Browsing: March

A Brief History On March 25, 1811, Percy Bysshe Shelley was booted from the University of Oxford (England) for the publishing of a pamphlet titled The Necessity of Atheism, a continuation of a long history of discrimination and persecution of atheists and agnostics by religious believers. In spite of a long, slow march toward religious toleration of competing beliefs, atheism did not enjoy any sort of rapprochement with “mainstream” religion and still has not. Digging Deeper Around the time of the Enlightenment and the American and French Revolutions, a growing number of educated and prominent figures had gravitated away from…

A Brief History On March 24, 2015, we more or less found out the answer to the question, “What if your pilot (or co-pilot) hijacks your airliner?” In this case, he dies, along with all 150 people on board the airliner! In this terrifying scenario come to life, co-pilot Andreas Lubitz flew Germanwings Flight 9525 into the French Alps, the first fatal plane crash in the airline’s 18 year history to that point. Digging Deeper The Airbus 320-211 had taken off from Barcelona, Spain, headed for Dusseldorf, Germany, an economical air trip on an airline owned by Lufthansa as a…

A Brief History On March 23, 1857, Elisha Otis installed the first of his elevators at 488 Broadway in New York City. Otis did not invent the elevator, but he did invent a device to keep an elevator from free falling in the event of a broken cable. His Otis Elevator Company dominated the elevator business for many years afterwards. (Other than Westinghouse, can you even think of a name of another elevator company without looking it up?) Today we list 10 products that have dominated their market so thoroughly that the brand or company name has more or less…

A Brief History On March 22, 1960, Scientists Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes of Bell Labs in New Jersey patented their invention of the LASER, a device that concentrates and focuses visible light that today we find useful in a myriad of applications. Without the laser, we would not have CD’s and DVD’s, BluRay’s and the like. Digging Deeper The theoretical possibility of creating a laser or laser like device was proposed by Albert Einstein in 1917 and other theoretical scientific work contributing to the development of the laser (and its predecessor, the maser) continued throughout the 20th Century. In…

A Brief History On March 21, 1800, Pius VII was crowned Pope of the Roman Catholic Church in Venice, Italy. In Venice because of armed conflict taking place in Italy at the time, Pius was crowned with a tiara (crown) made of papier-mache! Popes are normally seen wearing either their imposing Mitre or their beanie-like Zucchetto. Today we use this historical deviation from normal papal headwear to list 10 Famous Religious Hats and Headgear, head coverings either famous or of particular interest. (Note: That circle of light around my head is called a “halo”…) Digging Deeper 1. Papal Tiara. A…