Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
September 6, 1919 The U.S. Army’s Cross-Country Motor Transport Train arrived in San Francisco, completing a transcontinental trip of 3,251 miles (5,232 kilometers) that began on July 7 in Washington, D.C. On the evening of September 6, convoy commander Lieutenant Charles W. McClure formally confirmed the end of this historic journey in a telegram that... Continue Reading →
September 5, 1889 In western Brazil’s province (now state) of Mato Grosso, local merchants Manoel da Silva Monteiro and Joaquim Francisco de Matos obtained a franchise to build a street railway in the city of Cuiabá. This city has long been considered by many of its residents and others to be the geographical center of... Continue Reading →
August 30, 1925 Two officials of the American Automobile Association (AAA) headed out of Washington, D.C., for an ambitious transcontinental motor vehicle trip to California. AAA President Thomas P. Henry and Ernest N. Smith, general manager of that organization, undertook that long drive to participate in the festivities commemorating California’s 75th anniversary as a state. Both... Continue Reading →
August 29, 1911 Hilda Hewlett became the first British woman to earn an airplane pilot’s license. Hewlett, who was 47 at the time, received certificate number 122 from the Royal Aero Club after she completed a test flight at Brooklands Aerodrome near the town of Weybridge in southeastern England. Hewlett had been born in Central... Continue Reading →
August 28, 1946 Ricardo De Lara Paras and his brother-in-law Florencio P. Buan established a pioneering bus service in the post-World War II Philippines. Philippine Rabbit Bus Company, Ltd., which was incorporated as Philippine Rabbit Bus Lines exactly 11 years later, came into existence less than two years after the liberation of the Philippines from... Continue Reading →
August 27, 1943 In the midst of World War II, the ship Cape Leeuwin was commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) to assist with Australia’s efforts on behalf of the Allies in their fight against Japan. A lighthouse tender, HMAS Cape Leeuwin had been designed and built nearly two decades earlier to provide supplies and... Continue Reading →
August 26, 1919 The U.S. Army’s Cross-Country Motor Transport Train, having crossed over into Nevada from Utah just a couple of days earlier, spent much of August 26 continuing to slog through what would be the toughest section of the entire transcontinental journey. “U.S. TRUCK TRAIN MIRED IN NEVADA DESERT,” proclaimed a headline in the... Continue Reading →
August 23, 1904 Harry D. Weed of Canastota, New York, was issued U.S. Patent Number 768,495 for his “Grip-Tread for Pneumatic Tires,” an innovation designed to help make driving safer in inclement winter weather or similarly adverse muddy road conditions. According to one of his great-grandsons, Weed came up with the idea for creating tire chains... Continue Reading →
August 22, 1882 French aviation pioneer Raymonde de Laroche was born in Paris. While originally known as Élise Raymonde Deroche, she adopted Raymonde de Laroche as her name by the time she turned 20 and had begun an acting career. She enjoyed playing sports as a child, but as a young adult, she acquired an... Continue Reading →
August 21, 2014 In the state of Maharashtra in western India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for a rapid transit system to be built in the city of Nagpur. This ceremony took place the day after the Union Cabinet approved the development of the system. (The Union Cabinet, which consists of the... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 