A Brief History On September 7, 1776, American patriot Ezra Lee made the first attack by a submarine against a surface warship in history against the HMS Eagle in New York Harbor. The attack failed when the screw designed to attach an explosive mine to the side of the Eagle failed to penetrate the ship’s hull, allowing the bomb to float away and explode harmlessly. Last year on this date we list 10 Underperforming Weapons, weapons and weapon systems that did not live up to expectations though they may have had some level of limited success. Also see our articles…
Browsing: Inventions
A Brief History On August 29, 1949, nuclear scientists in the Soviet Union (USSR) successfully tested their first atomic bomb, an implosion type device they called “First Lightning.” Although the Soviet atom bomb program had started during World War II, the United States in coordination with scientists from Canada and the United Kingdom was the first nuclear power, testing the first atom bombs and dropping 2 of them on Japan in 1945. Digging Deeper The implosion type device is the type used in the Nagasaki bomb called “Fat Man.” Greatly simplified, it consists of a hollow sphere of Plutonium surrounded…
A Brief History On August 13, 1913, Harry Brearley began production of stainless steel in Britain. A form of low carbon, high chromium (10.5% minimum, sometimes as much as 27%) steel, this wonderful stuff makes modern technology possible. Metallurgists had discovered the addition of chromium to steel increased the resistance to corrosion of the metal long before, and an American, Elwood Haynes, had applied for a patent to process and produce stainless steel in 1912. Digging Deeper Even before both of these groundbreaking metallurgists others had made serious contributions to the development of stainless steel, including Pierre Berthier of France…
A Brief History On July 16, 1862 and July 16, 1882, we commemorate the birthdays of 2 significant African-American women, Ida B. Wells (who first developed statistics on lynching in the US) and Violette Neatley Anderson (the first African-American woman to practice law before the United States Supreme Court). In honor of these historic Black American Women, today we choose to highlight the accomplishments of Seven Great Black American Men, people that young Americans can look up to, especially African-American youths. The order listed has no significance. Digging Deeper 7. Booker T. Washington. A multi-faceted man as an educator, author,…
A Brief History On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 blasted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This spacecraft would take 3 American astronauts to the Moon, landing 2 on its surface and return all 3 safely to Earth, less than a decade after the first manned space flight. The US and Americans have achieved many great things, and here we list 10 of them. Not all significant inventions or achievements are necessarily for humanitarian purposes, some of them are for war. Some, like DDT and the polio vaccines saved millions of lives. We list 10 that we think you…
