03 July 2017
Interesting tidbits:
1767 – Pitcairn Island was discovered by Midshipman Robert Pitcairn on an expeditionary voyage commanded by Philip Carteret. The island is inhabited by the descendants of the Bounty mutineers and the Tahitians who accompanied them, an event retold in numerous books and films. This history is still apparent in the surnames of many of the islanders. With only about 48 inhabitants, Pitcairn is the least populous jurisdiction in the world.
1806 - Michael Keens exhibits the first cultivated strawberry.
1844 – The last pair of Great Auks is killed.
1861 - Pony Express arrives in SF with overland letters from NY.
1886 – Karl Benz officially unveils the Benz Patent Motorwagen – the first purpose-built automobile. About 25 Patent Motorwagens were built between 1886 and 1893. Although Benz's wife, Bertha, financed the development process, and would hold patent rights under modern law, as a married woman she was not allowed to apply for the patent. Benz officially unveiled his invention to the public on July 3, 1886, on the Ringstrasse in Mannheim, Germany. Bertha Benz chose to publicize the Patent-Motorwagen in a unique manner: She took the Patent-Motorwagen No. 3, supposedly without her husband's knowledge, and drove it on the first long-distance automobile road trip to demonstrate its feasibility as a means to travel long distances. That trip occurred in early August 1888, as the entrepreneurial lady took her sons Eugen and Richard, fifteen and fourteen years old, respectively, on a ride from Mannheim through Heidelberg, and Wiesloch to her maternal hometown of Pforzheim. As well as being the driver, Benz acted as mechanic on the drive, cleaning the carburetor with her hat pin and using a garter to insulate a wire. She refueled at the local pharmacy in Wiesloch (which made it the world's first filling station). As the brakes wore down, Benz asked a local shoemaker to nail leather on the brake blocks, in doing so, inventing brake lining on the way. After sending a telegram to her husband of the arrival in Pforzheim, she spent the night at her mother's house and returned home three days later. The trip covered 194 km / 121 mi in total. In Germany, a parade of antique automobiles celebrates this historic trip of Bertha Benz every two years. In 2008, the Bertha Benz Memorial Route was officially approved as a route of industrial heritage of mankind, because it follows Bertha Benz's tracks of the world's first long-distance journey by automobile in 1888.
1886 – The New York Tribune becomes the first newspaper to use a linotype machine, eliminating typesetting by hand. Along with letterpress printing, linotype was the industry standard for newspapers, magazines and posters from the late 19th century to the 1960s and 70s, when it was largely replaced by offset lithography printing and computer typesetting. The name of the machine comes from the fact that it produces an entire line of metal type at once, hence a line-o'-type, a significant improvement over the previous industry standard of manual, letter-by-letter typesetting using a composing stick and drawers of letters. The linotype machine operator entered text on a 90-character keyboard. The machine assembled matrices, which are molds for the letter forms, in a line. The assembled line is then cast as a single piece, called a slug, of type metal in a process known as "hot metal" typesetting. The matrices were then returned to the type magazine from which they came, to be reused later. This allows much faster typesetting and composition than original hand composition in which operators place down one pre-cast metal letter, punctuation mark or space at a time. The machine revolutionized typesetting and with it especially newspaper publishing, making it possible for a relatively small number of operators to set type for many pages on a daily basis. Before Mergenthaler's invention of the linotype in 1884, no newspaper in the world had more than eight pages.
1913 - Confederate veterans at the Great Reunion of 1913 reenact Pickett's Charge; upon reaching the high-water mark of the Confederacy they are met by the outstretched hands of friendship from Union survivors.
1916 - The first of 3 fatal shark attacks occurred near NJ shore (4 die).
1928 - The first color TV broadcast in London by John Logie Baird.
1938 – World speed record for a steam railway locomotive was set in England, by the Mallard, which reached a speed of 126 mph / 203 kph. Number 4468 Mallard was a London and North Eastern Railway Class A4 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotive built at Doncaster, England in 1938. It is historically significant because it is the holder of the world speed record for steam locomotives. The A4 class was designed by Sir Nigel Gresley to power high-speed streamlined trains. The wind-tunnel-tested, aerodynamic body and high power allowed the class to reach speeds of over 100 mph / 160 kph, although in everyday service it was relatively uncommon for any steam hauled service in the UK to reach even 90 mph, much less 100. Mallard covered almost one and a half million miles / 2.4 million km before it was retired in 1963. It was restored to working order in the 1980s, but has not operated since, apart from hauling some specials. By the time the Mallard was built, deisel had already begun to replace steam as a source of power in locomotives.
1969 – The biggest explosion in the history of rocketry occurs when the Soviet N-1 rocket explodes and subsequently destroys its launchpad.
1996 – Stone of Scone is returned to Scotland.
1998 - Nozomi Launch (Japan Mars Mission).
Today's birthday crew:
1878 – George M. Cohan, American actor, director, singer, and dancer.
1883 – Franz Kafka, Czech-German writer.
1906 – Jack Earle, American circus performer (7 ft 7 1/2 in / 2.324 m tall).
1906 – George Sanders, British actor who portrayed Mr. Freeze in two episodes of the live-action Batman TV series which were shown in February 1966. He also appeared in an episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Saunders was in the 1936 film of H.G. Wells' Things to Come as well as The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945). In 1960 he played the lead role of Professor Gordon Zellaby in the British science fiction film Village of the Damned. The film was a fairly faithful adaptation of the novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham. This film was #92 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.
1935 – Harrison Schmitt, American astronaut and politician.
1943 – Kurtwood Smith, American actor made a number of appearances in the Star Trek franchise, playing the President of the Federation in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, a Cardassian named Thrax in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Things Past", and a Krenim scientist named Annorax in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Year of Hell". He also has an extensive voice acting résumé, appearing in computer games such as Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, and FreeSpace 2, and on a number of animated series. He played a recurring role on the claymation series Gary & Mike as the vengeful Officer Dick and voiced the dinosaurian military commander character General Galapagos in the Savage Steve Holland produced Fox animated series Terrible Thunderlizards. He played the voice of Bob Johnson on Squirrel Boy and provided the voice of Kanjar Ro in Green Lantern: First Flight and starred as the sheriff in Last of the Dogmen.
1964 – Yeardley Smith, French-American actress best known as the voice of Lisa Simpson.
1980 – Olivia Munn, American actress, model, author, and former co-host on Attack of the Show.
Happy birthday guys!