Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
A group consisting of seven officers and 13 sailors from the Bangladesh Navy began training on board a vessel that had recently been obtained by that military branch. The vessel was USCGC Jarvis, which had been commissioned by the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) in 1972. During her years of service as a USCG cutter, the... Continue Reading →
On her 100th birthday, Hepsa Cottle lived it up by traveling in an automobile in her adopted hometown of New York City. “Aged Woman Enjoys Novel Celebration,” proclaimed a headline in the San Francisco Call. In its own account of Mrs. Cottle’s birthday ride, Automotive Industries magazine characterized her in a caption as “the Oldest... Continue Reading →
Mary Feik, whose career encompassed a wide range of aviation achievements, was born in Cleveland. Her interest in airborne transportation first took shape when she was only seven. A stunt pilot flying a Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” biplane visited the Cleveland area at that time and took Feik for a ride in the aircraft. The experience... Continue Reading →
Image: Portraits of three women engineers: Margaret Rowbotham, Beatrice Shilling, and Margaret Partridge Beatrice “Tilly” Shilling, who left her mark as an aeronautical engineer as well as a motorbike and car racer, was born in Waterlooville, England. At age 14, she bought her first motorbike. By that time, she had also developed a strong interest... Continue Reading →
A memo to U.S. Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels from Rear Admiral L.C. Palmer, chief of the Bureau of Navigation (the office within the Navy Department that handled personnel matters), helped set into motion the unprecedented enlistment of women to perform various responsibilities for that military branch – including those that involved transportation. With the ever-increasing... Continue Reading →
A pioneering railway officially began operations in the city of Liverpool in northwestern England at seven o’clock in the morning. In reporting on the first runs of the railway’s trains that day, the Liverpool Echo noted that “the carriages appear to be fairly well filled with passengers.” The Liverpool Overhead Railway, which originally spanned five... Continue Reading →
Geraldyn “Jerrie” M. Cobb, a well-established female trailblazer of the skies, was born in Norman, Oklahoma. Her father was a pilot and, with his encouragement, she developed a strong interest in aviation at an early age. By the time she was 12, Cobb was learning how to fly in her father’s 1936 Waco Aircraft Company... Continue Reading →
Photo of Ellen Paneok courtesy of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Oral History Program. Aviation pioneer Ellen Evak Paneok died in Anchorage, Alaska, at the age of 48. She had been born in 1959. (Accounts vary on whether her birthplace was in Alaska or Virginia.) Her parents were Bernice Evak Burgandine, who was of Inupiat... Continue Reading →
A new lighthouse went into service at Cape Agulhas, the southernmost tip of Africa and the start of the dividing line between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The Cape Agulhas Lighthouse was the third lighthouse to be built in present-day South Africa. At the time of the lighthouse’s debut, Cape Agulhas was a part of... Continue Reading →
Alvin Drew, an African-American NASA astronaut, became the 200th person to walk in space. He conducted this spacewalk as a member of the six-person crew on STS-133, the 39th and final mission of Space Shuttle Discovery. Drew’s milestone excursion outside a spacecraft in orbit took place just a little over 16 years after fellow astronaut... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 