1907

American Society of Agricultural Engineers Founded in this Building December 27, 1907

The Chemical Abstracts Service, a division of the American Chemical Society, has provided the most comprehensive repository of research in chemistry and related sciences for over 100 years. CAS innovations have fueled chemical research through development of the CAS RegistrySM and CAS databases which contain invaluable information for chemical scientists, including SciFinder® and STN®.

The Titan is a 200-ton electrically driven hammerhead cantilever crane, the earliest survivor of this type. It is now all that remains of the once great John Brown Shipyard in Clydebank near Glasgow where many of the world's great ships were built. Designed and constructed by Sir William Arrol and Co. Ltd., Glasgow, Scotland, in 1907 the Titan set the standard for many more similar cranes to be erected worldwide. It has been restored and opened as a tourist attraction in 2007.

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 components of the system were developed by the engineering staffs of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad and the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company of East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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 subsequent systems both in the United States and abroad. The major components of the system were developed by the engineering staffs of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad and the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company of East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

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 created entirely from chemicals, and the first material to be made entirely by man.