A Brief History On August 17, 1978, Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman made ballooning history by becoming the first to pilot a manned balloon across the Atlantic Ocean, flying from Maine to France in the Double Eagle II, a Helium balloon. Today, we take a look at a few momentous balloon flights. Digging Deeper On November 21, 1783, the first ever manned balloon flight took place in France, when Francois Pilatrê de Rozier and Francois Laurent took flight in a hot air balloon made by the Montgolfier brothers. In 1785, Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries made history…
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A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on August 16th. For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On August 16, 1812, General William Hull of the U.S. Army surrendered Fort Detroit to an inferior English force. On August 16, 1858, a date earlier than you may have thought, the advent of instant electronic communications between Europe and North America was inaugurated by President James Buchanan and Queen Victoria of the UK via the “Transatlantic Cable.” On August 17, 1914,…
A Brief History On August 16, 1858, a date earlier than you may have thought, the advent of instant electronic communications between Europe and North America was inaugurated by President James Buchanan and Queen Victoria of the UK via the “Transatlantic Cable.” Digging Deeper Prior to radio, television, and satellite, electric communication was done via the telegraph wire, wire made of real metal that stretched from point to point. Cablemen had the job of laying 2,500 miles of copper wire covered in gutta percha, hemp, and tar that weighed an imposing one ton plus per mile! The 1857 attempt failed,…
A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on August 15th. For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On August 15, 1281, the army and navy forces of the Mongol/Chinese Emperor Kublai Khan were destroyed at the Battle of Kōan, an attempt to invade and conquer Japan. On August 15, 1769, Napoleon Bonaparte was born. On August 15, 1769, little Napoleon Bonaparte was born on the island of Corsica, to ethnic Italian parents, although living on what was then a…
A Brief History On August 15, 2015, North Korea changed its time to a self-appointed “Pyongyang Time,” moving clocks backward a half hour to flout international time, known as UTC. Digging Deeper Playing with time is not the only odd choice by North Korea, called “The Hermit Kingdom” for keeping its population out of contact with the rest of the world, in order to control information and thought. Since its establishment in 1948, North Korea has been a dictatorship by a single family, first by Kim Il Sung, then his son, Kim Jong Il, and currently the next son in…