Browsing: August 26

A Brief History On August 26, 1791, American John Fitch patented the steamboat, 16 years before Robert Fulton first sailed his Clermont on the Hudson River.  While Fulton’s steamboat, actually named North River Steamboat, was the first commercially successful steamboat, you may not have heard of Fitch as the first to actually build a working steamboat. Digging Deeper The nature of inventions and who we are taught are the inventors of those gadgets leads to some mistaken impressions as to who invented certain things.  Inventions are often being worked on by different people in unrelated projects, and initial versions of…

A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on August 26th.  For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On August 26, 1346, at the Battle of Crecy, English archers proved the superiority of the English longbow over the combination of armored knights and crossbowmen fielded by the French. On August 26, 1346, at the Battle of Crecy, the English longbow reigned supreme, and ever since the longbow has been closely associated with England. On August 26, 1444, the Battle of…

A Brief History On August 26, 1972, the XX Olympiad, Summer Games portion, opened in Munich, West Germany.  Historic for many reasons, this edition of the Olympics featured the first ever named mascot of an Olympic Games, a Dachshund named “Waldi.” Digging Deeper In 1932, a Scottish Terrier born in the Olympic Village in Los Angeles became an unofficial mascot, and in 1968, Mexico City gave us a Red Jaguar, although again, unofficially.  Many mascots have been depictions of fauna endemic to the country or area the Olympics were being held at, and of course the Dachshund is a dog…

A Brief History On August 26, 2022, we all celebrate National Dog Day, a day invented by Colleen Paige in 2004.  While our canine friends are useful in so many ways, today we take a look at a more grim aspect of our relationship with dogs. Digging Deeper While it is highly possible that even Cave men that first domesticated dogs thousands of years ago may have in some manner used their canine friends as co-combatants, some early civilizations such as the ancient Greeks used of dogs in a combat as the Romans around the time of the Roman Republic…

A Brief History On August 26, 1444, the Battle of St. Jakob an der Birs was fought between an army of mercenaries representing France against a much smaller force of pikemen from the Old Swiss Confederacy.  The battle was part of the Old Zürich War, fought between 1440 and 1446. Digging Deeper The Old Zurich War was one of the many wars fought in Europe regarding the rights to succession when a ruling member of the nobility died, in this case Count Friedrich VII of Toggenburg, who died in 1436.  The Toggenburg lands, which include Zurich, were contested along with…