Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
During the 19th century, Chin Lin Sou provided leadership and guidance to his fellow Chinese Americans in the construction of major railroads in the United States. Chin, who was born in the Chinese city of Guangzhou (also known as Canton), immigrated to the United States in 1859 at the age of 22. Chin first settled... Continue Reading →
The formal inauguration of Singapore’s navy took place during a ceremony at Telok Ayer Basin in the Southeast Asian nation. At 5:55 p.m., the men, and women of the new Singapore Naval Volunteer Force (SNVF) stood at attention while the Singapore naval force white ensign – featuring a crescent moon with five stars as well... Continue Reading →
During the first half of the 20th century, Samuel Apolo Amalu established himself as the dean of Hawaii’s lighthouse keepers. Amalu began his career in 1906 when he joined the U.S. Light-House Board (replaced four years later by the U.S. Lighthouse Service). The agency had jurisdiction over lighthouses in his native Hawaii, which was a... Continue Reading →
Engineer and helicopter designer Étienne Edmond Oehmichen established a new aviation record in his native France. He did so by flying his helicopter Oehmichen No. 2, which he had designed and built a couple of years earlier, around a triangular closed circuit of approximately six-tenths of a mile. This flight took seven minutes and 40... Continue Reading →
A transportation milestone for the Tsar-ruled Russian Empire took place when the first two trams with electric motors arrived in Kiev. On the same day as their arrival, both trams underwent test runs on Sahaydachny Street in the city. The trams, which were built by renowned engineer Amand Struve (1835-1898), marked the start of the... Continue Reading →
Ellison Shoji Onizuka, who became the first Asian American to travel into outer space, was born in the community of Kealakekua on the Big Island of Hawaii in 1946. After earning both a B.S. and M.S. in aerospace engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Onizuka entered active duty with the U.S. Air Force.... Continue Reading →
Robert Gerwig, a civil engineer who specialized in designing railways for unusually challenging terrain, was born in the city of Karlsruhe in the Grand Duchy of Baden (now part of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany). Gerwig studied civil engineering at Polytechnische Schule (the present-day University of Karlsruhe), and initially focused on road construction.... Continue Reading →
Norman Yoshio Mineta was born in San Jose, California, in 1931 to Japanese immigrant parents who were prohibited by the Asian Exclusion Act from becoming U.S. citizens. During World War II, Mineta and his family were forced to relocate to the Heart Mountain internment camp in Wyoming along with thousands of other Japanese immigrants and... Continue Reading →
The Australia-based Hawkesbury River Railway Bridge, carrying the Main Northern railway line over the Hawkesbury River on the northern outskirts of Sydney, was officially opened. The seven-span bridge, which would remain in use for more than a half-century before being replaced by the current bridge, was the final link in a railway network connecting Adelaide,... Continue Reading →
A pioneering aviation event in England came to an end when Louis Paulhan finished first in a two-man London-to-Manchester plane race. The French aviator landed in Manchester early in the morning after he had begun his 186-mile flight from London. His competitor, an Englishman named Claude Grahame-White, had been hampered by everything from engine problems... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 