Can you imagine laying cable on the ocean floor? Does it sound like a good day when you've played out 100 miles of cable only to watch it snap, with no way to pick up the broken end to splice it? After several attempts leading to such frustrations, the first transatlantic telegraph cable was connected in 1858 but had such a weak signal that over half of the words sent needed to be repeated. A clever manager cranked the system up to 2,000 volts, from the 600 volts in the original design, and promptly burned through the insulation. Western Union was convinced a submarine cable would never work and started stringing wire on polls - planning to use a short underwater cable at the Behring Strait and going the long way around. On this day in 1866 the first successful transatlantic cable was connected, sending 8 words a minute at a cost of $5 per word in gold, $7.50 if you wanted to pay in paper money. Western Union quickly scrapped their Siberian plans.
Before I could get out of town, several readers caught the glaring error in yesterday's issue. Bernard Shaw did not write a play called "My Fair Lady" in 1914 as I originally wrote, his play was "Pygmalian," based on the Greek myth of the same name. The story became My Fair Lady after it was developed as a musical by Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner, opening on 15 March 1956, and a motion picture starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison in 1964. The Shaw estate earns royalties on both. As far as I can tell Shaw gets no official credit for the next incarnation of the story, 1990's Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.
I'm returning to my hometown for a few days to celebrate the 30th anniversary of my escape from high school, and will be posting from the road. Well, as it turned out I was unable to post from the road, so there is a gap in our sequence. The next issue was 1 August.
1054 - During his invasion of Scotland, Earl Siward of Northumberland defeated Macbeth at the battle of Dunsinane (Birnam Wood). Siward's son and nephew and most of Macbeth's army were killed, but Macbeth escaped.
1586 - A group of English colonists, financed by Sir Walter Raleigh, rescued by Sir Frances Drake from Roanoke Island, Virginia after a supply ship failed to arrive, lands at Portsmouth, England. Thomas Hariot brings numerous samples of plants from the new world, including the first potato and tobacco to arrive in England.
1694 - The Bank of England was established under the Tunnage Act of 1694, raising 1.2 million pounds in capital in ten days, which it promptly loaned to the government to finance war against France and the Low Countries in exchange for a monopoly in banking. No other joint-stock banks were created until 1826, the bank was nationalized in 1946.
1866 - The cable ship Great Eastern arrived at Heart's Content, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland having laid 1,896 miles of telegraph cable on the Atlantic Ocean floor over 1669 miles from Valentia Bay, Ireland. It was the first transatlantic cable to successfully carry messages, an attempt in 1858 carried weak messages and when they cranked the voltage up it burned out.
1953 - Armistice ending Korean War is signed by Lieutenant General Nam Il and Lieutenant General Wiliam Harrison at 10:00am at Panmunjom. Twelve hours later all fighting ceases.
Jose Celso Barbosa's Birthday, Puerto Rico - Commemorates birth of Dr Jose Celso Barbosa, educator, essayist, social analyst, and founder of the Puerto Rican Republican Party.
1881 - Hans Fischer, German chemist - Born at Höchst, Germany, primary school at Stuttgart, graduated from the "humanistische Gymnasium" at Wiesbaden in 1899. Studied chemistry and medicine first at University of Lausanne and then Marburg, getting his degree in chemistry at Marburg in 1904, and his M.D. at Munich in 1908. After working in a clinic at Munich he held university positions in internal medicine and physiology at Munich, Innsbruck, and Vienna. From 1921 to his death he was Professor of Organic Chemistry at the Munich Technische Hochschule. His laboratory work was devoted to the properties of the pigments in blood and leaves, discovering the similarities between chlorophyll and haemin (the part of haemoglobin that makes blood red), synthesizing at least two compounds in this family. Named "Geheimer Regierungsrat" (Privy Councilor) by Germany in 1925, won the 1930 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and received an honorary doctorate from Harvard in 1936. Succumbing to despair after his laboatory was destroyed in Allied air raids, he committed suicide on 31 March 1945, a month before Germany surrendered.
I am a world-class weenie when it comes to letting people stick needles
into me. My subconscious mind firmly believes that if God had wanted us
to have direct access to our bloodstreams, He would have equipped our
skin with small, clearly marked doors.
- Dave Barry
To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle,
is a deep delight of the blood.
- George Santayana
Human beings of today are attacked by so-called manager diseases, high
blood pressure, renal atrophy, gastric ulcers, and torturing neuroses:
they succumb to barbarism because they have no more time for cultural
interests.
- Konrad Lorenz
I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.
- Winston Churchill
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