Browsing: Science & Technology

A Brief History On September 24, 1884, Hugo Schmeisser was born in Jena, in what was then the German Empire.  The son of a well known weapons designer, Hugo would go on to everlasting fame, or infamy if you prefer, as the man that invented the assault rifle. Digging Deeper Did you think the assault rifle inventor was  Mikhail Kalashnikov, the Russian that invented the AK-47?  Or perhaps you thought that Eugene Stoner, inventor of the M-16/AR-15 family of assault rifles invented the genre? Schmeisser beat both of those famous weapons designers by coming up with the StG-44 during World…

A Brief History On September 21, 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor was confirmed by the Senate as the first ever female Justice of the Supreme Court.  What other indications do we have that American women are really on an equal basis with men? Digging Deeper We list a few of these facts that can be considered signs of equal rights progress: Women’s Suffrage, 1920; The Equal Pay Act of 1963; a married woman was first allowed to get a credit card in her own name, 1974; the first female Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, 1981; the first American woman astronaut…

A Brief History On September 20, 1911, the RMS Olympic, the first of three enormous British luxury liners of the Olympic-class, collided with the British cruiser HMS Hawke. Digging Deeper Olympic, commissioned in 1911 as the largest ship in the world at that point, was later followed by the slightly larger RMS Titanic.  Of course, the Titanic sank in 1912 on its maiden voyage in one of the most famous incidents of a ship sinking, and the third sister ship of the class, the HMHS Britannic, was sunk when she hit a mine in 1916 during World War I. The Olympic…

A Brief History On September 15, 1948, a North American F-86 Sabre flew at a world record 671 miles per hour.  The Sabre was a superb aircraft and became the most produced jet fighter of all the Western countries with a production run of 9860 of all varieties. (See our many aviation and airplane related articles.) Digging Deeper Today we ask you, our expert audience, to tell us which jet fighter deserves to be named as the Greatest of All Time.  We list a few contenders, but you can name your own nominees as well. North American F-86 Sabre, USA. …

A Brief History On September 13, 1977, American automotive giant General Motors made one of the epic blunders of its long business history when it introduced the Oldsmobile Diesel engine, a lame attempt to quickly gain an advantage in the race to improve the miles per gallon performance of its cars in order to compete with more fuel-efficient foreign cars. Digging Deeper Produced from 1978 to 1985, the General Motors automotive diesel engine was not a true diesel built from the ground up as a rugged and reliable oil burner, but hastily adapted 6 and 8 cylinder gasoline engines made…