Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
September 18, 1896 Edward Orpen Moriarty, a civil engineer who had undertaken a wide range of public works projects across the globe, died in the community of Southsea within the city and unitary authority of Portsmouth in southeastern England. He was 71. Moriarty was born on October 11, 1824, in County Kerry in southwestern Ireland.... Continue Reading →
September 12, 1906 The Newport Transporter Bridge, which crosses the River Usk in the city of Newport in southeastern Wales, was officially opened. This structure is only one of a dozen transporter bridges still in existence today -- a movable bridge that carries a segment of a roadway over a river that other types of... Continue Reading →
September 11, 2001 The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 individuals in the vicinity of the World Trade Center in the southernmost part of New York City’s borough of Manhattan; the Pentagon in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area; and – where a hijacked... Continue Reading →
September 1, 1964 The Alte Weser Lighthouse in the northwestern region of what was then West Germany (now part of the Federal Republic of Germany) first went into service. This 125-foot (38-meter)-tall red tower with white horizontal bands is offshore from the estuary mouth of the river Weser, which is within the German Bight (a... Continue Reading →
August 25, 1866 Shipbuilder and naval architect Fop Smit died in the town of Niewe Leckerland (now known as Nieuw Lekkerland) in the Netherlands. He was 88. Smit had been born on October 11, 1777, in the Dutch town and municipality of Alblassderdam. His father Jan Foppe Smith (1742-1807) and uncle Jacques Foppe Smit (1756-1820)... Continue Reading →
August 22, 1889 A screw-pile superstructure that had been built at the Baltimore-based Lazaretto Depot, a supplies facility for lighthouses and lightvessels, began an overnight journey to the site in Virginia where that superstructure would be installed as the major part of a new lighthouse. The specific destination was at the mouth of the Great... Continue Reading →
August 17, 1861 Just over four months after the start of the American Civil War, the Union Navy (the name for the U.S. Navy during that military conflict) acquired the steam tugboat Oliver M. Pettit in New York City as part of its fleet. This vessel was purchased on behalf of the Navy by commission... Continue Reading →
August 1, 2008 Two bridges spanning the Port River in the port-side region of Adelaide (the capital city of the state of South Australia) were inaugurated. Both of these bascule bridges (bridges that can move to allow passage for vessels traveling through the area) were built by the Australian construction company Abigroup. One of these... Continue Reading →
July 31, 1829 In southeastern Brazil, a lighthouse on the island of Rasa (“Ilha Rasa” in Portuguese) was inaugurated. This island serves as the entrance to the Port of Rio de Janeiro, which is located in a cove on the western shore of Guanabara Bay. (At the time of Ilha Rasa Lighthouse’s debut, most of... Continue Reading →
July 26, 1863 Work began on a lighthouse on the island of Texel, part of the Netherlands’ province of North Holland. Texel is the largest island of the West Frisian Islands, which are within the Wadden Sea (an intertidal zone in the southeastern section of the North Sea). The lighthouse on Texel is specifically located... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 