Master Timeline
For “How the
Green Line Came to Crown Hill”
A background reference
work
for a public art
installation at the northern terminus of the Green Line
Monorail in Seattle. My
commission was cancelled and the Green Line may never
be built due to
general incompetence on the SMP Board. Seattle voters will probably
get their fifth chance
to vote on it in November 2005, after having
already approved the
idea four times.
Compiled by James
Koehnline from diverse sources.
Last revised August
14, 2005.
Please email
corrections, comments, suggestions and additions to:
560
million years ago
Plants absorb
solar energy and use it to convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and
carbohydrates such as sugar, starch and cellulose; these carbohydrates and
other organic materials eventually settle on the ground and in stream, lake and
sea beds and, as they become more deeply buried, are transformed by heat and
pressure into solid, liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons known as fossil fuels.
40-17
million years ago
The
Cascade Mountains are formed. The Olympic Mountains appear as islands in the
Pacific.
17-6
million years ago
Floods
of lava cover the Columbia Basin and destroy the Columbia River waterway.
6
million - 10,000 years ago
Washington's
Ice Age. Volcanos form in the Cascades and huge glaciers cover the mountains
and Puget Sound. Floods shape the southern part of the state.
80,000-60,000
years ago
Homo
sapiens most likely emerged in Africa in this period. They quickly fanned out
to Australia and Central Asia about 50,000 years ago and arrived in Europe only
about 40,000 years ago, according to prevailing hypotheses.
77,000
years ago
Geometric
carvings on stones (found 2002) and pierced-shell beads (found 2004), in
Blombos Cave in South Africa, date to this time. They are the oldest human
artifacts yet discovered.
50,000
years ago
Cro-magnon
man considers the horse a source of food.
Topper,
South Carolina archeological dig (2004) suggests human presence in North
America at this time. Very controversial.
30,000
years ago
Ivory
horse, oldest known animal carving, from mammoth ivory, discovered near
Vogelherd, Germany
14,000
B.C.E.
The
earliest known fossils of domestic dogs date to this time. They were found in
Germany. It is impossible to know the nature and extent of human-animal
partnerships up until this time, but they surely existed.
13,000
B.C.E.
Earliest
evidence of the mammoth-hunting Clovis People (also known as paleo-Indians),
first people in the Americas – or at least that has been the prevailing
theory since Clovis dig in New Mexico, 1936.
11,000
B.C.E.
People
of the Clovis Culture inhabit the Northwest
9300
B.C.E.
Clovis
people hunt the pony-sized Equus conversidens horse.
8000
B.C.E.
The
American horse, Equus conversidens becomes extinct, possibly through a
combination of environmental change and overhunting.
6,700
B.C.E.
Mount
Mazama erupts
6,400
B.C.E.
Kennewick
Man lives. One of the oldest and
most complete skeletons ever found in the Americas, found in Kennewick, Washington
in 1996.
6000
B.C.E.
Egyptian
rock drawings show earliest known depictions of ships.
5500-3500
B.C.E.
The
wheel may have been invented in this timeframe in Mesopotamia (Iraq), although
some propose an earlier date in Asia.
Already,
one of civilization’s most important power sources has been developed
– an essential beast of burden in human history, the human slave. The amount of energy
needed to accomplish a given job is measured in slave-power, instead of
horsepower.
4500
B.C.E.
Sailing
ships are made in Mesopotamia.
4500-4000
B.C.E.
Horses
are domesticated in the Ukraine and Central Asia. Nomadic tribes probably
gained experience with sheep, goats and/or reindeer (domesticated caribou)
before attempting to herd horses. They provided meat and milk, their hides were
used to make tents and clothes, and the manure could be dried to make fires.
Eventually people learned to tame and ride them.
4000
B.C.E.
Petroleum
used in Egypt for medicine and lamp oil
Oldest
known woven cloth.
3500
B.C.E.
Animals
pull wheeled vehicles in Mesopotamia. For thousands of years and many great
civilizations, horses are reserved for warfare, transport and sport. Oxen
(trained cattle) are used for agriculture and general labor.
In
Sumer and Elam, the start of pictographic writing.
Oar-powered
(slave-powered) ships sail the seas.
Earliest
known paved streets (cobblestone) at Ur.
The
American camelids (llamas and alpacas), the only beasts of burden native to the
western hemisphere, are domesticated in the central Andes.
3300
B.C.E.
Earliest
potter’s wheel that has been found - Mesopotamia
3000
B.C.E.
Egypt
develops hieroglyphic writing.
People
light the night with candles.
In
Sumer, the first known written legend, Gilgamesh, a Noah's ark tale.
Stonehenge
is built.
First
recorded expedition of exploration launched from Egypt.
2500
B.C.E.
Polynesians
begin their migration throughout the South Pacific around this time
2000
B.C.E.
Earliest
known use of wheels with spokes, Egypt
Egypt
runs a government courier system.
Elephants
are domesticated in the Indus Valley.
1500
B.C.E.
Pulley
first used
Glass
making invented.
1400
B.C.E.
Wheels
used in Europe, possibly without knowledge of their development in the Near East.
1345
B.C.E.
The
horsemaster of Hittite king Suppililiuma, Kikkuli, begins a warhorse training
regime. The Kikkuli method of training is extremely detailed and allows the
Hittites to have fit horses for the war season.
1300
B.C.E.
First
entirely alphabetic writing, 30 Ugaritic cuneiform symbols on tablets.
In
modern-day Syria, musical notation.
1200
B.C.E.
Camel
domesticated by fully nomadic Arabian Desert tribes (Bedouin).
Egyptians
use pigeons for military communication.
1000
B.C.E.
Chinese
using coal as fuel
The
Chinese begin to fly kites.
In
Greece a goat herder discovered flames shooting from cracks in the rocks in a
place called Mount Parnassus. Believing the fire to be of divine origin, local
residents built a temple around the flame. The temple housed a priestess known
as the Oracle of Delphi who issued prophecies she said were inspired by the
flame.
Stone
yo-yos in Greece.
900
B.C.E.
China's
Zhou Dynasty has an organized postal service for government use.
Beacon
fires and smoke signals are used in China.
753
B.C.E.
Estimated
founding of Rome; start of the Roman calendar.
650
B.C.E.
Olmecs,
a pre-Mayan people, invent first writing system in Americas.
625
B.C.E.
First
known use of asphalt for roads – Babylon.
600
B.C.E.
In
Ninevah, a map of the known world, carved on clay tablet.
530
B.C.E.
In
Athens, a public library.
510
B.C.E.
Scylax
explores India, Arabia, and northern Afghanistan for the Persian empire.
500
B.C.E.
The Chinese
discovered natural gas seeping to the surface and built crude pipelines of
bamboo to transport gas to the ocean where it was burned to boil seawater
separating the salt out and leaving drinkable water.
Hanno
travels down the northwestern coast of Africa. Expedition recorded by Greeks. Himilco
travels to England and establishes tin trade.
Greek
telegraph: trumpets, drums, shouting, beacon fires, smoke, mirrors.
Persia
has a form of pony express.
400
B.C.E.
Earliest
known reference to the use of water wheels for milling grain, Greece
The
golden age of Greek culture produces unmatched writings.
Xenophon,
a Greek, writes the first fully preserved manual on horse riding, entitiled
"The Art of Horsemanship". He suggests owners should learn about
their horse’s psyche.
4th
century B.C.E.
Greeks
add England and India to their maps
The
Chinese invent the first rotary, aerodynamic device, a toy that children sail
through the air.
390
B.C.E.
Gauls
sack Rome, destroying all records. Only legends remain.
386
B.C.E.
Plato
founds the Academy
360
B.C.E.
A
hollow model of a pigeon suspended by a string over a flame is made to move by
steam issuing from small exhaust ports (described by Aulus Gellius in
"Noctes Atticaes" (Attic Nights)
Aristotle
mentions the use of a sort of air-supply diving bell in his Problemata.
356-323
B.C.E.
Alexander
the Great develops a close friendship with his horse, Bucephalus
340
B.C.E.
Aristotle's
logic; it will be a source of knowledge for more than 2,000 years.
335
B.C.E.
Aristotle
founds his academy, the Lyceum.
332
B.C.E.
Alexander
the Great, in his famous siege of Tyre (Lebanon), uses demolition divers to
remove underwater obstacles from the harbor. It is reported that Alexander himself
made several dives in a crude bell to observe the work in progress.
300
B.C.E.
Toothed
wheels for transmission of power attributed to Archimedes.
Euclid's
Elements
explain geometry.
295
B.C.E.
The
great library at Alexandria is founded. Euclid teaches there.
280
B.C.E.
Aristarchus
of Samos conceives of a heliocentric universe.
270
B.C.E.
Kleisbios
founds science of hydraulics.
250
B.C.E.
The
zero appears for the first time, in Babylonian place-value system.
Archimedes,
Greek mathematics and developments of basics of physics and mechanics - water
snail and endless screw.
220
B.C.E.
Archimedes,
Sicilian geometrician, leaves records of his many inventions.
200
B.C.E.
Hero
of Alexandria describes a simple rotary steam engine, possibly devised by
Cestesibus.
Greek
scientist Eratosthenes accurately measures size of the Earth.
105
B.C.E.
In
Alexandria, the first college of technology is founded.
1st
century A.D.
Chinese
invent first compass.
14
Rome
sets up network of relay runners carrying messages 50 miles in a day.
44
The
wheelbarrow is invented by the Chinese.
77
Pliny
the Elder mentions the use of air hoses by divers.
78
Pliny
the Elder dies after compiling the known science of his time.
100
In
Roman mines slaves tread the mill both to pump water and to raise ore.
Roman
couriers carry government mail across the empire.
Antikythera
Mechanism: apparently an astronomical calculator, Greece.
105
Supposed
date for Chinese eunuch Ts'ai Lun's invention of paper
120
Ptolemy
(Claudius Ptolemaeus A.D. 90 - 168) of Egypt, a mathematician and astronomer who
works in Alexandria, builds the foundations of cartography. He invents a number
of projections whereby an area on the curved surface of the Earth can be
represented on a flat surface.
200
Horseshoes
invented in Germany.
240
Device
found in Iraq, dating to approximately this time, seems to be an electric
battery. Even older copper vases have been found that appear to have been
electroplated with silver.
520
The
start of Western monasticism will keep learning alive in Christian Europe.
598
The
first school in England, at Canterbury.
600
-1000
The
horse is used for a multitude of purposes throughout the Middle Ages, including
war, leisure, tournaments, carrying messages, and agriculture.
640
Windmill
invented, Persia.
740
Moors
invade Spain, bringing learning and advanced culture.
793
Caliph
Haroun-el-Raschid establishes a paper factory in Baghdad, with Chinese workmen.
800
Charlemagne
encourages a revival of learning, the "Carolingian Renaissance."
813
In
Baghdad, "House of Knowledge" preserves ancient Greek scientific
writing.
850
The
Chinese use some form of gunpowder in making fireworks to celebrate religious
festivals.
875
A
Moorish doctor attaches wings and feathers to his body to make the first glider
flight in Andalusia, Spain.
900
China's
Tang Dynasty has courier system with more than 1,600 stations.
970
Chinese
government introduces paper money.
1002
Leif
Eriksson discovers North America.
Reading
stone invented -- a glass sphere that magnified when laid on top of reading
materials.
Murasaki
Shikabu's Tale of Genji, is the world's first novel.
1035
Paper
recycled in Japan.
1048
Pi
Sheng, a Chinese commoner, fabricates movable type using clay.
1050
Astrolabes
arrive in Europe from the East.
1086
The
Domesday Book, census of people and property, reveals life in England.
1095
First
Crusade
1131
Persian
mathematician Omar Khayyam dies after writing the Rubáiyát.
1140
Paper
made in Egypt using recycled mummy-wrappers.
1151
First
use of explosives in war, by China.
1155
Map
of western China is the oldest known printed map.
1168
Oxford
University is founded.
1180
Fixed
steering rudder in China (first control mechanism).
1200
The
University of Paris is granted its charter, starts mail, messenger service.
French
Dominicans begin the Inquisition to snuff out heresy.
1206
Turkish
mechanical genius, Al-Jazari, produces most important engineering text to date,
describing over 50 innovative devices in minute detail, including water clocks
and pumps.
1215
The
Magna Carta sets limits on a king's power.
1233
First
coal is mined in Newcastle, England.
1234
Koreans
use movable metal type.
1242
Roger
Bacon, an English Franciscan monk, produces a secret formula for
"gunpowder": saltpetre 41.2; charcoal 29.4; sulphur 29.4. To achieve
a faster rate of burning, Bacon distills saltpeter -- the oxygen producing
ingredient.
1255
Paper
mill in Genoa, Italy.
1267
Roger
Bacon builds a camera obscura to show optical illusions.
1268
Roger
Bacon's On Experimental Science supports inductive reasoning.
1271-95
Marco
Polo journeys to China establishing the overland trade route. He leaves China
in 1292 and three years later arrives home.
1271
Free
daily newspapers and mass-circulation booklets in China.
1280
Al-Hasan
al-Rammah, a Syrian military historian, describes rockets (Chinese arrows) and
recipes for making gunpowder in "The Book of Fighting on Horseback and
With War Engines."
