Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
Ellen Church (1904-1965) was the first female flight attendant. The Iowa-born Church was a registered nurse and she also had a pilot’s license. While Boeing Air Transport (predecessor to United Airlines) would not give her a job as a pilot, it did hire her to serve as a flight attendant for the company’s planes. Church... Continue Reading →
As World War II in Europe was fast approaching its end, an extensive operation known as “White Buses” began using a fleet of vehicles to rescue concentration camp inmates in Nazi Germany. White Buses was jointly conducted by the Swedish Red Cross and the Danish government. (Sweden was neutral throughout the war; Denmark, for its... Continue Reading →
A major transportation development for the kingdom of Jordan took place when a new passenger terminal at the Middle East nation’s leading airport was dedicated. Jordan’s King Abdullah II attended the Thursday ceremony at Queen Alia International Airport (QAIA) - located 20 miles south of the capital city of Amman - and formally inaugurated the... Continue Reading →
During the late 19th century, Katherine T. “Kittie” Knox was a transportation pioneer who bravely confronted the era’s gender and racial barriers. Knox, who was born in 1874 to a white mother and African-American father, earned a living as a seamstress but found her passion in bicycling. Knox became a member of the Riverside Cycling... Continue Reading →
A new station on the Buenos Aires Premetro light rail line on the outskirts of Argentina’s capital city was opened. Nuestra Señora de Fátima station (popularly known as Fátima station), which is located in the Buenos Aires neighborhood (barrio) of Villa Soklati, was the first Premetro station to be opened after service on the line... Continue Reading →
Olive Dennis (1885-1957) was an innovative and influential civil engineer in the U.S. railroad industry at a time when technical opportunities for women in that transportation sector were few and far between. Dennis, who was born in the Pennsylvania community of Thurlow and moved to Baltimore with her family when she was six, became only... Continue Reading →
The fully automated Milnerton Lighthouse went into service on the western coast of South Africa. The 69-foot-tall concrete structure, which is one of the few cylindrical lighthouses along the entire South African coast, is located in the Cape Town suburb of Milnerton on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean’s Table Bay. The lighthouse specifically stands... Continue Reading →
By the late 1870s, more women than ever before were taking part in the then-popular pedestrian races in the United States. Several of the women participating in the sport achieved widespread fame and impressive records, but it was Amy Howard of Brooklyn, New York, who stood out as the era’s foremost and undisputed female walking... Continue Reading →
A new airport made its debut in the Embakasi suburb of Nairobi in what was then the British Colony and Protectorate of Kenya. (British rule came to an end in 1963, with Kenya achieving its independence under a black majority government; the present-day Republic of Kenya was formally established the following year.) Sir Evelyn Baring,... Continue Reading →
In 1922, Helen Mary Schultz of Iowa launched the first woman-owned bus line. Her enterprise, Red Ball Transportation Company, came into existence at a time when bus services were steadily growing as a means of mobility in the United States. Schultz, while working in various temporary jobs in California and Minnesota, closely observed motorized bus... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 