Browsing: Science & Technology

A Brief History On October 17, 2003, the pinnacle was placed upon the top of the 101 story Taipei World Financial Center (the original name), making it (at the time) the tallest building in the world at a whopping 1667 feet tall, a full 184 feet taller than the previous record holder, the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. Digging Deeper The Petronas Towers held the record from 1998 to 2003 (or 2004 if you want to wait until Taipei 101 was actually opened), and Taipei 101 held the record until 2010 when the even taller Burj Khalifa in…

A Brief History On October 15, 1997, Andy Green became the first supersonic driver of a car by setting the land speed record of 763 mph (Mach 1.016), driving a twin jet powered ThrustSSC across a measured course and back in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. This historic event occurred 50 years and 1 day after Chuck Yeager became the first person to fly supersonic in level flight. Digging Deeper Green is an RAF fighter pilot, no stranger to high speed, also is the holder of the land speed record for diesel powered vehicles with a speed of 350 mph in…

A Brief History On October 10, 1967, the Outer Space Treaty, formally known as the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (we will stick to the short version!) went into effect. Digging Deeper The treaty had been signed on January 27, 1967,  by the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom, while in the years since over 100 other countries have subsequently signed. The basic idea of the treaty is to declare outer space, the Moon and other celestial bodies (planets,…

A Brief History On June 24, 1398, the Hongwu Emperor of China died.  Soon after this emperor’s death, one of his sons, Zhu Di (1360-1424), began an ultimately successful rebellion to seize the throne from the Hongwu Emperor’s teenage successor, a nephew of Zhu Di.  By 1402, Zhu Di’s nephew was dead and Zhu Di, now known as the Yongle Emperor, began a reign that has gone down in history as one of the most famous and significant in all of Chinese history.  During his reign of over twenty years, the Yongle Emperor’s famed eunuch admiral Zheng He (1371-1433) conducted…

A Brief History On October 6, 1977, the Soviet aircraft design bureau, Mikoyan-Guryevich, flew their MiG-29 supersonic fighter for the first time.  In service since 1983, over 1600 of these highly capable air superiority and fighter bomber jets have been built, and incredibly (for a fighter aircraft) the plane is still in production. Digging Deeper Conceived as the lower end mix of fighter jets, similar to the American F-16 vis a vis the F-15, the MiG-29 is the smaller, cheaper half of the Su-27/MiG-29 mix of Soviet (now Russian) fighters.  (Note: Twice as many MiG-29’s have been built as have…