1284
Italian,
Salvino D'Armate, is credited with inventing the first wearable eye glasses.
1290
French
astronomer Guillaume de Saint Cloud describes concept of a camera.
1298
Belt
driven spinning wheel
1305
Taxis
family begins private postal service in Europe.
1309 First known use of
paper in England
1328
Invention
of sawmill spurs shipbuilding.
1335
Guido
da Vigevano designs a wind-driven vehicle - a windmill type drive to gears and
thus to wheels. Never built.
Clocks
in Europe.
1342
In
France, mathematician Levi ben Gershon writes theory of photography.
1381
Anne
of Bohemia popularizes the sidesaddle style of riding for ladies.
1387
Geoffrey
Chaucer writes The Canterbury Tales.
1405
Admiral
Cheng Ho begins his voyages for Emperor Chu Ti. The Treasure Fleet of the
Dragon Throne rules the South Pacific and Indian Ocean until 1433.
1406
Ptolemy's
geography is introduced in Europe.
1440
Possible
date of Johnannes Gutenberg's first printing effort.
1450
Newsletters
begin circulating in Europe
Africans
carry culture with them as 400 years of slave exports to West begins.
1450
Gutenberg
uses press to print poem and Papal indulgences.
Invention
of the printing press spurs wide distribution of navigation tables and ship plans.
Ptolemy's geography is published and widely accepted.
1452-1519
Host
of mechanical inventions by Leonardo da Vinci.
1453
Mehmet
II conquers Constantinople.
1455
Gutenberg
publishes the Bible.
1472
Dante's
epic poem, The Divine Comedy, is printed.
1474
German
astronomer "Regiomontanus" is the first to use printing for science.
1476
Caxton
produces first book printed in English.
1490
Mainspring
invented by Peter Hele, or Henlein, a locksmith of Nurnburg. About this time
the small domestic, or table clock made its appearance.
Leonardo
da Vinci begins documenting his aerodynamic theories and ideas for flying
machines.
1492
German
map-maker Martin Behaim constructs the first globe.
Columbus
sets sail.
1493-
1519
Explorers
for Spain, such as Christopher Columbus, and Herando Cortez, re-introduce the
horse to the Americas. These explorers record that indigenous Americans have
never seen horses and are both in terror and awe of the animal.
1497
John
Cabot sights "new found land" while searching for Northwest Passage.
1507
Map
shows the New World, called America, as separate continent.
1510
The
first watch was made at about this time.
1512
England
begins construction of double-deck warships.
1518
Trithemius
produces first printed Western book on cryptology.
1519
Magellan
begins his journey to circumnavigate the world with five ships and 270 men
Leonardo
da Vinci dies after lifetime of incomparable art and inventive writing.
1521
April
27, Magellan killed by natives in the Philippines.
1522
September
6, eighteen of Magellan's crew and one ship return.
1527
Sack
of Rome
1534
First
Frankfurt Book Fair
1535
Guglielmo
de Loreno developed what is considered to be a true diving bell.
1536
A
newspaper is printed: the Gazetta in Venice.
1537
Gerardus
Mercator goes into business as globe and map maker.
1543
Pacific
Northwest claimed by Spain
Nicolas
Copernicus' On the Revolution of Heavenly Spheres places sun at the
center of our universe.
1559
Pope
Paul IV issues Index of Forbidden Books
1560
In
Italy, the camera obscura shrinks from room-sized to portable.
Legalized,
regulated private postal systems grow in Europe.
1569
Screw
cutting lathe by Jacques Besson
1577
Sir
Francis Drake sets sail from England. He circumnavigates the globe.
1579
The
Washington coast sighted by Sir Francis Drake and claimed for England
1581
Pendulum
principle by Galileo
1582
Gregorian
Calendar
1590
Two
Dutch eye glass makers, Zaccharias Janssen and son Hans Janssen, experimented
with multiple lenses placed in a tube. The Janssens observed that viewed
objects in front of the tube appeared greatly enlarged, creating the forerunner
of both the compound microscope and the telescope.
1592
Discovery
of Strait of Juan de Fuca claimed by Juan de Fuca
1599
The
Globe Theatre is built.
1600
Wind-driven
land vehicle invented by Simon Stevin.
William
Gilbert's theory tying electricity & magnetism.
Italian
philosopher Giordano Bruno burned at the stake for scientific ideas.
1604
Cawdrey's
A Table Alphabeticall, first English dictionary.
King
James Bible
1615
Solar-powered
motor invented by Salomon de Caux
1620
- Cornelis
Drebbel, a Dutchman, conceived and built an oared submersible (the first
successful submarine). He conducted several series of trips below the surface
of the Thames River which lasted many hours.
1622
Slide
rule by William Oughtred
1623
Wilhelm
Schickard's calculating clock, a forerunner to the computer.
1630
Beaumont
designs and builds wagon roads for English coal mines using heavy planks on
which horses pulled carts and wagons.
Boston:
first publicly operated ferryboat in America.
1632
Galileo
writes his Dialogo for the public in support of Copernicus.
1633
Galileo
recants during Inquisition trial, is sentenced to lifetime house arrest.
1636
Harvard
University is founded.
1637
René
Descartes' Discourse on Method is turning point to modern philosophy.
1639
In
Boston, Richard Fairbanks' tavern named repository for overseas mail.
1639
Puritans
ship a printing press to the American colonies.
1642
Calculating
machine invented by Blaise Pascal
1646
Athanasius
Kircher, a German Jesuit scientist, builds a magic lantern to project images.
mid-1600s
First
Russian ice slide thrill rides – inspiration for the roller coaster
(1817).
1650
Leipzig
has the first daily newspaper.
First
air pump by Von Guericke
Slide
rule invented by Gunter and Oughtred.
1653
Parisians
can put their postage-paid letters in mail boxes.
1660
The
first cuckoo clocks made in Furtwangen in Germany's Black Forest
1662
Blaise
Pascal invents a horse-drawn public bus with a regular route, schedule, and
fare system.
Mass-production
of the pencil.
1665
English
physicist, Robert Hooke, looked at a sliver of cork through a microscope lens
and noticed some "pores" or "cells" in it.
1666
Isaac
Newton explains his calculus.
Robert
Boyle explains temperature-pressure-volume relations in gases.
Isaac
Newton publishes his physical laws.
1667
John
Milton's Paradise Lost. He is paid £10.
1671
Pendulum
suspension spring introduced by William Clement. The first known clock with
anchor excapement made by William Clement.
1673
The
first post rider is dispatched to connect New York and Boston and to provide
mail service.
1675
Van
Leeuwenhoek refines the microscope, inventing new methods for grinding and polishing
microscope lenses that greatly improved magnification and clarity, He sees and
describes protozoa for the first time.
The
first portable watches appear in Germany and France around this time
Greenwich
Observatory is established to set a standard time
Olaus
Romer, a German astronomer, measures the speed of light
1676
The
concentric minute hand, with motion work similar to that in use today, was used
by Daniel Quare, a famous London maker and others. Daniel Quare also made
repeating watches about this time. The Second Hand is introduced.
1680
Experimental
internal combustion engine using gunpowder by Christian Huygens
1684
Robert
Hooke lays out plan for visual telegraph; no one tries it.
1687
Newton's
Principia Mathematica, arguably the greatest scientific book of all time.
1688
Abraham
Thevart casts the first plate glass
1689
First
US newspaper, Publick Occurrences Both Forreign & Domestick, printed in
Massachusetts
1690
Denis
Papin of France develops the first steam-powered vacuum pump
1691
Edmund
Halley (of Halley's Comet fame) patented a diving bell which was connected
by
a pipe to weighted barrels of air that could be replenished from the surface.
1698
Thomas
Savery invents a steam-powered pump in England
1709
Abraham
Darby uses coke to smelt iron ore, replacing wood and charcoal as fuel
1710
Florence
harpsichord maker Bartolommeo Cristofori invents the piano.
1712
The
Newcomen steam engine invented.
1713
The
Board of Longitude is established in England to promote the discovery of a
means of determining the longitude of ships at sea
1714
Gabriel
Fahrenheit of Germany invents a mercury thermometer with a temperature scale
First
typewriter patented by Henry Mill in England
1715
John
Letherbridge invents the first waterproof diving suit
1717
A
signaling rocket is developed in Russia that can reach an altitude of several
hundred meters.
1725
Bouchon uses perforated paper tape to
control loom.
1729
Stephen
Gray of England discovers the principle of electrical conduction
1732
In
Philadelphia, Ben Franklin starts a circulating library.
Franklin
begins publication of Poor Richard's Almanack. It will run until
1758.
1733
John
Kay invents the flying shuttle.
1735
Harrison
develops his first chronometer to help determine the longitude of ships at sea.
Charles
Marie discovers rubber in South America.
1737
Jacques
de Vaucanson begins six-year career as a creator of amazing automatons, after
which he tries to automate the textile industry in France, against stiff
resistance. He invents a punch-card system for automating looms, fifty years
before Jacquard does the same with more success.
Vaucanson's
mechanical flute player
1738
Vaucanson's
mechanical duck
1740
New
York--reputed first American use of ox carts for carrying of passengers.
Jacques
de Vaucanson demonstrates his clockwork-powered carriage.
1741-43
Russian
explorers reach Alaskan islands and coast and trade with native peoples for sea
otter pelts.
1745
E.
J. von Kleist invents the "Leyden jar," later known as a capacitor,
for short-term storage of electricity
1746
Benjamin
Franklin performs his experiments confirming that lightning is a form of
electricity
1751
In
France, Denis Diderot produces first volume of an encyclopedia.
1753
First
steam engine arrives in the colonies from England.
1754
Mikhail
Lomonosov suggests a coaxial rotor machine to raise meteorological instruments
and develops a small coaxial rotor.
1755
First
steam engine in America is installed to pump water from a mine.
1758
An
Act of Parliament establishes the Middleton Railway in Leeds. Thus the
Middleton claims to be the oldest Railway in the world (originally
horse-powered).
1759
Roller
skates are invented by Joseph Merlin.
1765
The
British Stamp Act taxes newspapers, documents angers American colonists.
1768
First
edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica
1769
James Watt
patents a series of improvements on the Newcomen engine making it more
efficient.
Nicholas
Cugnot in France invents the first steam-powered vehicle, with three wheels.
1770
Electric
battery invented by John Cuthbertson.
Pierre
Jaquet-Droz and his son Henri-Louis, of Switzerland, present their truly
remarkable automatons -- the writer, the draftsman and the musician -- to an
astounded audience.
von
Kempelen's mechanical Turk
1771
Luigi
Galvani of Italy produces current electricity
A
Frenchman named Freminet produces a crude brass diving helmet with eye holes.
Air is supplied by a bellows into a small air reservoir, then pumped down to
the diver.
1773
December:
The Boston Tea Party in America.
The
first cast-iron bridge is built in Shropshire, England.
1774
Juan
Perez commands the first Spanish expedition to explore the Northwest Coast and
sights the Olympic Mountains
Scotsman
James Watt builds first "modern" stationary steam engine.
Joseph
Priestley and Karl Scheele independently discover oxygen.
1775
Bruno
de Hezeta lands on the Washington coast and claims the area for Spain. On his
return south, he sees the mouth of the Columbia River.
Pierre-Simon
Girard invents the water turbine.
Benjamin
Franklin is first Postmaster General under Continental Congress
1775-1783
Revolutionary
War
1776
English
tram road is laid down with cast iron angle bars on timber ties
July
4th: Thomas Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of
Independence is approved and signed.
England,
July 4th: King George writes in his diary, “Nothing of
importance happened today.”
Tom
Paine stirs the colonists with his pamphlet "Common Sense."
First
authenticated attack by military submarine -- American Turtle vs. HMS Eagle,
New York harbor.
1778
James
Cook (British) explores and charts the Northwest Coast.
1780
Wanting
to win the St. Petersburg annual competition initiated by the Imperial Academy
of Sciences, the churchman Abbot Mical made two extraordinarily ingenious
automatons -- heads that were able to pronounce a certain number of sentences
in French. He won.
1782
Hot-air
balloon invented and flown by Montgolfier brothers in France
James
Watt invents the double-acting rotary steam engine
1783
Parachute
invented.
Hydrogen
balloon invented by Jacques Charles and the Robert brothers.
Luigi
Galvani develops the first electric cell from two strips of metal and the
fluids from a dissected frog, and determines the energy must proceed from the
frog.
1784
Gen.
Jean Baptiste Marie Meusnier designs an elliptical balloon powered by
hand-turned propellers
1785
Stagecoaches
carry the mail between towns in the United States.
The
first balloon crossing of the English channel
Power
loom by Edmund Cartwright
1786
Nail
making machine by Ezekial Reed
Automatic
flour-mill factory design by Oliver Evans
1787
James
Rumsey designs the first mechanically driven (steam) boat.
Jeremy
Bentham's famous Panopticon envisions an economically self-sufficient prison on
the model of a slave labor camp that supported itself through internal
factories worked by the inmates. Those inmates included children; the factories
would be powered by mechanisms attached to the children's seesaws, swings, and
merry-go-rounds, translating play into work.
