1846: Elias Howe patents the first practical sewing machine and threads his way into the fabric of history.
French tailor Barthelemy Thimonnier patented a device in 1830 that mechanized the typical hand-sewing motions to create a simple chain stitch. He planned to mass-produce uniforms for the French army. His competition had different ideas.
About 200 tailors rioted [...]
Posts Tagged ‘19th century’
Sept. 8, 1854: Pump Shutdown Stops London Cholera Outbreak
September 8th, 2009 |
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1854: Physician John Snow convinces a London local council to remove the handle from a pump in Soho. A deadly cholera epidemic in the neighborhood comes to an end immediately, though perhaps serendipitously. Snow maps the outbreak to prove his point … and launches modern epidemiology.
The Soho neighborhood was not then filled with galleries, clubs, [...]
Aug. 20, 1831: The Real Dr. Suess Comes to Life
August 20th, 2009 |
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1831: Eduard Suess is born — not the Dr. Seuss of Whoville and Mount Crumpit fame, but geology professor Suess of Vienna and Gondwanaland. Suess would become a founding father of structural geology and a pioneer of ecology.
Born in London to a German merchant family, the future scientist moved with his family to Prague [...]
Aug. 19, 1887: What Goes Up Must Come Down
August 19th, 2009 |
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1887: Intent on observing a solar eclipse, a celebrated Russian chemist uses a hot-air balloon to make a solo ascent above the clouds near Moscow, even though he has never been in a balloon before and has no idea how to land one.
Even if Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev had never gotten around to outlining the principles [...]
Aug. 18, 1868: Helium Discovered During Total Solar Eclipse
August 18th, 2009 |
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1868: A French astronomer spots an unknown element, now known as helium, in the spectrum of the sun during a much-anticipated total eclipse. The event marks the first discovery of an “extraterrestrial” element, as helium had not yet been found on Earth.
Astronomers had been eagerly awaiting a total solar eclipse since 1859, when German physicist [...]
Aug. 14, 1877: Internal Combustion’s Stroke of Genius
August 14th, 2009 |
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1877: The U.S. Patent Office grants German engineer Nicolaus August Otto a patent for an “improvement in gas-motor engines.” Internal combustion’s time — and timing — have come.
More than a century-and-a-quarter later, we have whole economies, musical subgenres and sports based around what Herr Otto, he of the macaronically ironic name, created.
The first engines (as [...]
Aug. 12, 1883: Quagga’s Extinction a Nasty Surprise
August 12th, 2009 |
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1883: The quagga goes extinct when the last of these South African zebras dies at the Amsterdam Zoo.
It was not immediately recognized, as the mare expired, that she was the last of her kind. Although the name quagga refers specifically to an animal that looked like a common zebra that had run out of stripes [...]
Aug. 3, 1803: Crystal Palace Architect Born
July 31st, 2009 |
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1803: Joseph Paxton is born in Milton Bryan, England. His career will take him from garden boy to gardener to landscape designer to architect-engineer of the largest glass buildings of his day — including London’s famous Crystal Palace of 1851.
Paxton built a huge glass greenhouse at Chatsworth between 1836 and 1840 for his employer, the [...]
July 30, 1898: Car Ads Get Rolling
July 30th, 2009 |
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1898: The Winton Motor Carriage Company places a magazine advertisement cajoling readers to “dispense with a horse.” It’s the earliest known automobile ad.
Car advertisements are looked upon by most people as being about as enjoyable as buying a car from a used car salesman. You might think that advertising for a car is a 20th-century [...]
July 27, 1888: Electric Tricycle Jolts Proper Bostonians
July 27th, 2009 |
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1888: Philip W. Pratt demonstrates the very first American electric tricycle.
Pratt’s e-trike was built for him by Fred M. Kimball of, naturally, the Fred M. Kimball Company. Pratt took the editor of Modern Light and Heat for a spin around Winthrop Square (above) in Boston.
The vehicle’s 10 lead-acid cells pushed about 20 volts to [...]
July 16, 1867: Concrete Gets Some Positive Reinforcement
July 16th, 2009 |
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1867: F. Joseph Monier patents a new construction material: reinforced concrete. It combines the compressive strength of ordinary concrete with the tensile strength of iron.
The ancient Egyptians discovered that adding lime and gypsum mortar made for stronger pyramids than just making bricks out of mud and straw. And the Chinese used “cementitious materials” not [...]
July 14, 1868: Tape Measure Clicks In
July 14th, 2009 |
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1868: Alvin J. Fellows of New Haven, Connecticut, receives a patent for a spring-click tape measure. His improved design creates a useful and enduring tool.
The invention originated in Sheffield, England, historic center of England’s steel industry. An official city marker on an old factory there recounts that James Chesterman patented the spring tape measure [...]
June 25, 1876: Was Custer Outgunned at Little Bighorn?
June 25th, 2009 |
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1876: An advance regiment of cavalrymen under the command of George Armstrong Custer is killed to a man on a sun-parched ridge near the Little Bighorn River by a combined force of Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors.
Tactical blunders and faulty intelligence work contributed heavily to one of the worst defeats ever sustained by the [...]
June 23, 1868: Tap, Tap, Tap, Tap, Tap … Ding!
June 23rd, 2009 |
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1868: U.S. Patent No. 79,265 is issued for a type-writing machine. Surely, we have now reached the pinnacle of human communication.
Christopher Latham Sholes’ machine was not the first typewriter. It wasn’t even the first typewriter to receive a patent. But it was the first typewriter to have actual practical value for the individual, so it [...]
June 15, 1878: Muybridge Horses Around With Motion Pictures
June 15th, 2009 |
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1878: Photographer Eadweard Muybridge uses high-speed stop-motion photography to capture a horse’s motion. The photos prove that the horse has all four feet in the air during some parts of its stride. The shots settle an old argument … and start a new medium and industry.
Former California Governor Leland Stanford financed Muybridge’s photo experiments. They [...]