On May 31, 1870 Belgian immigrant Edward J de Smedt who was at Columbia University in New York City patented asphalt pavement. So we all know what asphalt is, as we all drive on it, and have all felt that heat rising off of it in the summer! But do you know how it is made? I didn’t until I started to deal with it at my job. From Wikipedia:
This morning as I was looking over the front page of Wikipedia to see what was new, I noted that author Ruth Rendell has passed away. One would think that as a lover of mystery books I would have read plenty of Ruth Rendell’s works, but somehow I have avoided them and I can’t give you one good reason why!! From Wikipedia:
Through the years,I have read many books about the Civil War. Most of those books center around the battles and the Generals. Until I saw the book The Presidents’ War I never thought or knew about the former Presidents who were alive during the conflict. As a matter of fact, the book’s author Chris DeRose writes in the Acknowledgments of the book
….I had never known of the former presidents who lived to see the Civil War until a visit to Seattle in 2012 and a conversation with my friend.
It was that friend Rob Peck, who inspired the book! Anyway, the point is if Mr DeRose author of two previous Congressman Lincoln: The Making of America’s Greatest President(2013) and Founding Rivals: Madison vs. Monroe, the Bill of Rights, and the Election That Saved a Nation ( 2011) and a visiting Assistant Professor of Law at Arizona Summit Law School, where he teaching Constitutional Law, International Law, and Election Law/Voting Rights hadn’t heard about the presidents alive during the Civil War until 2012, I don’t feel so bad about not thinking about them until after reading his book!!
The five living ex-President’s alive at the start of the Civil War were John Tyler, Martin Van Buren, Millard Filllmore, Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan. Each of those Presidents faced the underlying causes of the War and did little to avoid the coming conflict. Here’s a little about each of those Presidents from DeRose’s website….
Okay, I am not the world’s biggest hockey fan.Living in the suburbs of Philly,I do follow the Flyers and a couple of years ago attended several games. However, I did not follow any hockey before 1967, when the Flyers entered the league,. In 1967 the NHL doubled in size adding six teams to the original six teams.So when saw that on March 27, 1912. The Seattle Metropolitans, of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association, defeated the Montreal Canadians and became the first U.S. hockey team to win the Stanley Cup. I said huh?? The Seattle Metropolitans? The Pacific Coast League of Canada and the Stanley Cup?? I needed to find out about this!!
This afternoon I saw this post in Twitter feed – A Tribute to the Printer Aldus Manutius, and the Roots of the Paperback.. The tribute is a new show in New York at the Grolier Club in Manhattan, “Aldus Manutius: A Legacy More Lasting Than Bronze,” The show brings together nearly 150 books from Aldine press founded by Manutius in Venice in 1494. The books are known as Aldines. So who is this Aldus Manutius and what does he have to do with paperback books. I think I need to find out about this…..
At Wikipedia I read…..
Today is the 102nd anniversary of The Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913. The parade was held the day before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson to help advance the women’s suffrage movement. From Wikipedia:
This morning as I read through events that happened on this day (March 4) the one that peaked my interest was, that in 1877 Emile Berliner invented the microphone. That seemed like something I had to find out more about and what I did was pretty interesting!
As I started browsing through Wikipedia this morning I came across a contraption invented by Italian military engineer Agostino Ramelli the bookwheel!! It was the perfect invention for all of those like us, who back in 1588 loved to read more than one book at a time! It’s just a tad bulkier than your Kindle!!
On February 8th, I posted about the election of Richard Johnson as the ninth Vice President of th US, which occurred on that day in 1837. It is the only time that a Vice President was elected by the US House of Representatives under the provisions of the 12th Amendment to the US Constitution. On the next day February 9th, twelve years earlier in 1825, John Quincy Adams was elected President in a similar manner. At the end of the voting for President in 1824, no candidate received a majority of the electoral votes, so the Us House of Representatives voted to decide the election.
