A Brief History On August 21, 1888, American inventor William Seward Burroughs of New York patented the first successful American adding machine, a device that remained in service until superseded by electronic calculators in the 1970s. While mechanical adding machines date back long before that of Burroughs’s, his machine was definitely an improvement and was made to even print results. Digging Deeper Other old fashioned tech that also worked rather well is the slide rule, a computing device that could perform all sorts of mathematical operations almost as quickly as an electronic calculator. Invented in the 1600s by William Oughtred,…
Browsing: Education
Read More
A Brief History This article showcases a table featuring some of Dr. Zar’s favorite movies and documentaries for teaching history. Digging Deeper For more about the historical accuracy of the films listed above, check https://www.historyvshollywood.com/ and https://web.archive.org/web/20190330124144/https://www.stfrancis.edu/content/historyinthemovies/. The list below features notable historical people named in my favorite documentaries in chronological order. You can click on their names to be taken to Wikipedia articles about each of them. NOTE: Some people on this list may be legendary or even mythological rather than historical. Khufu (died 26th century BC) Hemiunu (fl. 2570 BC) Noah Ham (Genesis) Abraham (1948 AM – 2123 AM) Thutmose…
A Brief History On June 23, 1926, the SAT exam was administered for the first time, a test created by the College Board to predict a student’s likelihood of success in college. Going through name changes and modifications of the testing itself, the SAT has generated controversy over its usefulness as a predictor of college or workplace performance, especially in relation to cultural factors of the test takers. Digging Deeper As with any standardized test, the SAT, which once stood for Scholastic Aptitude Test and Scholastic Assessment Test then the SAT Reasoning Test before being shortened to just SAT, has…
A Brief History On November 15, 2024, we take pleasure in reviewing a new book about some of the less well known and popular ancient civilizations, aptly titled The Other Ancient Civilisations by renowned scholar and archaeologist Raven Todd DaSilva of London, England, which is hinted at by the British spelling of “civilization” in the title. Digging Deeper A book suitable for the casual reader or college classroom, the author blends academic information with an eminently readable style that does not bore or confuse the reader. Each of the 20 chapters about one of the title civilizations starts with a…
A Brief History On October 21, 1983, the standard metric unit of length, the meter, was redefined as “the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.” The meter had been defined originally in 1791 by the French National Assembly as one 10 millionth the distance from the Equator to the North Pole. Digging Deeper This calculation means the circumference of the Earth via the polar route was exactly 40,000 kilometers. Other units of length were based on a decimal system of the meter, such as “millimeter” or 1/1000 of a meter or a “kilometer,” or 1000…