Not A Lightweight

Without the innovations of transistors and microprocessors, your laptop would be the size of a skyscraper and take a hydroelectric dam to power it. ENIAC, an early computer, designed by the U.S. Army to automate the process of making fast and accurate artillery calculations during World War II, filled a 30-by-50-foot room and weighed more than 27 tons. It used 174 kilowatts per second--enough to power a typical home for more than a week. ENIAC contained 17,468 fragile vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and around 5 million hand-soldered joints. It could store twenty 10-digit numbers in its memory, and it cost roughly $450,000. A handheld calculator now offers more computing power than ENIAC. A modern laptop computer weighs around 5 lbs. with most of the weight coming from the rechargeable battery that powers the computer--an amazing feat of innovation and miniaturization.

Flying High

The B-29 Superfortress was one of the most technically advanced American planes used in WWII. The aircraft was the first to be constructed of a new aluminium alloy that added zinc, to prevent cracking, to the usual lightweight alloy of aluminium and copper. The heavily armed, long-range plane could fly much higher than most aircraft of the time, at up to 33,600 ft. It was B-29s that made the famous supply runs over the Himalayas to China during WWII.

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.