1788 - John Smeaton, an American,
creates the first truly modern diving bell.
1789
George
Washington is elected the first president of the United States.
The
French National Assembly votes the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
Samuel
Osgood, first Postmaster General under Constitution
1790
Pulley
block automatic manufacturing line by Brunel
1791
In
the new United States, the Bill of Rights, with freedom of faith, speech,
press.
Tom
Paine defends the French Revolution in The Rights Of Man.
1792
Robert
Gray (American) names the Columbia River after his ship.
George
Vancouver (British) explores and names Puget Sound and Lieutenant William
Broughton explores the Columbia River up to Point Vancouver.
Spain
establishes the first non-Indian settlement in Washington at Neah Bay.
George
Cayley builds a twin-rotor helicopter model.
William
Murdock of Cornwall, England, uses coal gas lighting in his home.
1793
Cotton
gin by Eli Whitney
Francois
Blanchard conducts the first balloon flight in the US, carrying first piece of
airmail.
1794
The
French government forms the first air force, the Compagnie d'Aeronautiers
The
French direct ground operations entirely from a balloon at the Battle of
Fleurus.
1795
Joseph
Bramah, of Piccadilly, England, patents the application of a paddlewheel to the
stem of a vessel, driven by a steam engine.
Swiss
watchmaker Antoine Favre describes his idea for what we now call the cylinder
music box.
Food
canning by Appert
1798
Continuous
paper manufacture by Nicolas-Louis Robert
1799
From
the French Academy of Science, the metric system.
1800s
The
horse in the Americas becomes the center of urban life, but is also important
in the effort to settle the west and cultivate the virgin soil.
1800
Alessandro
Volta develops the electric battery.
Inaugural
voyage on the Erie Canal announced by a line of cannons firing.
Letter
from Portland, Maine takes only 20 days to reach Savannah, Georgia.
1801
Joseph
Jacquard (French) - textile loom driven by wooden punch cards
1804
Oliver
Evans builds his first steam-powered boat, weight: 4,000 lbs.
Matthew
Murray of Leeds, England invents a steam locomotive which runs on timber rails.
This is probably the FIRST RAILROAD ENGINE. Seen by Richard Trevithick before
he builds his.
Richard
Trevithick of Cornwall builds 40 psi steam locomotive for the Welsh Penydarran
Railroad.
J.B.
Biot and Joseph Gay-Lussac rise 13,000 feet and make scientific observations
from a balloon. Later sets an altitude record for a balloon flight of 23,000
feet.
1805-06
Lewis
and Clark enter Washington and stay at Fort Clatsop on the south side of the
mouth of the Columbia River
1807
The
very first passenger train ran from Swansea to Mumbles on March 25th.
Robert
Fulton begins steamboat service on the Hudson River.
Coal
gas first used to light streetlamps in London, England.
Patent
for gas-driven automobile awarded to Isaac de Rivez.
1807-11
David
Thompson charts the Columbia River
1808
Sir
George Cayley constructs the first real airplane -- a glider five feet long
with wings and a tail.
1809
Carbon
arc lamp by Humphrey Davy
Cayley
successfully flies a glider with a total wing area of 172 square feet.
1810
The
Northwest Company establishes Spokane House, a fur-trading company.
An
electro-chemical telegraph is constructed in Germany.
Cayley
publishes On Aerial Navigation, laying out the basis for the study of
Aerodynamics.
George
Medhurst of London publishes pamphlet proposing transport of mail and freight
via pneumatic tubes at speeds of up to 1000 mph.
1811
John
Jacob Astor builds Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River as part of
his Pacific Fur Company.
New
York--first mechanically operated (steam-powered) ferryboat.
Nottingham,
England: Luddite riots will forever give a name to opponents of advances in
technology.
1812
The
first commercially successful steam locomotives, using the Blenkinsop rack and
pinion drive, commenced operation on the Middleton Railway. This was the
world's first regular revenue-earning use of steam traction, as distinct from
experimental operation.
Steam-powered
cylinder printing press by Friedich Konig
1812-1815
War
of 1812
1813
Englishman
William Hedley builds and patents 50 psi railroad loco which could haul 10 coal
wagons at 5 mph, equal to 10 horses.
Congress
authorizes steamboats to carry mail.
Can
opener invented
1813
The
British Royal Military Academy in Woolwich publishes "A Treatise on the
Motion of Rockets" by William Moore. The work includes a mathematical
description of rocket trajectories, including their movement in air and in
vacuum
1814
Englishman
George Stephenson builds Blucher, his first railway engine. Pulls 30 tons at 4
mph, but is not efficient.
In
England, a steam-powered press prints the Times, 1100 copies an hour.
1815
Stephenson's
second engine: 6 wheels and a multitubular boiler.
John
Loudon McAdam (Scotsman, born 1756) designs roads using broken stones laid in
symmetrical, tight patterns and covered with small stones to create a hard
surface, called “macadam roads”. Later road-builders add coal tar
as a binder, and call it tarmacadam, or tarmac.
1816
Ronalds'
prototype electric telegraph.
1817
Baron
von Drais invented a walking machine that would help him get around the royal
gardens faster: two same-size in-line wheels, the front one steerable, mounted
in a frame which you straddled. The device was propelled by pushing your feet
against the ground, thus rolling yourself and the device forward in a sort of
gliding walk.
The
prison treadmill invented in England by Sir William Cubit. Forty-four prisons
in England adopted it as a form of hard labor that could also grind grain.
First
roller coasters - France
Alexander
Zasyadko's book, dated 1817, becomes the first Russian production and
application manual for battlefield missiles.
1818
United
States and Great Britain agree to joint occupation of the Oregon Territory.
Milling
machine by Eli Whitney
1821
Englishman
Julius Griffiths patents a passenger road locomotive.
Principle
of electric motor described by Michael Faraday.
Natural gas
piped through hollow logs to Fredonia, New York.
1822
First
attempt by Charles Babbage to create a calculating machine
1823
Monroe
Doctrine warns other countries against attempting occupation in U.S. claimed
lands.
In
England, Ronalds builds a telegraph in his garden; no one is interested.
1824
Bureau
of Indian Affairs is set up in the War Department.
Russia
sets its southern boundary in the Pacific Northwest at 54 degrees, 40 minutes.
Construction
begins on the 1st locomotive workshop in New Castle, England.
Englishman
David Gordon patents a steam-driven machine with legs which imitates the action
of a horse's legs and feet. Not successful.
The
first use of asphalt in road-building - asphalt blocks are placed on the
Champs-Élysées in Paris.
1825
Stephenson's
8-ton LOCOMOTION No. 1 built for the Stockton & Darlington Railroad. Capable
of pulling 90 tons of coal at 15 mph. Stephenson plans all details of the line,
and even designs the bridges, machinery, engines, turntables, switches, and
crossings, and is responsible for every part of the work of their construction.
(The passenger coaches of this time were all drawn by horses.)
Colonel
John Stevens builds a steam waggon which he placed on a circular railway before
his house - now Hudson Terrace-at Hoboken, New Jersey.
Hudson's
Bay Company establishes forts Vancouver and Colvile on the Columbia
Cheshunt
Railway
The first passenger carrying monorail celebrated a grand opening
June 25th, 1825. It had a one-horse power engine...literally. Based on a 1821
patent by Henry Robinson Palmer, the Cheshunt Railway was actually built to
carry bricks, but made monorail history by carrying passengers at its opening.
The Russian army employs Zasyadko's rockets for the first time
during the Russo-Turkish War.
U.S.
postal service creates a dead letter office.
Persistence
of vision shown with Thaumatrope, a disk with image on each side.
1826
The
first line of rails in the New England States is said to have been laid down at
Quincy, Mass., 3 miles in length and pulled by horses.
1827
The
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is chartered to run from Baltimore to the
Ohio River in Virginia. It was the first westward bound railroad in America. Wind
power (sail on carriage) was tried, followed by horse power, with the horse
walking on a treadmill which drove the carriage wheels!
The
first omnibus (not yet so-called) to operate in America begins running up and
down Broadway in New York City. It is owned by Abraham Brower, who also helped
organize the first fire department in New York.
John
Vallance, of Brighton, England, builds prototype pneumatic tube train, but
certain faults in the design lead to it being ridiculed as 'Vallance's Suffocation Scheme.'
Differential
calculating machine (difference engine) built by Charles Babbage.
Using
a camera obscura, Niépce makes a true photograph on a pewter plate.
Wheatstone
constructs a kind of microphone and a kind of image scanner.
1828
Delaware
& Hudson Canal Co. builds a railroad from their mines to the termination of
the canal at Honesdale. Also pulled by horses.
A
“new” type of public transport (see Pascal, 1662), open to
everyone, is introduced in France. It is a long coach with seats down each
side, called a voiture omnibus, a “carriage for everyone.” In
England it becomes omnibus, and then simply ‘bus.
Washington
Irving, in his Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, includes an entirely
fictional account of a meeting at which Columbus is lectured on the flat earth.
This was a major source of the myth that before Columbus people believed the
Earth was flat. Even Daniel Boorstein, in 1983 (The Discoverers), was still
propagating this complete falsehood. No one in Irving’s time believed
this fiction. In fact Columbus’ difficulties in finding a backer were
based on the conviction that he would starve to death before he ever got to
Asia.
In
Belgium, the Anorthoscope is a forerunner of a motion picture projector.
1829
The
first steam locomotive used in America, the English-built Stourbridge Lion, is put to work on
the Delaware & Hudson. It is too heavy for the track (twice as heavy as had
been promised by the builders), and is laid up next to the tracks as a
stationary boiler.
Peter
Cooper of New York in 6 weeks time builds the Tom Thumb, a vertical boiler
1.4 HP locomotive, for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. It hauls 36
passengers at 18 mph in August 1830. It has a revolving fan for draught, uses
gun barrels for boiler tubes, and weighs less than one ton.
James
Wright of Columbia, PA. invents the cone "tread" of the wheel for
railroads, which prevents wear of flanges and reduces resistance.
Stephenson's
Rocket
wins a competition for locomotive power at the Rainhill Trials on the
Manchester & Liverpool Railway. Capable of 30 mph with 30 passengers.
George
Shillibeer introduces 3-horse omnibus service in London. Others quickly copy
him. During rush hours, passengers would scramble onto the roofs of the busses,
and by the time of the Great Exposition (1851) stairways and roof seating have
become standard.
Louis
Daguerre joins Niépce to pursue photographic inventions.
Wheatstone
uses punched paper tape to store data.
Louis
Braille invents embossed printing for the blind.
1830
William
Huskisson becomes first passenger-train death. Killed by Stephenson's Rocket at
the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.
The
Best Friend is built at the West Point Foundery at New York for the
Charlston & Hamburg Railroad. It was the first completely American-built
steam engine to go into scheduled passenger service. It did excellent work
until 1831 when the boiler exploded due to a reckless fireman, unexpectedly
ending its, and his career.
Baltimore--first
American steam railroad (Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co.)
Charles
Ferson Durant is the first successful American aeronaut and the first to drop
leaflets from the sky.
Electric
Motor by Joseph Henry
Joseph
Jackson Lister reduces spherical aberration or the "chromatic effect"
by showing that several weak lenses used together at certain distances gave
good magnification without blurring the image. This was the prototype for the
compound microscope.
1831
The
3.5 ton De Witt Clinton hauls 5 stage coach bodies on railroad wheels at 25 mph
on the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad between Albany and Schenectady. This engine
was lightly built, and was retired less than two years after going into
service.
The
South Carolina was the first eight-wheeled engine.
Robert
Stevens, son of Colonel John Stevens, went to England and shipped back
(unassembled) the John Bull for the Camden & Amboy Railroad in New
Jersey. It was erected by mechanic Isaac Dripps, who had never seen a steam
locomotive. There was no assembly manual. He made this the first locomotive
fitted with a bell, headlight and cowcatcher, and it remained in service until
1866. Dripps went on to become superintendent of motive power for the
Pennsylvania Railroad at Altoona.
Electrical
generator by Michael Faraday
1832
The
first street railroad in America runs along Bowery Street in New York. It is
owned by John Mason, a wealthy banker, and built by Irishman, John
Stephenson. Stephenson's New York company will become the largest and
most famous builder of horse-drawn streetcars.
The
Brother Jonathon was the first locomotive in the world to have a four-wheel
leading truck. Designed by John B. Jervis for the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad.
The
American No. 1 was the first 4-4-0, the first of its class. It was capable
of regular speeds of 60 mph with its 9.5" by 16" cylinders. Designed
by John B. Jervis, Chief Engineer for the Mohawk & Hudson.
The
Atlantic on the B&O hauls 50 tons from Baltimore over a distance of
40 miles at 12 to 15 mph. This engine weighed 6.5 tons, carried 50 pounds of
steam and burned a ton of anthracite coal on the round trip. The round trip
cost $16, doing the work of 42 horses, which had cost $33 per trip. The engine
cost $4,500, and was designed by Phineas Davis, assisted by Ross Winans.
English locomotives burned bituminous coal.
Phenakistoscope in Belgium and Stroboscope in Austria herald the
movies.
