7/30

On July 30, 1916, German saboteurs conducted a massive terrorist attack on U.S. soil, blowing up tons of ammunition, in New York harbor. The explosions were heard up to 90 miles away. Windows were blown out up and down Fifth Avenue. The statue of Liberty was struck by shrapnel. It took investigators years to realize that the explosion was no accident.

Earhart Fashions

Did you know that Amelia Earhart was the first celebrity to have her own clothing line? Amelia Earhart Fashions, launched in 1933, featured designs for an active lifestyle.

A Taste of India

Did you know that the Egyptians, already traded with India for cinnamon over 4,000 years ago? It is portrayed in several tomb paintings. Later, the Romans even set up their own trade representatives in far off India to procure cinnamon. The word cinnamon is of Hebrew origins and probably came into English from the Bible. Cinnamon was an ingredient in the incense burned in the Temple in Jerusalem. Cinnamon is the inner bark of a species of laurel tree. Today most cinnamon comes from plantations on the island nation of Siri Lanka, located near the Southern tip of India. Thirty-five tons of cinnamon is consumed annually. 

You Light Up My Life

Our vast modern electric power grid began with a dc power station established by Thomas Edison in 1882 on Pearl Street, in Manhattan, that served less than a square mile. The beautiful White City of the Chicago Columbian Exposition in 1893, lit by 200 thousand electric light bulbs, became the next electric milestone with ac power, provided by Westinghouse with the help of Tesla, illuminating all 600 acres of the fair site, at a time when few Americans had seen an electric light bulb. Today electric power grids span the nation with over 2.7 million miles of power lines and Americans take lighting and the cooling power of refrigerators and air conditioners for granted.

Foiling the Nazis

As WWII loomed, defense experts realized how important aluminum would be in building an air force. At that time, the Aluminum Company of America’s (Alcoa) factory south of Knoxville,Tennessee, which used hydroelectric power from dams constructed by the TVA, was  the largest aluminum plant in the world. New plants were needed. A new Alcoa plant in Vancouver, WA, which used electricity from dams constructed on the Columbia River, began producing aluminum in September 1940. During World War II, bauxite mines in central Arkansas produced more than 95 percent of the ore that was made into aluminum. Smelting of Bauxite ores for aluminum requires significant amounts of electricity so processing facilities are located near dams that generate electricity. These 2 plus 18 other plants produced aluminum for the war effort. By the end of the war, America had produced 305,000 planes and all of them had skins fabricated from aluminum alloys.

Rockets and Bombs

The rocket's red glare, mentioned in "The Star Spangled Banner", resulted from the  explosion of 600 to 700 thirty-two pound Congreve incendiary rockets, fired at Fort McHenry by HMS Erebus. Due to withering American fire, the ship was forced to stay beyond the range of the fort's cannon. At that range, not many of the rockets reached their mark.

The bombs bursting in air were 13 inch and 10 inch explosive hollow iron balls, packed with gunpowder, weighing up to 200 pounds, fired by mortars. One bomb scored a direct hit on the powder magazine of Fort McHenry but failed to explode, saving the fort. During the 25 hour bombardment, between 1,200 and 1,800 rounds were fired on Fort McHenry by a British fleet of 19 ships.

Fort McHenry is a star fort, designed to withstand bombardment. Constructed with low walls, shielded by ditches to prevent direct fire reaching the walls, and walls topped by earthen fill to absorb the shock of descending missiles. Projections, called bastions, better position cannon to protect fort walls with crossfire, giving a star fort its star-like shape.

By a Mile

Have you ever wondered why a mile has such an odd number of feet--5,280 feet? The answer is it didn't start that way but gained some length in translation. 

To the Romans, a mile was 1,000 paces by a soldier or 5,000 feet. Now that is a nice round number that is easy to remember. The word mile comes from the Latin word for thousand.

The English mile ended up longer because of changes made to the length of rods, used to measure distances by surveyors, by Henry VIII in order to increase taxes. Lots of surveying took place in England after Henry VIII seized the lands of the Catholic church and sold them off. The English mile became equivalent to 8 furlongs, a rather English measure of distance equal to the length of furrow a horse could plow before needing to rest, with 40 rods per furlong, and 16.5 feet per rod, making the mile equal to the unlikely less than round number of 5,280 feet.