1781 Bath, Science: Hannover-born, Frederick William and Caroline Herschel espied Uranus. They thought it was a comet for a time. He had built the telescope they used and they spent nine years mapping the stars. During this work, Uranus appeared. It was the first planet discovered since antiquity. It caused a sensation and Fred Bill was soon appointed Court Astronomer and funded for more research. In the daylight hours he was a professional musician on the organ.
1877 Farmington (Maine), Technology: Chester Greenwood patented earmuffs for cold weather wear. An avid ice skater, to stay on the ice longer at age fifteen he had asked his grandmother to sew fur tufts between loops of wire. Others in Farmington asked for the same thing. He went into business within two years, and for sixty years Greenwood Muffs was the major employer in the region.
1884 Chicago, Technology: The USA adopted standard time. Until then all time was local, except for railway time, and the train companies, e.g., Penn Central used Allegheny Time, then there was Chicago Time, Columbus Time, Jefferson City Time, El Paso Time, Omaha Time, Ogden Time, and more. Confusion reigned and accidents happened. As early as 1870 a congressman had proposed four time zones, and that later took life when talk occurred of a worldwide time standard based on the Greenwich meridian, long used for ocean navigation. The benefits were many, including better weather forecasts. The heads of the consolidated railroads agreed to five zones for North America. The fifth was Atlantic for the Canadian eastern maritime provinces and Newfoundland. This agreement was commercial, and it was not until 1918 that is was legislated in the United States. There was vigorous opposition at every step by locals who were against for a host of silly reasons, including the fading of the curtains.
1956 Kayenta (Arizona), Entertainment: John Ford’s tale of loss and redemption ‘The Searchers’ was released. It has a claim to being the greatest Western movie. Martin Scorsese called it a poem of hate. Replete with Ford touches, sublime and ridiculous. Most of all, starring Monument Valley and the Grand Tetons. Largely filmed near Kayenta in Arizona. I watched it on the wide screen at Dendy a couple of years ago and discussed it on a post elsewhere on this blog.
2012 Chicago, Education: Encyclopaedia Britannica announced that it would no longer publish paper volumes. It has been edited and published in the United States since 1901 but has continued to use British spelling and punctuation rules. Precious or what? Over the years I have met a couple of scholars who wrote entries for it and I was impressed by the skill with which they compressed complex subjects into short entries. The old adage applied: A short essay is harder to write than a long one.
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