Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
April 4, 1901 In Switzerland, a funicular railway in the city of Zurich first went into service. This railway was built to carry people up and down the Zürichberg, a 2,228-foot (679-meter)-high hill in the northeastern part of the city. A key destination on this hill at the time was a restaurant named Rigiblick that... Continue Reading →
March 28, 2001 Regular operations began for Athens International Airport (AIA) Eleftherios Venizelos in Greece. This airport serves the Greek administrative region of Attica, including the country’s capital city of Athens. AIA is specifically located in Spata, a municipal unit that is 12 miles (20 kilometers) east of downtown Athens. The airport was named in... Continue Reading →
March 27, 1976 The first 4.6 miles (7.4 kilometers) of the Washington Metro were officially opened just over six years after construction on this rapid transit system had begun. “The nation’s capital got a subway Saturday,” announced a subsequent Associated Press news article, “an itty-bitty one by most metropolitan standards, but a subway nonetheless.” This... Continue Reading →
March 20, 2004 In Indonesia, an airport in the city of Sorong in the province of West Papua was officially opened. This city was part of the region split off from West Papua in 2022 to form the province of Southwest Papua. Both of these provinces are located on the Bird’s Head Peninsula, which makes... Continue Reading →
March 14, 2017 In the Republic of the Philippines, a bus station was inaugurated in Quezon City in Metro Manila (an area that is officially known as the National Capital Region) on the island of Luzon. This station is specifically located in Araneta City, an 86-acre (35-hectare) commercial mixed-use, transit-oriented development within Quezon City. The... Continue Reading →
March 13, 2004 On Kyūshū – the third largest of Japan’s five main islands – operations began for a newly completed passenger railway station in the city of Minamata. Shin-Minamata Station is served by both the Kyushu Shinkansen high-speed trains (popularly known as bullet trains); and the Hisatsu Orange Railway Line. Shin-Minamata Station was designed... Continue Reading →
February 26, 2017 Regular passenger train runs began for a railway line in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This inaugural segment of the line was built between Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital city, and the Qassim Region in the central area of the country. The line was launched by the Saudi Railway Company (SAR), which has... Continue Reading →
February 18, 2023 Operations began for a station in the Uttara neighborhood of Dhaka, the capital and largest city of Bangladesh. This elevated station -- formally designated as Uttara Center -- is part of Line 6 of the city’s mass rapid transit system known as the Dhaka Metro. The first section of that line was... Continue Reading →
February 17, 2014 In the Australian state of South Australia (SA), a railway station in Wayville was formally opened to the public. (Wayville is a suburb of the City of Unley, a government area within the metropolitan region of SA’s capital of Adelaide.) This station was built as a transit link for the Adelaide Showground,... Continue Reading →
February 14, 2012 A newly completed terminal for Devi Ahilya Bai Holkar (DABH) Airport in India’s state of Madhya Pradesh was formally opened. The public officials taking part in this inaugural ceremony included Shivraj Singh Chouhan (born in 1959), chief minister of Madhya Pradesh; and Ajit Singh (1939-2021), India’s minister of civil aviation. This terminal... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 