1833
George Stephenson applies a small steam brake cylinder to
operate brake shoes on driving wheels of locomotives.
A
penny buys a newspaper, the New York Sun, opening a mass market.
In
Germany, the Weber and Gauss telegraph line runs for nearly two miles.
Sirius (714 tons) makes
first wholly steam-powered trip across Atlantic
1834
The
Whitman Party, including Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa and also
Reverend H. H. Spalding and his wife Eliza set up mission at the junction of
the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Their travel route would become known as the Oregon
Trail and used by thousands of future settlers.
Antoine-Jean
Letronne (1787-1848), in his anti-religious polemic, On the Cosmographical
Ideas of the Church Fathers (1834), misrepresents the church fathers and their
medieval successors as believing in a flat earth. Along with Washington
Irving’s largely fictional biography of Columbus, this is the genesis of
the enduring myth, which is still being included in some textbooks.
Electric
motor demonstrated by Thomas Davenport.
Battery
powered electric motor by M. H. Jacobi.
Electrolysis
by Michael Faraday.
Jacob
Perkins obtains the first patent for a refrigerating machine.
The
zoetrope, a toy using a rotating drum gives the illusion of movement.
1835
New
Orleans--oldest U.S. street railway line still operating (New Orleans &
Carrollton line). Second streetcar line opened in America (originally
horse-drawn),
In
England, W. H. Fox Talbot produces his first photographs.
P.T.
Barnum begins his career.
Alexis
de Tocqueville's Democracy in America looks at the new country.
1836
Samuel
F. B. Morse refines the telegraph.
Charles
Green, Thomas Monck, and Robert Hollond set a balloon distance record of 500
miles, flying from London, England, to Weilburg, Germany.
1837
The
first electric vehicle (EV) was built in Scotland by Robert Davidson
Wheatstone
and Cooke patent an electric telegraph in England.
Samuel
Morse exhibits telegraph, but Alfred Vail invents Morse Code.
Daguerre
creates daguerreotype, begins photography craze.
1838
Boston:
first commuter fares on a U.S. railroad (Boston & West Worcester Railroad)
In
the U.S., railroads are officially designated as postal routes.
1839
Vulcanization
of rubber by Charles Goodyear.
Edmund
Becquerel, the French physicist, discovered the photovoltaic effect while
experimenting with an electrolytic cell made up of two metal electrodes placed
in an electricity-conducting solution--generation increased when exposed to
light.
The
first camera manufactured for sale, the Giroux Daguerreotype.
Electricity
runs a printing press.
In
London, a commercial telegraph line sends messages.
1840
Samuel
Cunard begins transatlantic steamship service.
Alexander
Bain, an Edinburgh clockmaker, made the first electric clock.
In
England, William Hale, develops spin stabilized rockets, by placing three
curved metal vanes in the rocket exhaust.
England
starts penny post. Stamps sold. It's cheap, so people write more letters.
1841
United
States naval expedition, headed by Charles Wilkes, explores Washington
1842
John
C. Fremont leads an Army Topographical Corps' Expedition to the Rocky
Mountains. He witnesses an eruption of Mt. St. Helens. His maps of this
expedition and one the following year, are printed by the government and are
widely used by pioneers heading west.
William
Henson patents the first design in history for a propeller-driven, fixed-winged
plane, the Aerial Steam Carriage.
Horatio
Phillips constructs a steam-driven vertical flight machine, the first time that
a model helicopter flew powered by an engine
Carbon
electrode battery by Bunsen
In
England, Alexander Bain demonstrates a crude fax machine.
1843
First
large immigration to Oregon occurs and temporary government established
In
the U.S., the photographic enlarger.
Byron's
daughter, Ada Lovelace, explains concept of computer programming.
Congress
gives Morse funds to build an experimental telegraph line.
1844
Gustaf
Erik Pasch invents the safety match.
Morse's
telegraph connects Washington and Baltimore.
World
does not end, disappointing Millerites.
1845
Robert
W. Thompson invents the pneumatic tire, but it doesn’t catch on.
Difference
Engine is redesigned as Analytical Engine by Babbage (advanced 'computing'
experiment).
1846
Treaty
between United States and Great Britain sets boundary at 49th parallel.
In
Germany, Zeiss begins manufacturing lenses.
Printing
telegraph is forerunner of ticker tape.
Sewing
machine by Elias Howe
1847
Cayuse
Indians attack Whitman Mission in Walla Walla.
Moses
Farmer built a two-passenger electric car.
U.S.
starts selling postage stamps.
Levi
Strauss invents denim jeans
1848
Oregon
Territory created
American
Association for the Advancement of Science founded.
Spiritualism
becomes popular -- communication with the dead.
Alix
Gueissaz, begins manufacturing music boxes in Switzerland.
1849
The
Austrians attempt the first aerial bombing by launching 200 pilotless,
bomb-carrying, hot air balloons.
Cayley
builds his first full-sized glider. The 10-year-old son of one of his servants
becomes the first person in history to fly on a glider.
Twin-lens
camera can take pictures for stereoscopic viewing.
1850
New
York: first use of exterior advertising on U.S. street railways.
Pierre
Jullien of Villejuif builds and demonstrates a model airship, Le Precurseur, at
the Paris Hippodrome. It looks a modern airship.
Submarine
cable briefly connects England and France.
1851
First
settlers (Denny party) land on the site of Seattle (Alki).
First
World’s Fair: Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations,
at the Crystal Palace in London
Sewing
machine by Isaac Singer
1852
King County
is created on December 22, 1852, and is at the time still part of Oregon
Territory. It is named for the new Vice President of the United States, William
Rufus DeVane King, who died in office shortly thereafter. Seattle is the county
seat.
Steam-powered
airship invented by Henri Gifford.
Foucault
invents the gyroscope.
1853
Washington
Territory created.
The Oregon
Territory's ban on black settlers does not apply in the newly created
Washington Territory. Manuel Lopes, born in CÔte d'Ivoire on the West
African coast, is the first black to settle in Seattle.
First
American steamboat on Puget Sound.
Seattle's
first factory opens - a steam-powered sawmill owned by Henry Yesler.
Sir
George Cayley builds and demonstrates the first heavier-than-air aircraft (a
glider).
The
first practical implementation of pneumatic tube technology was between the
Central offices of the Electric and International Telegraph Company and the
Stock Exchange in the City of London.
European
optical signalling system has 556 stations.
1854
Thomas Mercer
names Lake Union, part of his homestead claim, at a July 4 picnic, foreseeing
its future role joining salt and fresh water.
Bourseul
in France builds an experimental telephone.
George
Boole develops logic system that future computers will depend on.
1855-58
Yakima
Indian War
1855
Seattle's
first church built.
World’s
Fair, Paris
American
chemist Benjamin Silliman applies fractional distillation to Pennsylvania rock
oil and discovers it produces high-quality lamp oil.
Walla
Walla Treaty Council
January
22nd: Treaty of Point Elliott. Tribes including the Duwamish and
Suquamish surrender their lands for cash, relocation to reservations, and
access to traditional fishing and hunting grounds. Four days later, tribal
leaders from Hood Canal and the upper Puget Sound sign a similar agreement at
Point-No-Point (near Hansville on the Kitsap Peninsula).
The
first land grant railroad in the U. S. is completed. The Illinois Central
arrives in Dunleith, Illinois (now East Dubuque).
England:
The London General Omnibus Company is formed to consolidate as many London bus
proprietors as possible into one organization.
Desjardins
Canal Bridge train disaster, Ontario, Canada. 70 dead.
Gasconade
Bridge train disaster, St. Louis, Missouri. 30 dead, hundreds injured.
Inventor
Leon Scott constructs a device called a phonautograph that records tracings of
the vibrations of sound. Precursor to the phonograph.
The
stopwatch is invented
1856
Indians
attack Seattle
The
first railroad bridge across the Mississippi River is completed between Rock
Island, Illinois and Davenport, Iowa.
Blast
furnace for steel making by Henry Bessemer
1858
Chief
Leschi is hanged on February 19 for his military activities during the Treaty
War.
The
first Northwest railroad, the Cascade Railroad Company, begins operation in the
Columbia River Gorge. The Walla Walla and Columbia River Railroad became the
second Northwest railroad in 1873.
Mailboxes
appear on American streets.
First
effort at transatlantic telegraph service fails.
Eraser
is fitted to the end of a pencil.
1859
Crown
Hill/Loyal Heights area first surveyed
Technique
for drilling oil wells invented by Edwin Drake.
The
first commercial oil well is drilled by “Colonel” Edwin L. Drake
just outside of Titusville, PA.
Eliza
Anderson, Seattle's first weekly mail steamer, goes into service.
Internal
combustion engine using coal gas invented in France.
Telegraph
reaches from Atlantic to Pacific.
Word
'technology' coined
Darwin's
The Origin of Species
1860
King
County's first Masonic Lodge is organized.
New
York: first (failed) attempt to form street railway labor organization
1860s
Gold
and silver discovered in the Okanogan
The
first aerial photographs are taken from a balloon over Paris.
1861-1865
Civil
War
1861
The
University of Washington opens on land donated by Arthur Denny, at today's
University Street and Fourth Avenue.
Elisha
Otis establishes a company for manufacturing passenger elevators and patents a
steam elevator.
Telegraph
brings Pony Express to an abrupt end.
John
LaMountain makes the first aerial reconnaissance from an untethered balloon. He
ascends from Fort Monroe, Va. and spies on Confederate troops in Newmarket
Bridge and Newport News, Va.
Intelligence
on Confederate troop movements is telegraphed to Union gunners on the ground
from a balloon 1000 feet above Arlington, Va. Union guns are accurately
directed to fire on troops the gunners can't see-a first in the history of
warfare."
The
Union constructs the first aircraft carrier, the George Washington Parke
Custis. It is used to tow balloons making observations.
Electric
furnace by William Siemens
Kinematoscope
by U.S. inventor Coleman Sellers, is a crude movie projector.
1862
U.S.
Congress passes the Homestead Act, authorizing 160-acre allotments of
unoccupied federal lands to settlers.
President
Abraham Lincoln signs the Pacific Railway Act, which authorizes the
construction of the first transcontinental railroad. Theodore Judah had the
vision to build a railroad across the Sierra Nevada mountains in California,
and then to continue the railroad across the United States. The Central
Pacific Railroad was financed by The Big Four: Collis Huntington, Leland
Stanford, Charles Crocker and Mark Hopkins.
Jean
Lenoir makes a two-stroke gasoline-engine automobile.
American
Kerosene reaches England and Russia, making fossil fuels an international
commodity.
In
Italy, Caselli sends a drawing over a wire.
In
the U.S., paper money.
1863
The
Seattle Post-Intelligencer begins publication, and remains the city's oldest
newspaper.
Aaron
Mercer is believed to have taken up the earliest land acquisition in Bellevue, an
80.5-acre plot located on what is now the west bank of the Mercer Slough.
In
South King County, the town of Vinemaplevalley is established. It will be
renamed Maple Valley in 1882.
Abraham
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, arguably history's greatest speech.
Henri
Fourneaux builds his first player piano.
German
inventor J.P. Reis demonstrates an electric telephone.
1864
The
first group of Asa Mercer's marriageable young ladies of good character arrives
on May 16. Lizzie Ordway was the only Mercer Girl to remain single.
Beloeil,
Quebec, Canada: 99 killed when an immigrant train failed to stop at an open
swing bridge and fell into the Richelieu River.
Taiping
Rebellion ends in China, over 20 million dead.
James
Clerk Maxwell publishes theory that leads to radio wave discovery.
1865
Butterfield
and Company open the first commercial brewery in Seattle.
Civil
War ends. Union Pacific Railroad heads west.
Appearance
of a two-wheeled riding machine. The pedals were applied directly to the front
wheel. This machine was known as the velocipede ("fast foot"), but
was popularly known as the bone shaker, since it was made entirely of wood,
then later with metal tires, and the combination of these with the cobblestone
roads of the day made for an extremely uncomfortable ride. They also became a
fad, and indoor riding academies, similar to roller rinks, could be found in
large cities.
John
D. Rockefeller takes control of the company that eventually becomes Standard
Oil and begins consolidating a monopoly.
Great
Eastern lays transatlantic telegraph cable.
Paris
and Berlin build networks of pneumatic tube telegram delivery.
Pantelegraph
transmits faxes commercially between Paris and Lyon.
West
Virginian Mahlon Loomis manages a kind of wireless communication.
Benoit
Rouquayrol and Auguste Denayrouse patented an apparatus for underwater
breathing. It consisted of a horizontal steel tank of compressed air on a
diver's back, connected to a valve arranged to a mouth-piece.
1866
Chief
Sealth, chief of the Suquamish and Duwamish tribes, who welcomed American
settlers and had the city of Seattle named in his honor, dies on June 7, and is
buried at Suquamish.
Cyrus
Field lays the first successful transatlantic cable
The
Siemens brothers improve steelmaking by developing the open hearth furnace
Western
Union dominates U.S. wires.
1867
The
first coal mine at Newcastle WA begins production.
The
United States purchases Alaska from Russia, beginning a profitable trading
relationship.
Modern
bicycle invented by Ernest Michaux.
