1845 Meudon, Science: French physicists Armand Fizeau and Léon Foucault took the first photograph of the Sun. They had made numerous attempts and failed but one did succeed in making a five inch Daguerreotype as below. These two collaborated on many projects. Oh, and yes, this latter is the man with the pendulum. (Either one gets it or one doesn’t not.)
1905 Victoria Falls (Zambia), History: The ambitious Cairo – Cape Town railway opened between Cape Town in South Africa and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. The brainchild of Cecil Rhodes, it was never completed.
1912 Nanjing (China), Politics: Sun Yat-sen called a National Assembly of the Republic of China to supplant the Emperor Puyi. He created the Guomindang Party, a fossil of which remains important in Taiwan, and led it until his death in 1925. He had gone to elementary school in Honolulu. Below is his signature and personal stamp.
1930 Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), History: Ras Tafari Makonnen was invested as Emperor Haile Selassie, and remained that until deposed in 1974. Ryszard Kapuściński’s ‘Emperor’ (1989) gives a remarkable account of the last days of the regime. It inspired to me read three or four of his other titles.
1978 Lausanne (CH), Commerce: Velcro hit the market for first time. Its name is a portmanteau word from the French words ‘velour’ (velvet) and ‘crochet’ (hook). Electrical engineer George de Mestral conceived it while picking burs seeds (illustrated below) from his dog’s fur. It took years for him to develop the idea, conceive of a use for it, and find backers. The alternative explanation is that the Vulcans of First Contact left it behind.
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