On May 10, 1869, the ceremonial spike (actually more than one) was driven into the meeting point of the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad. That’s when it became the transcontinental railroad, and traveling across the country no longer meant months in a wagon or on a ship sailing around South America.
Posted in On This Day
Before 1984, I had never encountered the word “font.” Then a Macintosh computer showed up in my house.
And with that, The Statesider started a map of the US, with 222 fonts named after places.
Posted in Because I Can, Literary
Sir David Attenborough (May 8th 1926 – )
Sir David Frederick Attenborough is an English broadcaster and naturalist.
He is best known for writing and presenting the nine Life series, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, which collectively form a comprehensive survey of animal and plant life on the planet. He is also a former senior manager at the BBC, having served as controller of BBC Two and director of programming for BBC Television in the 1960s and 1970s. He is the only person to have won BAFTAs for programs in each of black and white, colour, HD, and 3D.
Attenborough is widely considered a national treasure in Britain, although he himself does not like the term. In 2002 he was named among the 100 Greatest Britons following a UK-wide vote. He is the younger brother of director, producer and actor Richard Attenborough.
Posted in Because I Can, Critters
On the afternoon of May 7, 1915, the British ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland. Within 20 minutes, the vessel sank into the Celtic Sea. Of 1,959 passengers and crew, 1,198 people were drowned, including 128 Americans. The attack aroused considerable indignation in the United States, but Germany defended the action, noting that it had issued warnings of its intent to attack all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain.
Posted in On This Day, Planes Trains and Automobiles
On May 6,1937, the airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built and the pride of Nazi Germany, bursts into flames upon touching its mooring mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 passengers and crewmembers.
Posted in On This Day, Planes Trains and Automobiles
From Cape Canaveral, Florida, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. is launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to travel into space. The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere, was a major triumph for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Posted in Because I Can, Patriotic
Miracle on 34th Street (also titled The Big Heart in the UK) is a 1947 film which tells the story of a gentle old man, working as a Santa Claus at Macy’s department store in New York City, who contends that he is the real deal.
Posted in Because I Can, On This Day, The Big Screen