World’s
Fair, Paris
The
modern (steam-powered) motorcycle is invented, built by one Sylvester Howard
Roper of Roxbury, Massachusetts, and demonstrated at fairs
and circuses in the eastern US beginning in 1867.
1868
New
York: first cable-powered & first elevated U.S. urban railroad (West Side
& Yonkers Patent Railway).
Thomas
Edison patents a vote recorder.
1869
Seattle
incorporates, for the second time. Henry Atkins is the city's first mayor.
African
American George Riley establishes "Riley's Addition" on Beacon Hill.
William
Meydenbauer homesteads the first claim site on what is now Meydenbauer Bay.
George
Westinghouse, an inventive Civil War veteran, develops the straight air brake.
A Pennsy 4-4-0 and a couple of passenger cars are fitted with the system and
successfully demonstrated on April 13th.
The
Central Pacific and Union Pacific meet at Promontory Summit, Utah for the
driving of the golden spike on May 10th
Jay
Gould and James Fisk precipitate "Black Friday" gold market crash
after driving gold to 162. In response to Gould's and Fisk's market
manipulations, the New York Stock Exchange outlaws "stock-watering"
(issuuing shares in secret.)
Edison
patents stock ticker and printing telegraph.
Jules
Verne popularizes the concept of scuba in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. His
central character, Captain Nemo, specifically cites the Rouquayrol/Denayrouze
system (see 1865).
1870
The
federal census shows total population for Washington Territory at 23,355, for
King County at 2164, and for Seattle 1142. Walla Walla is the most populous
town in Washington Territory.
New
York: first pneumatic-powered & first underground U.S. urban railroad
(Beach Pneumatic Railroad Co.).
The
High Wheel Bicycle, the first all metal bicycle appeared. (Previous to this
metallurgy was not advanced enough to provide metal strong enough to make
small, light parts out of.) The pedals were still attached directly to the
front wheel with no freewheeling mechanism. Solid rubber tires and the long
spokes of the large front wheel provided a much smoother ride than its
predecessor. The front wheels became larger and larger as makers realized that
the larger the wheel, the farther you could travel with one rotation of the
pedals.
The
English Channel Machine was built and operated by compressed air, driving 1.5
miles at some 70 feet/day under the English Channel before the project was
abandoned for political reasons.
French
postal authorities use hot air balloons during siege of Paris.
More
than 5,000 newspapers are published in the U.S.
Pigeons
carry microphotographed secret messages in Franco-Prussian War.
Telegraph
across Europe and Asia connects London with Calcutta, 11,000 km.
Celluloid
plastic by John W. Hyatt
Wheeler
introduces toilet paper roll in US.
1870-1883
New
York's Brooklyn Bridge is built, but many of the workmen pay a high price.
Emerging after extended hours in high-pressure caissons (dry construction
compartments sunk into the riverbed) they become crippled by "caisson
disease." Because of the cramped and frozen joints caused by the
affliction, reporters dub it "the bends."
1871
Indian
Appropriations Act states that Indians are no longer considered sovereign
nations but wards of the federal government.
Christopher
P. Higgins purchases 160 acres from the federal government in what would become
a portion of the Crown Hill neighborhood
For
50 cents, teamster/livery stable owner Robert Abrams offers pedestrians a lift
in his wagon up and down Skid Road (now Yesler Way), and all the way to Lake
Washington. Abrams expands stage service to Georgetown and Renton.
New
York: first steam-powered elevated U.S. urban railroad (New York Elevated
Railroad Co.).
Frank
Wenham's wind tunnel constructed. This is the first wind tunnel.
Paris
Commune
First
Trans-Siberian telegraph line connects Europe with China
1872
The
Northern Pacific Railroad chooses Tacoma as its western terminus.
The
American-British border dispute in the San Juan islands is settled via
arbitration by the German emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm.
President
Grant establishes the Colville Confederated Tribes through an Executive Order,
not a treaty. The reservation lands are reduced later that year following
complaints of Colville Valley settlers
George
Westinghouse patents the first automatic air brake. This is basically the same
system as is used by today's railroads.
The
Daily Dispatch, Seattle's first daily paper, begins publication.
Great
Epizootic horse influenza epidemic in eastern U.S. kills thousands of horses
(the motive power for most street railways).
Edward
Stokes murders James Fisk in Grand Central Hotel, New York.
New
York Sun begins exposing Credit Mobilier financing which culminates in huge
railroad financing scandal.
The
first use of modern, well-graded, high-density road asphalt (developed by
Belgian immigrant Edward de Smedt at Columbia University) is in Battery Park
and on Fifth Avenue in New York City.
Ernst
Abbe, then research director of the Zeiss Optical Works, wrote a mathematical
formula called the "Abbe Sine Condition". His formula provided
calculations that allowed for the maximum resolution in microscopes possible.
The
Montgomery Ward mail order catalog.
First
million-dollar ad campaign in U.S.: Lydia Pinkham's Pink Pills.
1873
World’s Fair, Vienna
The
Northern Pacific Railway chooses Tacoma as its western terminus; the line opens
a decade later.
Coal
is discovered in Renton. The city will be named for Captain William Renton, who
assisted in financing and operating the Renton Coal Mine.
San
Francisco: first successful cable-powered urban railroad (Clay St. Hill
Railroad).
Typewriters
get the QWERTY pseudo-scientific keyboard.
Maxwell
publishes theory of radio waves
Dewey
develops Dewey Decimal System for Amherst College Library
1874
In
reaction to the Northern Pacific decision, Seattle men begin construction of
the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad.
San
Francisco: first recorded strike by street railway workers in U.S.
Gaston
Tissandier and Sivel and Croce-Spinelli ascend in the Zenith to 28,820 feet and
die from oxygen deprivation.
1875
Thomas
Moy designs, builds, and successfully demonstrates a pilotless, tandem-winged,
steam engine powered, propeller-driven monoplane, the Aerial Steamer. It rises
six inches off the floor of the Crystal Palace in London, England - the first
machine of its type to "fly".
In
France, the praxinoscope, an optical toy, a step toward movies.
Cathode-ray
tube by William Crookes
Edison
invents the mimeograph while trying to improve telegraph tape.
1876:
World’s
Fair, Philadelphia
General
Le-Roy Stone's steam driven monorail was first demonstrated at the United States
Centennial Exposition in 1876. The ornately designed double-decker vehicle had
two main wheels, the rear one driven by a rotary steam engine.
An
early player piano, created by Henri Fourneaux of France, is publicly exhibited
at the Centennial Exposition.
Alexander
Graham Bell invents the Telephone
1877
King
County Poor Farm is established on the Duwamish River to house the poor, sick,
and homeless.
Four-cycle
internal combustion engine invented by Nikolaus August Otto.
Edwin
Holmes builds a telephone switchboard.
Eadweard
Muybridge photographs horse in motion, forerunner of movies.
In
France, Charles Cros invents the phonograph.
In
America, Edison also invents the phonograph.
Emile
Berliner invents the microphone. So does David Hughes.
Portuguese
professor Adriano de Paiva writes proposal for a video system.
1878
World’s
Fair, Paris
Bradford
& Foster Brook Monorail
A modified
version of General Stone's Centennial monorail was put into use on a 6.4
kilometer line between Bradford and Gilmore, Pennsylvania. It was built to transport
oil drilling equipment and personnel to Derrick City. Wayside stations were
added at Tarpot, Babcock's Mill and Harrisburg Run. At that point, local
inhabitants began to ride the line. The rotary engines lacked power and it was
decided to gamble on a much larger locomotive driven by conventional pistons.
The worst disaster in monorail history occurred on January 27, 1879 with this
engine. Coupled to a flat car full of officials, the train was run at high
speed to demonstrate its capability. The boiler exploded and the train crashed
into a creek, killing the driver, fireman and three passengers. The rest were
severely injured. The line was abandoned shortly thereafter.
The Seattle
and Walla Walla Railroad is complete between Newcastle's coal mines and
Seattle's waterfront bunkers, hauled by the locomotive A.A. Denny.
Seattle's
first hospital - Providence Hospital - is opened, operated by the Sisters of
Charity.
The first
telephone in Seattle connects Seattle to West Seattle.
Punch cartoon imagines
"telephonoscope": global, interactive, flat-panel HDTV.
1879
In the city's
first great fire, 20 downtown buildings burn, including Henry Yesler's mill.
First
electric railway (in Berlin).
The
world’s first oil pipeline, the Tidewater, is opened between PA and NY in
an attempt to escape Standard Oil’s control over distribution.
Thomas
Edison invents the indandescent light bulb
George
Eastman builds a machine to mass-produce photographic dry-plates.
1880
Seattle
(Population: 3,533) is a small city, extending 1.5 miles along Elliott Bay, and
3⁄4 mile inland-from Denny Way south to Atlantic Street. By night, a few
downtown blocks are lit by gaslamps.
Rutherford
B. Hayes visits Seattle, the first president to travel west of the Rocky
Mountains.
The
filling of Seattle's tide flats has begun, and about 100 acres have been
reclaimed.
Two
earthquakes strike Puget Sound, December 7 and 12.
The
League of American Wheelmen founded. Bicyclists, known then as
"wheelmen", were challenged by rutted roads of gravel and dirt and
faced antagonism from horsemen, wagon drivers, and pedestrians. In an effort to
improve riding conditions so they might better enjoy their newly discovered
sport, over 100,000 cyclists from across the United States joined the League to
advocate for paved roads. The success of the League led to the more general
Good Roads Movement of the Progressive Era, which led, ultimately, to the
national highway system.
Lead-acid
battery perfected.
The
first electric elevator is built by the German inventor Werner von Siemens.
Muybridge's
Zoopraxiscope projects photographic images in motion.
The
U.S. has about 50,000 telephones.
1881
While
waiting to be executed for his part in the plot to assassinate Czar Alexander
II, Nikolai Kibalchich sketches and describes a manned flight vehicle propelled
by a solid-fuel rocket engine.
Paris
Exposition lets visitors listen to opera over telephone headsets.
Louis
Latimer and Joseph V. Nichols invent incandescent light bulb with carbon
filament. Prior to this, filaments had been made from paper.
Selford
Bidwell sends electronic image by telegraph using photoelectric cell.
The
first photographic roll film.
1882
The
Seattle Chamber of Commerce is organized.
The
first King County Courthouse is erected on the corner of Jefferson Street and
Third Avenue in downtown Seattle.
Boston:
American Street Railway Association formed.
First
nation-wide US ad (by P&G for Ivory soap).
1883
Northern
Pacific Railroad completed to Tacoma, linking Washington to the East
Daily
coal shipments from Seattle reach 550 tons.
A
group of local women found Seattle's chapter of the Women's Christian
Temperance Union (WCTU), and the women of Washington Territory receive the
right to vote.
The
Brooklyn Bridge opens. This large suspension bridge, built by the Roeblings
(father and son), is a triumph of engineering.
New
York: first publicly operated cable-powered line (Brooklyn Bridge).
New
York: first surviving street railway labor organization (Knights of Labor Local
2878) founded.
Charles
Fritts, an American inventor, describes the first solar cells made from
selenium wafers.
Automatic
shoe making machine by Jan E. Matzeliger
Krakatoa
eruption + Tsunami
1884:
Seattle Street railway Company (Horse Cars)
Frank
Osgood, Mgr. & Builder; Geo. Kinnear, Dave Denny, Directors..First
Franchise: 2nd Avenue from Occidental to Pike St., Pike to First St., North to
Battery St. and from Pike over other streets, North to Lake Union. Five cents a
ride. This is the first Street Car in Washington Territory.
Paul
Nipkow sends first images over wires using a rotating metal disk technology
calling it the "electric telescope" with 18 lines of resolution.
People can
now make long distance phone calls.
1885
The
log canal is cut through from Lake Washington to Portage Bay. Chinese laborers,
supplied by Seattle's Wa Chong Company, complete the two-year excavation of the
log canal that connected Lake Union with Lake Washington.
The
Chinese population numbers 3,276 in Seattle.
The
last black bear to be shot within the city limits of Seattle is killed at the
eastern end of Jackson Street, near the shore of Lake Washington.
Austrian
Siegfried Marcus displays his
3-wheel automobile at a Vienna fair.
A
2 passenger, 3 wheel automobile with 4-stroke gasoline-engine is invented by
Daimler, Maybach and Benz.
Tainter
and Bell "graphaphone" uses wax-coated cylinders for better sound.
Linotype
machine by Ottmar Mergenthaler
Electrical
transformer by Zipernowsky, Beri, and Blathy and William Stanley
1886
Coal mining
town of Roslyn founded; Mine operated by the Northern Pacific Coal Company
Seattle's
first electric generator is demonstrated.
The
electric-powered submarine is invented.
Electric
lights are demonstrated in Seattle's Pioneer Square, described by the April 13
Post-Intelligencer as "When the dynamo started, the room was made
brilliant by a clear white light." The dynamo was housed in the first
central electric light plant west of the Mississippi River.
Meigs
Monorail: Captain J.V. Meig's monorail made it as far as having a test track,
but the design never caught on.
Railroad
car brake invented by George Westinghouse.
