Category: History - Other
The free cities of mediæval Germany were continually torn asunder by petty civil wars. The nobles, who despised commerce, and the burghers, who lived by it, were always fighting for the upper hand, and the laboring people sided now with one party, and now with the other. After...
The free cities of mediæval Germany were continually torn asunder by petty civil wars. The nobles, who despised commerce, and the burghers, who lived by it, were always fighting...
2. Part 2“It is certain that none of us can compete with thy speed in writing,” went on Father Melchior. “Every few weeks thou dost bring in twelve or more books, written in half the tim...
3. Part 3But Gutenberg was not entirely left to despair. His brother Friele, who was well-to-do, came to his aid, and interested friends in starting John at work on his presses again. He...
4. Part 4But, to his father’s dismay, the young Galileo did not show great interest in the study of medicine. Instead he spent his time studying the mathematics of Euclid, and from them...
5. Part 5It was no pressing need that drove John Gutenberg to the invention of his printing press, nor was it necessity that led to Galileo’s discovery of the telescope, but it was a ver...
6. Part 6He traveled much through South Lancashire and Cheshire, and there he came in daily contact with the cotton-spinners. A weaver of great ingenuity and tireless purpose, James Harg...
7. Part 7Two years of conflict in the South proved the superiority of Whitney’s invention over all other machines, but resulted in little actual profit. In March, 1795, he went north to...
8. Part 8The Directory was pleased with the offer, but the government was in so much of a turmoil that it was months before any positive action was taken. At length, on February 28, 1801...
9. Part 9Davy was an eloquent, enthusiastic, forceful speaker. He prepared his lectures with the greatest care, and he delivered them with that attention to dramatic effect which is inst...
10. Part 10During the time when Stephenson was working on his second locomotive explosions of fire-damp were unusually frequent in the coal mines of Northumberland and Durham, and for a sp...
11. Part 11It is curious to note the many kinds of opposition these first railways encountered. Said Mr. Berkeley, a member of Parliament for Cheltenham, “Nothing is more distasteful to me...
12. Part 12“Up to the autumn of 1837 my telegraphic apparatus existed in so rude a form that I felt a reluctance to have it seen. My means were very limited--so limited as to preclude the...
13. Part 13It had taken young McCormick many months to work out all these problems, and there were only one or two weeks each year, the harvest weeks, when he could actually try his machin...
14. Part 14Fortunately, at this point, a Cambridge dealer in coal and wood, by the name of Fisher, heard of Howe’s machine, and asked to see it. Howe jumped at the opportunity, explained i...
15. Part 15Until ten o’clock that night the judges spoke into the transmitter and listened at the receiver of Bell’s instrument. Next morning it was given a place of honor, and every one b...
16. Part 16A little later, when Edison was employed as operator in the railroad office at Indianapolis, he practiced receiving newspaper reports in his spare hours at night. He and a frien...
17. Part 17He next sent a boy to buy a reel of cotton, and told his assistants he was going to see what a carbonized thread would do. They looked doubtful, but began the experiment. A shor...
18. Part 18The system of operating wireless telegraphy is in some respects similar to that of the ordinary telegraph. The Morse Code is largely used in America, and a modification of it, c...
19. Part 19Kitty Hawk, the place the Wrights had chosen because the Weather Bureau had told them the winds were strongest and steadiest there, now became one of the chief foci of the world...