Browsing: May 24

A Brief History On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse, inventor of the Morse Code (well, duh!) and of the telegraph, famously sent the message “What Hath God Wrought?” to inaugurate his new telegraph. Certain messages in History have become so iconic that they are familiar to most people (though sometimes not remembered with perfect accuracy). Here we list 5 of these Momentous Messages.  Digging Deeper 1. “What Hath God Wrought?” – Samuel Morse to Alfred Vail. Morse used a quotation from the Bible (Numbers 23:23) to send his message from the old Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. to his assistant…

A Brief History On May 24, 1940, Igor Sikorsky, a Russian immigrant to the United States, performed the first successful single rotor helicopter flight without a tether.  His invention, the Vought Sikorsky VS-300 was quickly developed into the R-4 “Hoverfly” 2 seat helicopter, the first commercially produced successful such aircraft and the first helicopter used by the United States military. Digging Deeper Sikorsky designed several successful aircraft while an American, including the famous S-42 “Clipper” flying boat, the original Pan Am Clipper.  The aircraft company he founded in 1925, Sikorsky Aircraft Company, is still in business today, owned by Lockheed…

A Brief History On May 24, 1940, Ukrainian born Igor Sikorsky flew the first successful single rotor helicopter in history, the Vought-Sikorsky VS-300 (untethered flight).  Within 2 years, his Sikorsky R-4 became the first mass produced helicopter in the world. Digging Deeper Sikorsky was born in Kiev, Ukraine, in 1889 back in the days of the Russian Empire.  He was of Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian origin, and became a noted aviation pioneer while a Russian subject.  Some of his early Russian accomplishments included design and flying of the first multi-engine fixed wing aircraft, the Russky Vitas (1913) and the Ilya…

A Brief History On May 24, 1626, Peter Minuit, Director of New Netherland, bought the island of Manhattan (in modern day New York City) from Native-Americans for goods valued at 60 guilders, the equivalent of $24.  That was a bargain!  Of course, there is the strong possibility that the sellers were not the owners anyway, so they basically got something for nothing, not a bad deal either.  History is full of remarkably good bargains. Here we list 10 of them. Digging Deeper 10. Manhattan, 1626. As described above, this purchase was quite a bargain.  Considering the circumstances in their entirety,…

A Brief History On May 24, 1607, 100 English settlers went ashore at a site chosen for the Jamestown Colony, the first permanent English settlement in mainland North America.  That is when things went wrong! Digging Deeper The reason they chose that location was largely due to the lack of Native-American residents at that spot.  Of course, there was a reason the land was unoccupied, which should have been a clue.  Swampy, unfit for agriculture and malarial, the settlers were, like previous English settlers, unprepared for life in the wilderness.  Unlike the immigrants to the US in the 1800’s and…