History, anything goes, including pictures

tesler.jpg
Tesla is most widely known for his contributions to the development of the modern AC electric supply system and as an early pioneer of many of the technologies that shaped the second half of the 20th century.

Like many people with OCD, Tesla was particularly concerned with germs, cleanliness and avoiding disease. According to Smithsonian Magazine, he obsessively washed his hands, and in his later life ensured that all his food was boiled before he would touch it. He often refused to shake hands when he met someone, and usually wore gloves to avoid any physical contact with people he met.
 

mellowyellow said:
View attachment 189072
Click to expand...
Not the same fella makes Electric vehicles nowadays, (but perhaps named in his honour?)! :)
mellowyellow said:
Tesla is most widely known for his contributions to the development of the modern AC electric supply system and as an early pioneer of many of the technologies that shaped the second half of the 20th century.

Like many people with OCD, Tesla was particularly concerned with germs, cleanliness and avoiding disease. According to Smithsonian Magazine, he obsessively washed his hands, and in his later life ensured that all his food was boiled before he would touch it. He often refused to shake hands when he met someone, and usually wore gloves to avoid any physical contact with people he met.
Click to expand...
 
86733144.jpg

How the Berlin Wall fell. In order to calm mounting protests, German Democratic Republic (GDR) officials decided on loosening travel restrictions between East and West, but not opening the border completely.

Notes of the new rules had been handed to a spokesman who hadn't had time to read them before the press conference. "Private travel outside the country can now be applied for without prerequisites," he said. Surprised journalists clamored for more details. Shuffling through his notes, he said that as far as he was aware, it was effective immediately. In fact, it had been planned to start the next day, with details on applying for a visa.

But the news was all over television - and East Germans flocked to the border in huge numbers. As the border became inundated with East Berliners wishing to reunite with family and/or escape the GDR, border guards became overwhelmed and with no orders to either shoot upon the crowd or open the gate, only a handful of guards facing hundreds and thousands of citizens, rather than fire and create a stampede and potentially kill hundreds, the head of the guards decided to give the order "Open the barrier!"

What came next was a spontaneous chain reaction with Berliners on both sides arriving at Checkpoint Charlie to celebrate this momentous event and to demolish the wall. So, basically, an ill-prepared functionary made a flippant remark and a border guard captain, unable to get orders on how to proceed, led to one of the most defining moments of the late 20th Century in Europe.
 
sword.jpg
Jacob Sharvit, director of the Marine Archaeology Unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority, holds a 1m-long sword that experts say dates back to the Crusades. The diver was given a certificate of appreciation for turning over the 900-year-old item. Photograph: Ariel Schalit/AP
 
mccarthy.jpg

Joseph McCarthy​

On October 20, 1947, the notorious Red Scare kicks into high gear in Washington, as a Congressional committee begins investigating Communist influence in one of the world’s richest and most glamorous communities: Hollywood.
 
rockwell.jpg

George Lincoln Rockwell and members of the American Nazi Party attend a Nation of Islam summit in 1961.

George Lincoln Rockwell (March 9, 1918 – August 25, 1967) was an American neo-Nazi politician. In 1959, he was discharged from the US Navy because of his political views, and then founded the American Nazi Party
 
Origins of the name Canada

Canada​

The name “Canada” likely comes from the Huron-Iroquois word “kanata,” meaning “village” or “settlement.” In 1535, two Aboriginal youths told French explorer Jacques Cartier about the route to kanata; they were actually referring to the village of Stadacona, the site of the present-day City of Québec. For lack of another name, Cartier used the word “Canada” to describe not only the village, but the entire area controlled by its chief, Donnacona.

The name was soon applied to a much larger area; maps in 1547 designated everything north of the St. Lawrence River as Canada. Cartier also called the St. Lawrence River the “rivière du Canada,” a name used until the early 1600s. By 1616, although the entire region was known as New France, the area along the great river of Canada and the Gulf of St. Lawrence was still called Canada.

Soon explorers and fur traders opened up territory to the west and to the south, and the area known as Canada grew. In the early 1700s, the name referred to all French lands in what is now the American Midwest and as far south as present-day Louisiana.

The first use of Canada as an official name came in 1791, when the Province of Quebec was divided into the colonies of Upper Canada and Lower Canada. In 1841, the two colonies were united under one name, the Province of Canada.

(Source: Government of Canada)
 
H7er1Ne.png


1797 – Andre-Jacques Garnerin makes the first recorded parachute jump from one thousand metres above Paris.

Andre-Jacques Garnerin (1769–1823) was a balloonist and the inventor of the frameless parachute. He was appointed Official Aeronaut of France.

French balloonist Andre-Jacques Garnerin drawn and engraved by Edward Hawke Locker. Garnerin releases the balloon and descends with the help of a parachute, 1797. Illustration from the late 19th century.

37575697680_24e4d43f05_o.jpg


Garnerin began experiments with early parachutes based on umbrella-shaped devices and carried out the first parachute descent in a gondola with a silk parachute on 22 October 1797 at Parc Monceau, Paris.

Garnerin's first parachute resembled a closed umbrella before he ascended, with a pole running down its centre and a rope running through a tube in the pole, which connected it to the balloon. Garnerin rode in a basket attached to the bottom of the parachute; at a height of approximately 1,000 metres he severed the rope that connected his parachute to the balloon.

The balloon continued skyward while Garnerin, with his basket and parachute, fell. The basket swung violently during descent, then bumped and scraped when it landed, but Garnerin emerged uninjured. The white canvas parachute was umbrella-shaped and approximately 7 metres in diameter.

More.
 


Back
Top