American Society of Agricultural Engineers Founded in this Building December 27, 1907
1900-1909
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Image Credit: Courtesy Wikicommons/James Steakley (CC BY-SA 3.0)
1982
AIAA designated Baddeck, Nova Scotia as a historic site, providing a plaque to commemorate the centennial of the first powered flight in Canada. On February 23, 1909, piloting the “Silver Dart,” J.A. Douglas McCurdy took off from the frozen surface of Bras d’Or Lake at Baddeck Bay, and flew for close to one kilometer before landing safely on ice. The plane had been created by Mabel and Alexander Graham Bell’s Aerial Experiment Association, formed in 1907 to build and fly experimental aircraft.
Society: AIAAMain Category: Aerospace & AviationSub Category: AviationEra: 1900-1909DateCreated: 1903Kitty HawkState: NCCountry: USAWebsite: https://www.aiaa.org/HistoricAerospaceSites/Creator: Wright, Wilbur, Wright, Orville Image Caption: Soaring flight, by Orville Wright, Kitty Hawk, NC, Oct, 1911.(10469 A.S.)
On 19 August, the AIAA Historic Aerospace Sites Committee dedicated Kitty Hawk, NC, as a historic aerospace site, following a decades-long negotiation with the U.S Park Service. A historic marker was unveiled at a 0930 hrs ceremony as part of the First Flight Society’s National Aviation Day at Kitty Hawk. At this site on 17 December 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright achieved the first sustained, controlled heavier-than-air flight of an aircraft, opening a new era of transportation throughout the world.
Mulholland Drive is one of the best-known addresses in the Los Angeles area. It follows the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains, northwest of the city. Movie stars live there, and their homes command sweeping views of the San Fernando Valley, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and Los Angeles itself. Yet the drive’s namesake, William Mulholland, was neither a Hollywood mogul nor a wealthy landowner. He was the city’s water superintendent from 1886 to 1928.
New York City’s General Post Office unfurls its grand white facade along two full blocks between Thirty-first and Thirty-third Streets on Eighth Avenue. It’s open around the clock all year long (as midnight draws nigh on April 15, representatives of the Maalox and Excedrin concerns pass out free samples to harried taxpayers in the tall marble hall), so at any hour a passer-by may drop in and poke into the alcoves where displays of mail pouches and old photographs and engravings tell the history of the New York postal service.
On 24 December 1906, the first radio broadcast for entertainment and music was transmitted from Brant Rock, Massachusetts to the general public. This pioneering broadcast was achieved after years of development work by Reginald Aubrey Fessenden (1866-1932) who built a complete system of wireless transmission and reception using amplitude modulation (AM) of continuous electromagnetic waves. This technology was a revolutionary departure from transmission of dots and dashes widespread at the time.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Michael Thompson (CC BY-SA 2.5)Image Caption: 500 CPS Synchronous Rotary Gap transmitter at Brant Rock, Ma. Ca: 1906.Era_date_from: 1906
2008
The first use of wireless telegraphy in the field occurred during the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). The British Army experimented with Marconi's system and the British Navy successfully used it for communication among naval vessels in Delagoa Bay, prompting further development of Marconi's wireless telegraph system for practical uses. The Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902 will be remembered as the last of the gentleman's wars, the war that marked the end of the Victorian era.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Cardiff Council Flat Holm Project (CC BY 3.0)Image Caption: Post Office Engineers inspect Marconi's equipment on Flat Holm, May 1897Era_date_from: 1899
1999
In 1902 and 1903 he requested some patents for the system. With the Telekine, Torres-Quevedo laid down modern wireless remote-control operation principles.
Torres Quevedo also made some important contributions to aeronautics, a field in which he carried out important research on dirigible balloons.
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Image Credit: Courtesy WikipediaImage Caption: Leonardo Torres QuevedoEra_date_from: 1901
2007
In the years following the Civil War, the land west of the Mississippi River was being settled and the Pacific Northwest explored. There remained, however, a large portion of Montana, Idaho, and Washington that contained enormous quantities of timber and minerals, but was not accessible by rail. By far the most grueling stretch was the Stevens Pass area in the Cascade Mountains.
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Image Credit: Courtesy Wikipedia/SeattleretroImage Caption: Railroad development in Stevens Pass made accessible a timber and mineral rich region of Montana, Idaho, and Washington.Era_date_from: 1900
1993
A transportation tunnel under the Hudson River connecting Manhattan and New Jersey was first considered in the 1860s, fueled by New York City's rapidly growing congestion and the inadequacy of existing ferry service to population centers across the river. DeWitt Clinton Haskin, an engineer formerly with the Union Pacific Railroad, started the project in 1874 and subsequently endured an extended lawsuit, several failures of the tunnel wall, and an exhaustion of funds before quitting in 1887 with only 1,600 feet completed.
