (TRC), ran on Church Street in the city. (Along with being the capital of the province of Ontario, Toronto at that time was second only to Montreal as... Continue Reading →
August 14, 1930 Construction on the lightship now known as Chesapeake was completed by the Charleston Drydock & Machine Company in Charleston, South Carolina. As one of the more modern floating lighthouses built to serve as navigational aids along U.S. coastal waters, Lightship 116 was equipped with state-of-the-art features for lightships during that era. Lightship... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 