Montgomery,
AL: first semi-successful citywide street railway transit agency (Capital City
Street Railway Co.)
Amos
Dolbear gets patent for wireless communication using induction.
Electric
welding machine
1887
Seattle's
first cable railway.
Anti-Chinese
mobs and vigilantes attempt to drive hundreds of Chinese workers from Seattle
and King County, resulting in riot and death.
Electric
lights are demonstrated in Seattle's Pioneer Square, described by the April 13
Post-Intelligencer as "When the dynamo started, the room was made
brilliant by a clear white light." The dynamo was housed in the first
central electric light plant west of the Mississippi River.
Dawes
Severalty Act is passed. Indian lands are split into individual allotments,
with remaining lands becoming public and therefore up for sale.
Enos
Electric Railway: The first suspended monorail was tested on the grounds of the
Enos Electric Company in Greenville, New Jersey. It was built of light, open
steelwork rather than massive wooden beams that most monorails to this point
had used. The Greenville demonstration attracted considerable publicity in the
press, but no major system was ever built. The design may have influenced Eugen
Langen in Germany, as the Enos Monorail bears a remarkable likeness to the
Wuppertal Schwebebahn in Germany.
John
Dunlop, a veterinarian in Belfast, invents the pneumatic tire (for the 2nd
time) for his son’s tricycle, using sections of garden hose. It catches
on in a big way with bicyclists.
Berliner
gets music from a flat "gramophone" disc stamped out by machine.
Thomas
Edison assigns engineer W.L.K. Dickson to create a motion picture camera.
International
parcel post system established.
Photoelectric
effect by Heinrich Hertz
1888
Stampede
Tunnel of the Northern Pacific Railroad completed across the Cascades
The
City of Seattle ferry begins regular runs between downtown Seattle and West
Seattle.
The
Seattle, Lakeshore and Eastern Railroad reaches Issaquah.
Beginning of Electric Street Railway, West
Street, Lake Union and Park Transit Company
Director:
L.H. Griffith. Frank Osgood merged with this firm and name was changed to
Seattle
Electric Railway and Power Company.
The
Listowel & Ballybunion Railway: The Lartigue Railway Construction Company
opened a 14.5 kilometer steel-railed monorail on March 1, 1888. It linked the
town of Ballybunion, on the west coast of Ireland, with the market town of
Listowel. The only passenger-carrying monorail in the British Isles for many
years, it ran until 1924. Rising operational costs and road transport forced it
out of business.
Frank
Sprague installs a complete system of electric streetcars in Richmond,
Virginia. This is the first large-scale and successful use of electricity to
run a city's entire system of streetcars.
Alternating
current motor invented by Nikola Tesla.
Data-processing
computer invented by Herman Hollerith.
First
windmill to generate electricity built in Ohio by Charles F. Brush
"Kodak"
box camera makes picture taking simple. The "snapshot" is born.
Edison
tries to record movies on a wax cylinder like his phonograph.
Heinrich
Hertz proves that radio waves exist.
Oberlin
Smith sets forth theory of magnetic recording.
Commercial
adding machines by William Burroughs
1889
In
this year of Washington's statehood, Seattle's Great Fire destroys 25 blocks of
buildings.
World’s
Fair, Paris
An
electric-powered streetcar runs for the first time on Second Avenue, said to be
only the fourth electric streetcar in the world. Seattle's first electric streetcar
fatality occurs within two months. Public worries about runaway bolts of
electricity.
Electric
railway to Renton built.
Work
begins on interurban railroad between Seattle and Georgetown.
New
York: first major strike by street railway workers.
1890s
Massive
fish wheels - patterned after the principle used to propel paddlewheel boats
– begin plucking 30 million tons of fish from the Columbia River each
year.
1890
Seattle
Population: 42,390
Town
of Ballard incorporated.
First
electric subway train, London, England.
William
Morrison builds an electric car in Des Moines that can travel for 13 hours at a
speed of 14 mph.
Herman
Hollerith counts the U.S. population with punch cards.
In
Germany, Hermann Ganswindt proposes a reaction-powered spacecraft propelled by
dynamite charges.
In
Germany, Ferdinand Braun invents the cathode ray tube.
In
England, Friese-Greene builds the kinematograph camera and projector.
Word
'automation' first used in Strand magazine
Edison
introduces the first talking doll.
First
execution by electric chair
1891
Greenwood
Cemetery established
Seattle's
public library is established.
Miners
strike at coal mines in Franklin, Issaquah, and Newcastle. African American
miners are brought to King County coal fields from Missouri to replace striking
miners.
The
Great Northern Railway connects the Shoreline area to downtown Seattle, opening
up the northern shore of Lake Washington to residential and recreational
development.
The
Rainier Avenue Electric Railway extends from downtown Seattle to Columbia City,
signaling the beginning of development in the Rainier Valley.
Edison's
assistant, Dickson, builds the Kinetograph motion picture camera.
The
first international phone call via submarine cable, London - Paris.
1892
Lucien
F. Cook of Tacoma demonstrates model elevated electric railroad at Tacoma post
office. He finds enough backers to build a full-size model on the Tacoma
waterfront, demonstrated in November of 1892.
Hotchkiss
Bicycle Railway ran from Mount Holly to Smithville in New Jersey. The purpose
was that you hired a bicycle and rode it along a monorail track to your
destination. There were a number of bicycle depots en route.
Indianapolis:
first national street railway labor union founded (Amalgamated Association of
Street Railway Employees of America, now called the Amalgamated Transit Union).
The
tractor is invented.
Jesse
Reno patents his moving stairs or inclined elevator as he called it. In 1895,
he created a new novelty ride at Coney Island from his patented design, a
moving stairway that elevated passengers on a conveyor belt at a 25 degree
angle.
Edison
and Dickson invent peepshow Kinetoscope.
Seward
Babbitt (American) invents a motorized crane with grippers
1893
Griffiths large holdings in Seattle Electric
Railway and Power purchased by Denny & Sons,
August 3rd, (Price $212,000)
World’s
Fair, Chicago – World’s Columbian Exposition
George
Ferris’ Wheel weighed in at over 4 million lbs. and was 264 feet high.
First
moving sidewalk demonstrated at Expo.
Great
Northern Railroad completed to Seattle
Economic
depression bankrupts many streetcar lines serving outer neighborhoods such as
Rainier Valley and Ravenna.
The
first mainline electrification was in Baltimore, MD. A rigid overhead conductor
supplied 675 VDC via one-sided tilted pantograph to the 96 ton 4-axle, 4-motor
locomotives. These were very successful, hauling 1,800 ton trains up the 0.8%
grade in the 1.25 mile Howard Street tunnel, where steam was not allowed to
operate.
Portland,
OR: first interurban rail line (East Side Railway Co.).
Diesel
engine invented by Rudolf Diesel.
General
Roy Stone, a Civil War hero and good roads advocate, is appointed Special Agent
in charge of the new Office of Road Inquiry (ORI) within the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. With a budget of $10,000, ORI promoted new rural road development
to serve the wagons, coaches, and bicycles on America's dirt roads.
Lawrence
Hargrave invents the box kite
Dickson
builds a motion picture studio in New Jersey.
Coca:cola
is registered as a trademark by a pharmacist in Atlanta.
Photoelectric
cell by Julius Elster and Hans F. Geitel
Louis
Boutan invents the first underwater camera.
1894
A
6-week long Great Northern strike paralyzes regional rail shipping.
Pullman
Palace Car Co slashes wages and causes workers to strike.
U.S.
government issues injunction against striking Pullman Palace Car Co. workers.
President
Cleveland sends U.S. troops to Chicago to enforce injunction. Two men are
killed on July 6. Troops are withdrawn on July 20.
Trolley
employees strike in New York. Riots follow, eventually stopped by New York and
Brooklyn militia.
The
world's first modern amusement park - Paul Boyton's Water Chutes - opens on Chicago's South side,
inspired by the Midway at the 1893 Fair.
Octave
Chanute compiles and publishes Progress in Flying Machines. This is the world's
first compendium of aviation experiments. He goes on to design, sponsor, and
mentor glider developments including those of the Wright brothers.
The
word "spaceship" appears in print.
In
New York City, Edison opens a Kinetoscope movie parlor.
1895
Seattle
Electric Railway and Power Co. power plant & all equipment destroyed by
fire:
(All Cars stored for night when fire started).
In
Italy, teenager Guglielmo Marconi invents wireless telegraph, sends a radio
signal more than a mile.
Chicago:
first electric elevated rail line (Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railway).
Konstantin
Tsiolkovskiy, (born in 1857) begins many years’ work on the idea of a
rocket-propelled spaceship.
France's
Lumiere brothers' portable movie camera can also print, project films.
In
a Paris cellar, a paying audience sees Lumiere's motion pictures projected.
Kellogg's
Corn Flakes
1896
The
Miike Maru begins regular steamship service from Japan to Seattle. A century
later, Japan was Seattle's principle trading partner.
The
Seattle and Rainier Beach Railway (later the Seattle, Renton, & Southern
Railway) reaches Renton.
Henry
Ford builds Quadricycle.
Edison
Vitascope, designed by Thomas Armat, brings film projection to U.S.
Hollerith
founds the Tabulating Machine Co. It will become IBM in 1924.
X-ray
photography
Nikola
Tesla invents a spark radio transmitter.
Turned
down by Italy, Guglielmo Marconi takes radio gear to England.
1897
The
steamer Portland arrives on July 17 from Skagway, beginning the Gold Rush to
the Klondike. A series of gold rushes begin that will boom Seattle, and
bankroll its growth into the new century.
Seattle
Traction Company organized with Insurance money collected after 1895 fire.
Boston:
first electric underground street railway line in U.S. (West End Street
Railway/Boston Elevated Railway Co.). Also first publicly-financed public
transportation facility (street railway tunnel).
Solomon
Andree makes attempt at first flight over the Arctic in a hydrogen-filled
balloon but balloon goes down and he disappears
Joseph
John Thomson discovers the electron.
William
Harbutt invents Plasticine
1898
Spanish-American
War
Seattle's
Chamber of Commerce succeeds in bringing a U.S. Assay Office to the city.
18
December, a land speed record is officially set when Frenchman Count Gaston de
Chasseloup-Laubat drives his car at 39.24mph.
A
loudspeaker is invented.
Sound
is recorded magnetically on wire by Valdemar Poulsen of Denmark.
1899
Mount
Rainier National Park established
Washington
State Good Roads Association formed at meeting in Spokane. Sam Hill named
president.
Marconi
radio equipment installed in British warships.
Within
a year, the land speed record is broken five times, passing between the
Frenchman, Chasseloup-Laubat, and a Belgian, Camille Jenatzy, who raises the
record to 65.79mph.
Leon
de Bort discovers the stratosphere.
Economist
Thorsten Veblen coins the term "conspicuous consumption."
1900-1930
The
player piano is a central force in American musical life. Referred to variously
as automatic pianos, pianolas and reproducing pianos, players of all types are
found not only in penny arcades, but in homes, concert halls, restaurants,
saloons, stores— virtually anywhere music is heard.
1900
World’s
Fair, Paris
Seattleites
are awed by the city's first automobile, an electric-powered vehicle.
Frederick
Weyerhaeuser sets up a logging business in western Washington
Stone
& Webster utility cartel (ancestor of Puget Sound Energy) buys up Seattle
streetcar lines and wins 35-year city franchise.
Seattle
Population: 80,671
America
produces 212 million tons of coal and only 64 million barrels of oil.
Standard
Oil is a refining monopoly producing 95% of the nation’s refined
petroleum
Casey
Jones rides the "Cannonball" into history on April 30th.
Count
Zeppelin flies the world's first untethered rigid airship, the LZ-1 near Lake
Constance, Germany. It carries five passengers.
Kodak's
$1 Brownie puts photography in almost everyone's reach.
Max
Planck introduces quantum theory hypothesis.
Joshua
Lionel Cowen invents Lionel miniature trains.
1901
Seattle-Tacoma
and Seattle-Everett interurban railways built and acquired by Stone &
Webster.
World’s
Fair, Buffalo, NY – Pan-American Exposition
Wuppertal
Schwebebahn: Civil Engineer Eugen Langen of Cologne, Germany has left his mark
on the history of monorails in a big way. His Schwebebahn (suspension railway) has
operated successfully along the Wupper river for over 100 years. It has
survived two world wars and continues to operate profitably and safely today.
James
Hill and J.P. Morgan fight with Edward Harriman and Kuhn Loeb over control of
Great Northern and Northern Pacific. Stock hits $1000/share, causing panic and
collapse in other stocks.
Alberto
Santos Dumont wins the Deutsch prize for circling the Eiffel Tower in an
airship.
Herr
Berson and Professor Suring ascend to 35,500 feet in a balloon; record stands
until 1931.
In
Germany, Karl Braun discovers that a crystal can detect radio waves.
Gillette
introduces double-edged safety razor.
1902
Reclamation
Service begins irrigation project in Yakima and Okanogan valleys to facilitate
farming
Seattle
voters approve future municipal electric plant on the Cedar River
Stone
& Webster opens electric interurban rail service between Tacoma and
Seattle.
Air
conditioning invented by Willis Carrier.
