Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
April 12, 1890 Nearly three decades after becoming the first streetcar company to operate in Washington, D.C., the Washington and Georgetown Railroad achieved a new milestone by switching from horse-drawn streetcars to cable cars. “CABLE CARS RUNNING,” proclaimed a headline in that day’s edition of the Washington Critic. This change took placed due to a... Continue Reading →
April 7, 2018 On New Zealand’s North Island, a bus station in Manukau (a suburb of the city of Auckland) was officially opened. Those on hand for this inaugural ceremony included Phil Twyford, New Zealand’s minister of transport from 2017 to 2020; and Phil Goff, mayor of Auckland between 2016 and 2022. Construction on Manukau... Continue Reading →
March 30, 1968 The last regularly scheduled passenger train service at a railroad station in northern Alabama’s city of Huntsville took place at a time in which that longtime facility was marked for permanent closure. The train making this final run at the Huntsville Depot was the Tennessean, which had been operated by Southern Railway... Continue Reading →
March 23, 2012 The newly renovated version of Jalgaon Airport in India was formally inaugurated. This domestic airport is located southeast of the city of Jalgaon in the state of Maharashtra in India’s western peninsular region. (Maharashtra is the second-most populous state of India and the country’s third-largest state by area.) Jalgaon Airport was opened... Continue Reading →
March 14, 2018 In the Republic of the Philippines, an inaugural ceremony was held for a newly renovated and expanded passenger terminal building at Tuguegarao Airport. This airport serves the city of Tuguegarao, the capital of the province of Cagayan at the northern tip of Luzon (the country’s largest and most populous island). Tuguegarao Airport,... Continue Reading →
March 9, 1951 The public transport agency Servicio de Transportes Eléctricos del Distrito Federal (now known as Servicio de Transportes Eléctricos de la Ciudad de México [STE]) officially launched the first trolleybus route in Mexico City. Transportes Eléctricos, in preparation for this new transit service in Mexico’s capital, had purchased a total of 20 trolleybuses... Continue Reading →
The place was New York City, and on Sunday, July 16, 1854, Elizabeth Jennings -- a member of a prominent family in that city’s African American middle-class community -- was on her way to the First Colored Congregational Church at Sixth Street and the Bowery to play the organ for a service there. Since she... Continue Reading →
February 28, 2015 A newly built railway station was opened in the city of Delft in the Netherlands’ province of South Holland. This city has played a huge role in Dutch history over the centuries and is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Netherlands. Delft -- located between Rotterdam to the southeast... Continue Reading →
February 14, 1920 In the Republic of Colombia, the first flight at an airport serving the city of Cartagena took place. The pilot for this flight was Jourdanet Jacques René Bazin, who flew a plane named Cartagena in the skies above that Caribbean port city. There were two passengers aboard the plane for this pioneering... Continue Reading →
On June 6, 1980, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Brenda E. Robinson earned her Wings of Gold at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas. This made her the first black woman to become a U.S. naval aviator. The following year, Robinson made history again when she became the first black woman certified for C-1A carrier... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 