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Image Credit: Courtesy ascemetsection.orgImage Caption: The Hudson and Manhattan tunnel was the first large transportation tunnel constructed under a major river in the United States..Era_date_from: 1908
1978
Innovations
This, the first Curtis vertical turbine built, was constructed by the General Electric Co. for the Newport & Fall River Street Railway Co. It operated in the Newport, R.I., generating station until June 1927. It was transferred to the Harding Street Station of the Indianapolis Power &…
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Around 1907, Belgian-born chemist Leo Hendrik Baekeland took two ordinary chemicals, phenol and formaldehyde, mixed them in a sealed autoclave, and subjected them to heat and pressure.
The sticky, amber-colored resin he produced in his Yonkers laboratory was the first plastic ever to be…
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This was a pioneering venture in mainline railroad electrification and was a proving ground for railroad electrification technology. It established single-phase alternating current as a technical and economical alternative to direct current. This concept exerted considerable influence over…
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This low-head operating plant is representative of nineteenth-century hydropower-plant practice using many small turbines in contrast to twentieth-century use of few large turbines and generators. Its 40,000 horsepower capacity made it the largest in the country using turbines of American design…
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Only since 1912 have glass jars and bottles been in cheap and plentiful supply for pharmaceuticals, household products, food and beverages, and an endless variety of uses. The bottle-making machine introduced the safety, standardization, quality, and convenience of glass containers. Not only did…
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The North Island Main Trunk Railway permitted overland travel and development of the New Zealand hinterland. Built under challenging conditions and over difficult terrain, all cuts, fills, and tunneling were minimized by careful use of the topography and by innovative engineering.
Over…
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Published in 1914-15, the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code (BPVC) was the first comprehensive standard for the design, construction, inspection, and testing of boilers and pressure vessels. With adoption in the United States and use in many countries, it has contributed significantly to…
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This collection of equipment—all of it maintained in operating condition and used for educational purposes—was established in 1987. It spans the period from the late 19th century to the 1940s, when steam was the prime motive force for most U.S. industries, including rail and marine…
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The Glengyle is the earliest known survivor of the fleet of heavyweight, all-steel sleepers built by Pullman Company. The design was introduced in 1907 as a marked improvement over the wooden version then in use. Some 10,000 were built, in various configurations, the last in 1931. The Glengyle…
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The idea of constructing a rotating boom for
hydromechanical tests at the Alden Hydraulic Laboratory
originated with Professor Charles Metcalf Allen, head of
the lab from 1896 to 1950. The original boom was designed
in 1908 by Professor Allen, assisted by two Worcester
Polytechnic Institute… Read More
This was a pioneering venture in mainline railroad electrification. It established single-phase alternating current as a technical and economical alternative to direct current. This concept exerted considerable influence over subsequent systems both in the United States and abroad. The major…
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Bremen Airport was founded in 1909. In 1924, German aviation pioneers Henrich Focke and Georg Wulf founded the Focke-Wulf company on the site. On June 26, 1936, Heinrich Focke’s Fw 61, the world’s first fully operational helicopter, made a successful maiden flight at the airport, piloted by…
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During the post-Civil War era, efforts to cultivate the land for higher crop yields resulted in the digging of thousands of miles of ditches to improve land drainage. Accurately graded ditches were needed for open drainage, pipeline trenches and placement of underground agricultural drainage…
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The Buffalo Bill Dam, known as the Shoshone Dam until 1946, was the first mass concrete dam in America. At nearly 325 feet high, it was also the tallest dam in the world at the time of completion.
This was one of the first arch dams in the U.S. to be designed using a mathematical method…
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The idea of a canal eliminating the costly and dangerous sea trip around the Massachusetts peninsula of Cape Cod was envisioned as early as 1623 by Pilgrim leader Miles Standish. It was not until financier August Belmont became involved in 1906, however, that sufficient funds for the project…
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Requests for public power in Seattle began in the late 1890s and lead to the voter approval for building the Cedar Falls Water Supply hydroelectric dam plant in 1902. The first municipally developed and owned hydroelectric plant in the United States began operation in October 1904. The facility…
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Clarifying the turbid waters of the Mississippi River for use as drinking water was a formidable challenge. The Chain of Rocks Water Purification Plant provided the first application of a system of flocculation, sedimentation, and rapid sand filtration for water purification.
The system…
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The Cheesman Dam was the first major dam in the U.S. to incorporate the gravity arch, and upon completion it was the highest gravity arch stone masonry dam in the world. It is the key structure in Denver's water supply.
Three years into original construction, flooding swept away the…
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Fossil Creek meanders ten miles to the Verde River, dropping some 1,600 feet during its course and, at the turn of the century, enticed miners in the copper-rich Irving area to use a new technology -- hydroelectric power. A seven-mile series of flumes brings the water from a dam below Fossil Spring… Read More
In 1899, engineers from the City of Chicago's Division of Bridges and Viaducts performed a survey of moveable bridge design in the U.S. and Europe. Their study led to the conclusion that the unusual trunnion bascule design would best meet their needs.
The Cortland Street Drawbridge…
