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Category: Technology

By The Generalist Posted on March 4, 2021April 28, 2021

The strange death of Rudolf Diesel

The inventor of the diesel engine died at sea under mysterious and still unexplained circumstances.

Categories: 20th century history, Europe, History, Military, Places, Sciences, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on February 17, 2021April 17, 2021

Fake Moon dust

How do you test Moon landers, or lunar excavation and construction processes? Get some fake moon dust, of course.

Categories: Astronomy, Sciences, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on February 11, 2021February 10, 2021

Rose engine lathe

What do the first postage stamps, Fabergé eggs, and watch backs have in common? Rose engine lathes.

Categories: Arts, Fashion & design, Sciences, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on February 6, 2021April 28, 2021

First fatal plane crash

Thomas Selfridge was a passenger in one of the Wright brothers’ early planes when it crashed in 1908; he was the first person to die in a plane crash.

Categories: 20th century history, History, Military, North & Central America, Places, Sciences, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on February 2, 2021February 1, 2021

Mystery watch

The 19th century mystery watch was a genuine engineering puzzle: a pocket watch whose face was entirely transparent.

Categories: Arts, Europe, Fashion & design, Places, Sciences, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on January 30, 2021April 28, 2021

Accidental drums

Gated reverb drums, one of the core sounds of 1980s rock music and most famously played in Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight,” were the result of an accident in the recording studio.

Categories: 20th century history, Arts, Europe, History, Music, Places, Sciences, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on January 24, 2021January 15, 2021

Bump keys

A bump key can be used to open most standard pin tumbler locks.

Categories: Sciences, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on January 13, 2021April 28, 2021

Oldest satellite

Sputnik 1 orbited the Earth for three months; Sputnik 2 for nearly six months. Explorer 1 stayed in orbit for twelve years, but the fourth artificial satellite, Vanguard 1, is still flying today.

Categories: 20th century history, Astronomy, History, Sciences, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on December 30, 2020April 28, 2021

Pacific aurora

In 1962 the United States detonated a nuclear bomb in outer space over Hawai’i. It caused an artificial aurora in the sky over Honolulu – and another one over Samoa, more than four thousand kilometres away.

Categories: 20th century history, Astronomy, History, Military, North & Central America, Oceania, Places, Sciences, Technology, The oceans
By The Generalist Posted on December 18, 2020April 28, 2021

Two-faced car

A passenger in the the 1957 Zündapp Janus sits with their back to the driver. The Janus has two doors: the front of the car and the rear of the car.

Categories: 20th century history, Economics & business, Europe, History, Places, Sciences, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on December 13, 2020April 28, 2021

Muntzing TVs

Earl Muntz was an American businessperson who made a fortune chopping unnecessary bits out of TV sets. He may have also coined the term “TV” and certainly named his daughter “Tee Vee” too.

Categories: 20th century history, Arts, Economics & business, Film & television, History, North & Central America, Places, Sciences, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on December 7, 2020April 28, 2021

TV hijacking

One Sunday in 1987, two Chicago TV broadcasts were hijacked by someone with a Max Headroom mask, a voice modulator, and an odd sense of humour. He was never caught.

Categories: 20th century history, Arts, Film & television, History, North & Central America, Places, Sciences, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on November 28, 2020November 27, 2020

Falling bullets

In many parts of the world it is traditional to celebrate by firing guns in the air. But what happens to the bullets?

Categories: Physics & chemistry, Sciences, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on November 18, 2020April 28, 2021

Pilot out the window

In 1990 a British Airways plane heading to Spain had a windscreen malfunction mid-flight. The captain was sucked out of the gap, but a flight attendant caught his belt and the plane landed safely with the captain stuck halfway outside.

Categories: 20th century history, Europe, History, Places, Sciences, Technology
By The Generalist Posted on November 14, 2020November 13, 2020

Igbo-Ukwu bronzes

In the 9th century CE, a town in what is now Nigeria produced the most masterful bronze artefacts in the world.

Categories: Africa, Art, Arts, Fashion & design, History, Medieval history, Places, Sciences, Technology
Surveyor 3
By The Generalist Posted on October 30, 2020April 28, 2021

Lunar garbage collection

The second mission to land on the Moon had garbage collection duty: they picked up the remains of a probe that had crashed there two years earlier.

Categories: 20th century history, Astronomy, History, Sciences, Technology

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