A
group of auto enthusiasts in Chicago form the American Automobile Association
(AAA).
In
France, magician George Méliès' A Trip to the Moon tells fantasy in
film.
Teddy
Roosevelt threatens to have the Army take over the coal mining industry if
management and labor won’t agree to arbitration to end strike.
U.S.
Navy installs radio telephones aboard ships.
Transpacific
telephone cable connects Canada and Australia.
1903
Dedication
and first interments at ten-acre Crown Hill Cemetery, from which the
neighborhood gets its name,
established by Ballard founder, G.W. Toop and a group of Ballard’s
leading citizens (1902).
The
Seattle City Council approved John Charles Olmsted's "A Comprehensive
System of Parks and Parkways" on October 19th. Seattleites vote
$500,000 for parks. The Olmsted firm will later design the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific
Exhibition on the University of Washington campus, as well as the Washington
Park Arboretum.
Iron
Chink fish cleaning machine invented by Seattleite Edmund A. Smith
First
successful airplane flight by the Wright brothers.
Publication
of Tsiolkovskiy's work "The Exploration of the World Space with Jet
Propulsion Instruments"
Pacific
Cable completed. Message circles the globe in 12 minutes.
Richard
Zsigmondy develops the ultramicroscope that can study objects below the
wavelength of light. He wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1925.
1904
World’s
Fair, St. Louis – Louisiana Purchase Exposition
Survey
shows that about 1% of Washington roads are paved.
New
York: first electric underground (& first 4-track express) heavy rail line
in U.S. (Interborough Rapid Transit Co.)
Driving
his Arrow at 91.37mph, Henry Ford breaks the land speed record at Lake St
Clair, Michigan.
The
French become the first to break the 100mph barrier when Louis Rigolly reaches
103.55mph in a Gobron-Brillie car.
Einstein
published his paper on the photoelectric effect (along with a paper on his
theory of relativity).
Vacuum
tube (thermonic valve) by John Ambrose Fleming
The
first telephone answering machine.
First
double-sided phonograph records.
The
Landlord's Game is invented by Lizzie Magie (later becomes Monopoly).
1905
The
Alaska Building, Seattle's first real skyscraper, is completed.
Washington
State Highway Department created.
New
York: first public takeover of a private public transportation company (Staten
Island Ferry).
New
York: first bus line in U.S. (Fifth Avenue Coach Co.)
America
produces 315 million tons of coal and 135 million barrels of oil.
In
Pittsburgh the Nickelodeon movie theater opens; concept grows fast.
Photography,
printing, and post combine in the year's fad, picture postcards.
1906
March
23: the
Ballard Tribune published a large display advertisement by the E. B. Cox
Investment Company, of Ballard, under the banner, "Loyal Heights,"
announcing the recent acquisition of 180 acres in the northwest corner of the
town, overlooking "Loyal Beach." A new electric trolley line to the
area, it promised, would be operational in 60 days… the electric trolley,
a private venture of Treat’s that began rolling in 1906 with the filing
of his first plats. The route followed a 20-foot right of way running
diagonally through one of his parcels. Today, King Country METRO bus route 48
follows this right of way, known as Loyal Way NW.
Seattle's
downtown Carnegie Library opens, at 1000 Fourth Avenue, to serve 22,000
borrowers in its first year.
Alberto
Santos-Dumont constructs and flies first airplane in Europe
Caffeine
replaces the cocaine in Coca-Cola.
The
United States takes over the government of Cuba.
Lee
De Forest's three-element vacuum tube, the audion, puts voices on the air.
Fessenden
plays violin over radio and talks to startled ship wireless operators.
Paul
Otlet proposes standardized microfiche for documentation.
1907
The
Pike Place Market opens, offering farm-fresh produce to Seattle shoppers.
Nation's
first gas station opens in Seattle.
Ballard
Population: 17,000. Ballard (and West Seattle and part of Rainier Valley)
annexed to Seattle. Crown Hill still largely forested, but being platted for
development.
Greenwood
Cemetery closed, contents moved to Crown Hill Cemetery.
Luna Amusement Park at Duwamish Head in West Seattle opens. It
entertains the citizenry until it burns down in 1913.
Walter
Wellman attempts to reach the North Pole by airship.
Louis
and Jacques Breguet build their first helicopter, the Breguet-Richet Gyroplane
No. 1, one of the first mechanical devices to actually hove
Commercial
fax system for photos operates between Paris, London, and Berlin.
Lumiere
brothers invent still color photography process.
Synthetic
plastic by Leo H. Baekeland (Bakelite).
1908
William
Boeing arrives in Seattle as a lumberman.
Ford
Model T introduced – most successful car in history.
Date
of a manuscript by Russian F.A. Tsander, which considered life support and
other issues of the interplanetary travel.
Movie
makers set up shop in California at a place called Hollywood.
In
France, Gabriel Lippmann improves color photography, wins Nobel Prize.
Haldane,
Boycott and Damant publish their landmark paper on decompression sickness.
"The Prevention of Compressed-Air Illness"
1909
World’s
Fair - Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition held in Seattle from June through
September at the University of Washington, drawing 3.7 million visitors for
whom it would showcase the Northwest's setting and bounty of natural resources,
promote Seattle as the gateway to northern gold.
Mount
Olympus National Monument established
The
First American Congress of Road Builders held in Seattle at the AYPE in a
specially constructed building that displayed roadbuilding technology. That
same year, Sam Hill used his ranch at Maryhill in Klickitat County to build 10
miles of demonstration roads, which showed off seven different surfacing
techniques. These were the first paved roads in eastern Washington.
The
AYPE sponsors a New York to Seattle automobile race. The winning Model T Ford
(later disqualified) takes 23 days to make the trip. The race serves as an
advertisement for Seattle, for the good roads movement, and, most of all, for
the newly released Model T Ford, soon to claim over half of the worldwide
market for cars.
Harbor
Island is completed in Elliott Bay, built with earth dredged from the Duwamish
River and from south Seattle regrades. It is the largest manmade island in the
United States.
The hydrofoil
is invented.
Brennan
Monorail: Louis Brennan patented his invention for a gyroscopically-balanced
car in 1903. A full scale demonstration was presented to the press on November
10, 1909 at Gillingham, England. It was built primarily as a military vehicle
due to the high speed at which track could be laid. Even with passengers all on
one side of the vehicle, the two onboard gyroscopes were strong enough to keep
the car level. Despite a series of successful demonstrations to scientists,
engineers and military officers, the fear that the gyroscopes might fail
prevented Brennan's invention from ever being used for transportation.
Igor
Sikorsky builds his first helicopter, the S-1, in Russia
German
entrepreneurs create airship service as its first airline-DELAG-using airships
built by Count Zeppelin
1910
First
airplane to fly in Washington is demonstrated near Seattle in March.
Jan.
10th: Brennan-Scherl gyroscopic monorail demonstrated in Brooklyn,
NY.
March
8th: Seattle voters authorize Municipal Plans Commission to create a
guide for the city’s future development. Virgil G. Bogue, a respected
harbor planner and civil engineer and colleague of the Olmsted Brothers, is
hired to lead the effort.
William
H. Boyes and others incorporate Seattle-Tacoma Monorail Co.
Monorail
on 2nd Avenue proposed by the Universal Elevated Railway Co. (but never built)
Washington
State women regain the right to vote as part of a landslide of progressive
legislation, including the direct primary (1907), workmen's compensation (1911)
and the recall, initiative and referendum (1911).
Seattle
City Light is organized to provide public power; Stone & Webster completes
interurban line between Seattle and Everett. Private developers also float
stock for an interurban monorail.
Hollywood,
CA: first trolleybus line (Laurel Canyon Utilities Co.).
The
zeppelin Deutschland becomes the world's first commercial airship.
Henri
Fabre designs, builds, and flies the first seaplane over Berre Lake near
Marseilles, France
America
produces 417 million tons of coal to 210 million barrels of oil.
World’s
Fair, Brussels, Belgium
DeForest’s
radio carries Enrico Caruso’s voice from the Met; heard at sea.
U.S.
requires radio transmitters on some passenger ships.
Edgar
Chambless’ Roadtown published. Chambless spent 15 years developing
his utopian city design that, he fervently believed, would be a cure for all
the ills and iniquities of urban life. Roadtown was a single building, miles
long, snaking across the countryside. One level was to be residential, another
dedicated to workshops of all sorts, on top a broad promenade with shaded arcade
and bicycle path, and below a
quiet, clean and fast Boyes electric monorail, as well as a variety of pipes and conveyors for
the delivery of any and all domestic needs or raw material for the workshops
– for the collection and distribution of everything. Boyes generously
donated his patent to the cause
13.5%
of Americans complete high school; 2.7% have college degrees.
Radio
hobby craze; Quaker Oats boxes used to build crystal, cat's whisker sets.
Krazy
Kat appears in a comic strip. The bricks start flying.
1911
William
H. Boyes Monorail:
This test
track was built and demonstrated in 1911 in the tideflats of Seattle or Tacoma,
Washington. The rails were made of wood and track cost was estimated to be
around $3,000 per mile. A bargain! The Seattle Times commented at the time that
"the time may come when these wooden monorail lines, like high fences,
will go straggling across country, carrying their burden of cars that will
develop a speed of about 20 miles per hour." Like so many inventions, lack
of financial backing prevented further development.
May 2nd:
Groundbreaking ceremony for Seattle- Edmonds Monorail (Boyes Monorail Edmonds
Co.). Never built.
June 7th:
King County Commissioners approve Boyes Monorail Riverton-Seattle
Company’s application for an elevated electric monorail franchise.
August 24th:
Bogue presents his plan for Seattle’s future development. It describes an
ambitious set of improvements including a giant train station on the south
shore of Lake Union, elevated rapid transit, a Civic Center complex of
government buildings in the recently leveled Denny Regrade, a rail transit line
linking Seattle and Kirkland via a tunnel beneath Lake Washington, and possible
acquisition of Mercer Island as a city park. This fine Plan falls
chronologically between Burnham’s Chicago Plan [1909] and Bennett & Crawford’s Minneapolis Plan
[1917]. Though less well known than these, Bogue’s plan seems their equal
in quality and imagination.
Oct. 21st
: Boyes Monorail Edmonds Co. hauled into court by impatient investors.
Voters
approve creation of the publicly-owned and operated Port of Seattle.
Governor
Marion E. Hay signs “Permanent Highway Act,” imposing state control
over major highways and levying a one-mill road tax.
GM engineers,
Clyde Coleman and Charles Kettering, invent the first electrical ignition
system for cars. The self-starting ignition is first installed in a Cadillac on
February 17, 1911.
Standard Oil
monopoly busted up by federal anti-trust action. The resulting smaller
companies fail to compete with each other for many years.
Roald
Amundsen is first person to reach South Pole on foot.
Cal Rodgers
becomes first person to fly across the United States, in the Vin Fiz when he
lands in Pasadena, California
Frederick
Winslow Taylor, who invented time-and-motion studies of workers in the 1880s,
publishes his work, The Principles of Scientific Management.
Photoplay magazine launched - first movie fan
magazine and beginning of U.S.celebrity mania.
1912
March
5th: Seattle voters reject the Bogue Municipal Plan
State
engineers begin experimenting with concrete paving.
Charlie
Chaplin earns rave reviews in Seattle for his performance in "A Night in
an English Music Hall," at the Empress Theatre.
Construction
of the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Ballard begins.
San
Francisco: first publicly operated street railway in a large U.S. city (San
Francisco Municipal Railway)
Cleveland:
first street railway to operate buses (Cleveland Railway)
First diesel
locomotive goes into service in England.
Schilovsky's
two-wheel Gyrocar.
First
bi-plane with cabin, forerunner of modern airliner, built by Igor Sikorsky.
French begin
experimenting with aerial bombing
Victor
Hess discovers cosmic rays in a research balloon
The Titanic sinks
after hitting an iceberg.
U.S. passes
Radio Act to control radio broadcasts; licenses are easy to get.
1913
W.H. Shepard
(International Monorail Company) builds full-scale model on Seattle tideflats
and seeks backing to build system.
More
than 100,000 attend Seattle's annual summer festival - the Potlatch - but the
celebration ends in disaster as servicemen wreck and burn socialist bookshops
and halls.
The
Seattle branch of the NAACP is founded.
Carl
Fisher, founder of the Indianapolis Speedway, proposes the
“Coast-to-Coast Rock Highway,” which becomes the Lincoln Highway.
Henry Joy of Packard is elected president of the Lincoln Highway Assoc. at its
first meeting. They picked out a route across the country on existing roads and
used it as centerpiece for a massive marketing campaign to convince people that
federal tax dollars should build a national highway system.
The
King County wagon/auto ferry, Leschi, begins a run between Bellevue and Leschi
Park in Seattle.
Daniel
Dugdale opens a baseball stadium on Rainier Avenue South in Seattle's Mount
Baker neighborhood. The Seattle Braves and the Seattle Indians play at Dugdale
Stadium until it is destroyed by a fire in 1932.
State takes
over private toll bridge between Clarkston and Lewiston, making it Washington's
first public interstate bridge.
Henry Ford
creates the first moving assembly line for mass production.
