1824 The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded in England. MP Richard Martin led a group of twenty-two parliamentarians which created the society and then lobbied for a royal warrant which was granted on this day.
1884 Coney Island, LaMarcus Thompson opened for business the first documented switchback railway for amusement, that is, a roller coaster which attained speeds of six miles an hour. The appetite for roller coasters has waxed and waned over the years but they still exist. The biggest is 456 feet high and its cars reach 128 mph in New Jersey.
1903 Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Company. He had started making horseless carriages in 1896. Those early sales funded the development of the Ford Model A as a reliable and inexpensive automobile. Books about his later efforts to grow rubber in South America for Fords are discussed elsewhere on this blog.
1933 President Franklin Roosevelt signed a bill creating the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. It guaranteed deposits in commercial banks, as part of a suite of measures to restore vitality and confidence in American banks. While the FDIC remains it was eviscerated during the Reagan Administration and as a result did nothing to avert the financial crises of the last decades, though it still has a staff of well-paid executives who attend meetings, as revealed in House hearings chaired by that crusader extraordinaire Henry Waxman.
1963 On Vostok 6 cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space. Over three Earth days she did forty-eight orbits which added up to more time in space than all American astronauts combined to that date. It was part of campaign of Soviet Firsts in Space. After she left the space program she served as a representative on many national and international women’s organisations and events. Only in 1983 did NASA include a woman on board challenger.
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