Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
The Argentine Navy steam gunboat ARA Uruguay was launched in England, where she had been built by the shipbuilding company Laird Brothers. The new vessel arrived at the city of Montevideo in Uruguay (Argentina’s ally and neighbor) about four months after being launched. It was there that the Argentine Navy formally received the new vessel... Continue Reading →
Luella Bates of Wisconsin played an influential role in the history of trucks during a time when those vehicles – still in an early stage of development and use in the United States – were widely seen as contraptions that should be operated only by men. “Be careful what you say about truck-drivers in general,... Continue Reading →
A day after it was officially opened, the first electric tram (streetcar) line in all of Scandinavia began regular operations in Norway’s capital city of Kristiania. (In 1924, the city formally readopted its original name of Oslo.) This tram line was run by the company Kristiana Elektriske Sporvei (KES) as a part of the Oslo... Continue Reading →
On January 1, 1915, Wilma K. Russey became a high-profile transportation pioneer by launching her career as New York City’s first female taxi driver. “New York’s First Feminine Chauffeur Starts Business on New Year’s Day,” proclaimed a headline in the next day’s edition of the New York Times. Russey, who had been employed for more... Continue Reading →
Costa Rica’s first nationally operated airline, Empresa Nacional de Transportes Aéreos (ENTA), was established by an American émigré named William Schoenfeldt. The airline made its debut a little over two decades after the first-ever plane flight in the Central American country had taken place. When ENTA began operations, it provided only intermittent flight service between... Continue Reading →
Mary Ann Brown Patten – through highly unexpected and unique circumstances – became the first female commander of a U.S. merchant vessel. Her husband Joshua Patten was a sea captain who, in 1856, was given command of the clipper ship Neptune’s Car for a voyage from New York to San Francisco to transport cargo. Mary,... Continue Reading →
A new and record-setting dual carriageway (divided highway) toll bridge was opened in the Malaysian state of Penang. The Sultan Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah Bridge, which was formally designated Expressway 28 (E28) and is also known as the Penang Second Bridge, took a little over five years to construct. With one lane for motorcycles and... Continue Reading →
In the early 1990s, William Pinkney became the first African-American – and only the fourth person in the world – to travel around the globe on his own via boat. Pinkney, who was born in Chicago in 1935, received post-high school training as an x-ray technician. From 1956 to 1960, he served in the U.S.... Continue Reading →
In an early and important aviation milestone for Siam (now known as Thailand), three army officers departed the kingdom to undergo flight training in France. The officers were Major Luang Sakdi Sanlayawut (Sakdi), Captain Luang Arwut Likitkam (Arwut), and Lieutenant Tip Ketuthat (Tip). Their training began just over a year after Belgian aviator Charles Van... Continue Reading →
In 1937, Willa Brown became the first African-American woman to earn an airplane pilot’s license in the United States. (Bessie Coleman, who had become the first African-American woman to earn a pilot’s license in 1921, had to go to France to train for and obtain her license.) Brown, who was born in Kentucky in 1906,... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 