1697 St Petersburg, Politics: Tsar Peter the Great began his incognito tour of Western Europe, though how a 6’ 9” Russian-speaker could travel in disguise is anyone’s guess. The image below puts an effigy of Big Peter next to his personal physician. A biography of Big Pete is discussed elsewhere on this blog for those few seeking enlightenment.
1788 Botany Bay, History: French explorer Jean-Francois La Perouse sailed away never to be seen again. In earlier discussions with an officer of Governor Phillip’s first fleet, La Perouse had given over his journals and letters to be sent back to France before he left Botany Bay for further exploration into uncharted waters. After a six week re-fit in Botany Bay his ships La Boussole and L’Astrolabe left. Wreckage discovered in 1964 indicated they had been destroyed in a cyclone in the Solomon Islands. There is a nice little museum about his explorations at La Perouse in Sydney. Been there seen that.
1901 Cleveland, Technology: Typewriter salesman Harry Gammeter patented a multi-graph duplicating machine shown below. Made much use of such an ink-stain spreader at one time.
1926 New York City, Literature: The Viking Press published the first Book-of-the-Month Club title, Sylvia Warner’s ‘The Loving Huntsman.’ It is a satirical comedy of manners incorporating elements of fantasy in which a middle-aged spinster moves to a country village to escape her controlling relatives and takes up the practice of witchcraft. The founders wanted to promote new books by selling them cheaply on subscription on the strength of a standard brand. It worked and went from 4000 subscribers to 550,000 in twenty years though the Great Depression hit it, too. Being selected as a book of the month made a title a commercial success, and still does in the e-book age.
1997 The PalmPilot went on sale. I had one when it was at the cutting edge, well, it did not cut anything but it was the latest thing at the time.
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