Browsing: August

A Brief History On August 1, 1911, Harriet Quimby of Michigan became the first woman in the United States to be awarded an Aviator’s Certificate by the Aero Club of America (ACA).  She had become interested in aviation and first started flying in 1910 after working as a New York theater critic and screenwriter for 7 Hollywood silent movies, all directed by the famous D.W. Griffith. Digging Deeper Quimby became the first woman in history to fly across the English Channel in 1912, with her great accomplishment overlooked by a public engrossed in the news story of the sinking of…

 A Brief History On August 17, 1966, the US Congress passed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, which in conjunction with the Highway Safety Act has greatly reduced traffic injuries and deaths in the United States. Digging Deeper In 1966, traffic deaths in the US reached a staggering 50,894, or 25.9 traffic deaths per 100,000 population, both records at the time.  The creation of the National Highway Safety Bureau (later changed to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) and implementation of safety measures concerning the building and marking of roads, the performance and safety features of cars, and…

A Brief History On August 31, 1854, a seminal moment in the history of illness and scientific application of anti-disease efforts struck the Broad Street area of Soho, London, England, when a severe cholera outbreak began.  Before it was over, 626 people would die of the disease, but scientific study of the outbreak would lead to the saving of millions of lives in the future.  (Note: The neighborhood of the outbreak is now known as Carnaby Street.) Digging Deeper Small outbreaks of cholera had plagued London in 1854, and on August 31 the Broad Street area was hit.  The cholera…

A Brief History On August 31, 1965, fans of super-different airplanes could add another oddity to their list when the Aero Spacelines Super Guppy made its first flight.  A bulbous looking whale of an airplane, the Super Guppy was the successor to the Pregnant Guppy, an equally goofy looking giant cargo plane. Digging Deeper As stated above, the Super Guppy had been developed from the Pregnant Guppy which in turn was based on the C-97 military cargo plane, itself based on the Boeing 377 airliner which in turn was originally based on the B-29 Superfortress bomber.  (It would appear Boeing…

A Brief History On August 30, 1967, the United States Senate confirmed Thurgood Marshall as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States by a vote of 69-11, the first African-American so confirmed. Digging Deeper Marshall, formerly the Chief Counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and appointed a Federal Appeals Court judge by President Kennedy in 1961, had been working as United States Solicitor General (appointed by President Johnson in 1965), the first African-American to hold that position. It was as counsel for the NAACP that Marshall earned his reputation, successfully…