Browsing: Science & Technology

A Brief History On February 8, 1879, Scottish Canadian inventor and engineer Sandford Fleming proposed the adoption of Universal Standard Time at The Royal Canadian Institute. Fleming proposed that the world be divided into 24 time zones, each 15 degrees of longitude in breadth and sequentially one hour behind the preceding time zone. All land within each time zone would be set to the same time. Up until this time, clocks in every city and town had been set to local time based on each location’s position on the Earth, creating no standards of keeping time and mass confusion when…

A Brief History On February 2, 1935, Leonarde “Nard” Keeler testified about polygraph evidence in a Wisconsin courtroom at a trial of 2 men for assault, the first use of the polygraph, often simply called “the lie detector,” in court. Then, as now, debate about the efficacy of the polygraph was fiercely defended on both sides. Digging Deeper Keeler was the co-inventor of the polygraph, a machine that measures bodily functions in response to questions being asked the subject of the test, the reaction of those functions supposedly indicating whether the subject is telling the truth or a lie. Bodily…

A Brief History On January 25, 1915, telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call spanning the continental United States, placing a call from New York to his assistant, Thomas Watson in San Francisco. This man was the same Thomas Watson that Bell had placed the first telephone call to back in 1876. Digging Deeper The famous words of the first phone call, “Watson, come here! I want to see you.” may or may not be the actual words, but they are the words History remembers. Bell was not the only person working on inventing a telephone, as…

A Brief History On January 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 flew into the annals of History when it became “The Miracle on the Hudson.”  An Airbus A32-214 jet liner had just taken off from New York City’s LaGuardia Airport, bound for Charlotte, North Carolina, when the twin jet powered airliner ran straight into a flock of Canada Geese, causing both engines to fail.  With no chance to return to the airport, the pilot had no choice other than to attempt a water landing (“ditching”) in the Hudson River. Digging Deeper Piloted by Chesley Sullenberger, age 57, a former US…

A Brief History On January 10, 1776, the pamphlet Common Sense by American patriot Thomas Paine was published.  This persuasive document was widely read by Americans, encouraged to declare independence from an overbearing British colonial government.  Some books, pamphlets, manifestos, essays, and other written documents over the years have helped mold History.  Today, we list 12 of those important works. Digging Deeper 1.  Common Sense, Thomas Paine, 1776. Paine was a radical with little patience of tolerance of those that disagreed with him, and his forceful writings helped convince Americans to finally revolt against British rule. Common Sense is perhaps…