1507 Sankt Didel (Germany), History: Cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann were the first to use the name America on their world map “Universalis Cosmographia” based on the voyages of Columbus and Vespucci. Their map also showed the Americas as separate from Asia. Sankt Didel is now and was before Saint-Dié-des-Vosges in the much contested Lorraine.
1719 London, Literature: Daniel Defoe published ‘Robinson Crusoe’ the full title of which is ‘The Life and strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, where-in all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver’d by Pyrates.’ The novel has ruminations of humanity, equality, compassion, friendship, and empathy that are usually bleached out of it in the popular culture for a simple adventure. Below is a statue of Alexander Selkirk whose experiences inspired Defoe.
1896 Gawler (SA), Politics: Women voted! It was an election in the colony of South Australia. the legislation had passed in December 1894 and Queen Victoria gave Royal Assent in early 1895 in time for the next South Australian election. At the first reading of the legislation in 1894, while granting women the vote, the bill excluded women from serving in parliament. Hoping to sink the bill an outspoken opponent, one Ebenezer Ward, got that exclusion removed, and campaigned against the bill on the ridiculous but dreaded prospect of women voting other women into parliament! Too clever by half he was, because the bill passed.
1928 Nashville (TN), Society: Morris Frank with Alsatian guide dog Buddy began a publicity tour to promote the use of seeing eye dogs. Access to public facilities from parks to banks, hotels, restaurants, libraries, trains, buses, hardware stores, town halls, hospitals, and so on was until then denied to all animals. He also wanted to encourage the rearing and training of seeing eye dogs in the United States. He had imported Buddy from a speciality breeder in Switzerland who had trained Buddy for the work.
1954 Murray Hill (NJ), Technology: Daryl Chapin at Bell Labs demonstrated a solar battery made primary out of silicon, as in computer chips. He and his colleagues used the light from a flashlight to power a tiny windmill attached to the power cell. Shining the light on the cell caused the windmill to rotate as if by magic. We have a 4K set of solar panels on the roof.
1959 St Lambert (Quebec), Technology: The St Lawrence Seaway was opened. Queen Elizabeth II cut the ribbon, observed by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and President Dwight Eisenhower. It was a massive engineering project to allow contemporary ocean-going vessels to sail into the Great Lakes. Part of human cost is rendered in Anne Michaels’s ‘The Winter Vault” (2009). Her ‘Fugitive Pieces’ (1996) is unforgettable.
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