AT&T
pledges universal phone service, expands to rural areas.
Edison starts
making disks; cylinder recordings are on the way out.
Former
Olympian and medical doctor A.C. Gilbert invents the Erector Set.
1914
First
auto ferry on Puget Sound.
Finnish
immigrant Oscar Wirkkala invents the "spar logging" technique
Voters
approve purchase of Rainier Valley interurban line but its owners balk and
funds are spent to build streetcar line to Ballard.
Smith
Tower is completed, at 42 stories, the tallest building in Seattle through
1968.
Genoa
Monorail: Built for the 1914 "Esposizione Internazionale di Igiene, Marina
e Colonie" exposition, this straddle-type monorail looks like a close
cousin of many of today's Alweg-based monorails. The "Telfer"
Monorail had coaches the size of railway cars and was conceived as a mass
transit system demonstrator. The line linked the exhibition site with a central
square of the city. The train was built by the Italian manufacturer Carminati
& Toselli and consisted of 4 coaches for passengers, with a electric
locomotive located in the middle. The monorail only operated for a couple of
years and was then dismantled.
Britain
achieves its first win when L G Hornsted, reaching 124.10mph, breaks the land
speed record at the Brooklands racetrack in Surrey in a Benz car.
Grand
cinema houses replace nickelodeons.
Charles
Pajeau develops Tinker Toys.
1914-1918
World
War I
The
Horse is used in World War 1. Vast numbers of horses become innocent victims of
the War.
1915
The
Sunset Highway (I-90) opens.
World’s Fair, San Francisco –
Panama-Pacific International Exposition
The
LZ-38 is the first zeppelin to bomb London.
An
early film of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea marks the first commercial use of
underwater cinematography.
Sonar.
1916
Lumberman
William Boeing begins testing seaplanes for the military.
Between
1900 and 1916 the number of automobiles in Washington State goes from 1 to
70,000.
President
Woodrow Wilson signs the Federal Aid Road Act, offering the first significant
national funding for highway construction.
Saint
Louis: first public bus-only transit agency in U.S. (St. Louis Division of
Parks and Recreation Municipal Auto Bus Service).
US
railways peak at 254,000 miles of track.
Radios
get tuners.
John
Lloyd Wright, son of Frank Lloyd Wright, invents Lincoln Logs.
1917
Spruce
Army originated - special Signal Corps “squadrons” charged with
overseeing the production of spruce lumber for warplanes
Fort
Lewis (United States Army) established.
The
Lake Washington Ship Canal officially opens on July 4, linking Lake Washington to
Puget Sound, causing Lake Washington to fall nine feet, and the lakeshore,
Foster Island, and Mercer Island to greatly increase in size. It also uncovers
Mercer Slough, eliminates the South outfall of Lake Washington through the
Black River to the Duwamish, and dries up the Wetmore Slough of Columbia City.
New
York: last horse-drawn street railway in U.S. closed
Dec
28: President Woodrow Wilson uses
Federal Possession and Control Act to take possession of "each and every system of
transportation...within the boundaries of the United States."
U.S.
Railroad Administration created.
Feds
control coal prices, increase coal production by 16% over the two years of the
war, and implement “Gasless Sundays” which forbid the sale of
gasoline one day a week.
Winston
Chruchill, as Vice Admiral of the British navy, started production of a fleet
of oil-burning battleships to out-speed German coal-burning ships; invaded the
German-allied Ottoman Empire in order to control Persian oil; and sent a
military force to Romania to destroy the Germans’ primary source of oil.
The
Smithsonian Institution awards a $5,000 grant to Robert Goddard to conduct
rocket research in the upper atmosphere.
The
Bolshevik revolution in Russia.
Albert
Einstein identifies stimulated emission, theoretical basis for lasers.
Draeger
produces a true scuba diving system that combines tanks containing a mixture of
compressed air and oxygen, for use at depths to 130 feet.
Food
freezing perfected by Birdseye
1918
Seattle
Mayor Ole Hanson agrees to buy Stone & Webster's Seattle streetcar lines at
an inflated price.
First
State Highway Districts, each headed by a District Engineer, are established.
The
worldwide influenza epidemic hits the area.
W.H.
Shepard and his Monorail Transit Co. of Seattle, build mining monorail system
at Highland-Surprise Mine in the Coeur d’Alene district. First
successful, functional monorail system in the U.S.
United
States adopts five standard time zones across the nation and Alaska.
Congress
passes Railway Control Act to officially control U.S. railway system during
World War I.
Regularly
scheduled airmail begins in the United States. Post Office hires 40 pilots.
Billy
Mitchell commands 1500 airplanes from all the Allied nations at Saint-Mihiel.
Robert
Goddard writes "The Ultimate Migration" describing the exodus of the
human civilization from a dying Solar System onboard a nuclear-powered colony.
The work is not published until 1972.
1919
Seattle's
General Strike-the first in North America-idles 60,000 workers from February 6
through February 9.
The
Army, including a young Dwight Eisenhower, embarks on a celebrated caravan
crossing of the entire Lincoln Highway as a test of national
preparedness. Cross-country racers were setting records and capturing
headlines. Songs and poems were written about the road. The highway
caught on in the advertising world. Restaurants, motor garages,
campgrounds, and hotels proudly displayed the banners and named themselves
after the Lincoln Highway.
This
year marks the peak salmon catch from Puget Sound waters.
After
the war, Britain held a majority of the land in the Middle East and carved it
up with the other allies and instated rulers to the newly formed countries of
Trans-Jordan, the Saudi Kingdom, and Iraq, with little regard to ethnicity of
the of the inhabitants, in order to maintain supremacy over oil
in
the region. For many years, the U.S. was denied access to British lands to
extract or search for petroleum.
Due
to increasing demand, the U.S. Bureau of Mines predicts that by 1924 the oil
fields of America will reach their maximum production and we will face decline
in supply ever after.
The
British rigid airship, the R34, makes the first transatlantic round-trip
flight. It flies from Fortune, Scotland to Newfoundland, Canada, to Mineola,
New York, and back to Pulham, England. The trip takes 183 hours and 15
minutes."
International
airmail delivery begins when Bill Boeing and Eddie Hubbard carry mail from
Vancouver, Canada, to Seattle Washington.
Shortwave
radio is invented.
Americans
spend more on records than on books, musical instruments.
C.
J. Cooke develops a mixture of helium and oxygen (heliox) that allows commercial
divers to extend their useful working depth well beyond previous limits.
1920
15th
Ave. NW paved to 85th
Fearing
a monopoly “Concrete Trust,” voters soundly reject first proposed
state bond issue for highway construction for $30 million. (The state would not
use bonds for road construction until the Great Depression.)
Height
of "Mosquito Fleet" with 350 ports of call to move goods and people
across Puget Sound.
First
bus not based on truck chassis (Fageol Safety Coach).
Government
returns control of all railroads.
The
world’s first 4-way three color traffic light was installed on the corner
of Woodward and Michigan Avenues in Detroit. Within a year, Detroit had
installed a total of fifteen of the new automatic lights. It was invented by Police
Officer William Potts.
The
Smithsonian Institution publishes Goddard's "A Method of Attaining Extreme
Altitudes," which was misinterpreted by the press as a proposal for a
rocket flight to the Moon.
Universal
Airlines builds a downtown Chicago air terminal
Japanese
military places orders for nearly 1,400 warplanes
KDKA
begins regular schedule, starting the era of radio broadcasting.
Electric
typewriter by Smathers
1921
90
percent of all trips in the US were by rail, chiefly electric rail; only one in
10 Americans owned an automobile. There were 1,200 separate electric street and
interurban railways, a thriving and profitable industry with 44,000 miles of
track, 300,000 employees, 15 billion annual passengers, and $1 billion in
income. Virtually every city and town in America of more than 2,500 people had
its own electric rail system.
Seattle
streetcars ban smoking.
The
Federal Highway Act focuses funding on an interstate system of highways.
Washington
levies its first gas tax (one cent per gallon) and begins removing commercial
signs on state road property.
New
York: first successful trolleybus line.
Automatic
windshield wipers invented. Called "Folberths," after their inventors,
Fred and William Folberth, they were powered by an "air engine," a
device connected by a tube to the inlet pipe of the car’s motor.
The
British rigid airship, the R34, is wrecked while landing at Howden, England.
Photographs
can be transmitted by wire across the Atlantic.
The
word robot coined by Karl Capek in the play R.U.R.
Skywriting
begins.
First
hamburger chain, White Castle.
1922
After
a year of staggering losses, due to a saturated market, General Motors’
Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. launches a massive effort to destroy America’s
electric streetcar systems, replacing them with foul-smelling, unreliable
buses, and thus driving up the demand for private automobiles. This effort was
sustained on many fronts, with almost total success, for the next thirty years.
State
Supreme Court bans use of non-fare revenue to pay off Seattle's streetcar debt,
dooming the system to eventual bankruptcy.
The
U.S. semi-rigid airship Roma crashes and burns, killing 34 airmen. This endsthe
use of hydrogen by the United States, which starts using helium gas.
KJR,
Seattle's first radio station, begins broadcasting.
Canada
creates Canadian National Railway and nationalized system.
Great
Kanto Earthquake levels Tokyo.
Benito
Mussolini comes to power in Italy
Nanook
of the North, first documentary film.
First
3-D movie
1923
Final
36-mile stretch of Pacific Highway is paved between Kalama and Toledo to
complete State Road No. 1 (now SR 99).
Bay
City, MI, Everett, WA, Newburgh, NY: first cities to replace all streetcars
with buses.
The
Navy builds the Shenandoah, the first rigid, helium airship constructed in the
United States.
John
Harwood invents the self-winding watch.
In
Germany, Hermann Obert publishes work called "The Rocket into
Interplanetary Space."
Half
a million radios are sold in U.S., a five-fold increase in one year.
Kodak
introduces home movie equipment.
The"Neufeldt-Kuhnke"
rigid diving suit is used to work in deep waters -- its shell actually resists
pressure up to a depth of 590 feet.
Robert
Goddard tests a rocket engine using liquid fuel
Neon
signs.
1924
The
diesel truck is invented.
American
Motorcyclist Association founded.
Malcom
Campbell sets his first land speed record in his Sunbeam Bluebird at Pendine Sands in
Wales – 146.16mph.
Eight
U.S. Army Air Corp pilots fly around the world from Sand Point Naval Air
Station.
The
Magnesium Monorail: One of the last Lartigue-based monorails was built by the
Sierra Salt Corporation. It carried magnesium salts from their mine in the Crystal
Hills to the Trona railhead in California. The route lay across the rugged
terrain of the Salinas Valley in Inyo County. The line was a great success
until more modern ways of extracting magnesium put the mine company out of
business two years later.
Goodyear
Tire and Rubber Company builds the dirigibles Akron and Macon for the U.S.
Navy. They are each able to hold five airplanes that can be launched and
retrieved while the dirigibles are in flight.
Television
(mechanical) pioneer John Logie Baird creates the first televised pictures of
objects in motion.
The
Society for Studies of Interplanetary Travel is founded in Moscow.
Tsiolkovskiy's
book Cosmic Rocket Trains describes multi-stage rockets.
Tsiolkovskiy,
Tsander and Kondratyuk propose the use of the atmosphere as a breaking medium
for the spaceships returning to Earth.
1925
William
E. Boeing purchases former Puget Mill timberlands overlooking Puget Sound that
will become Blue Ridge neighborhood
The
Montlake Bridge opens, spanning the Cut.
Malcom
Campbell, at 150.76mph, becomes the first man to break the 150mph barrier.
A
moving image, the blades of a model windmill, is telecast.
Otlet
& Goldschmidt propose microform library, precursor of Bush's Memex.
1926
Bertha
Landes is elected mayor of Seattle, the first woman to be so honored in a major
American city.
Henry
Segrave makes his first land speed record at Southport Sands in Lancashire
– 152.33mph.
Welshman
Parry Thomas breaks the land speed record in Babs on Pendine Sands
(171.02mph). Believing he can go faster, he breaks his record again a day later
(172.331mph).
The
Italian airship Norge, piloted by Umberto Nobile, flies over the North Pole.
Liquid-propelled
rocket invented by Robert Goddard.
Television
(electronic) invented by Baird, Jenkins and Mihaly.
Polymer
chemistry ushers in plastics revolution
1927
Olmpic
Golf Course and Country Club opens in Crown Hill area
Jan.
3rd: E.W. Houghton, famed Seattle theater architect, submits
proposal for new system of Monorail Rapid Transit to City Council.
Lincoln
Highway Association disbands on December 31st, after passing one
final resolution to mark the route as a final memorial to Lincoln.
First
Vantage Bridge over the Columbia River opens.
A
year after his last attempt, Parry Thomas makes another land speed attempt on
Pendine Sands. Unfortunately, a drive chain broke, the car overturned and
Thomas is killed. At 203.792mph, Henry Segrave breaks the 200mph barrier in his
Sunbeam at Daytona, Florida.
Charles
Lindbergh makes solo transatlantic flight.
Federal
safety regulations force the demise of "barnstorming"
German
Rocket Society (VfR) is formed
Philadelphia:
first automobile park-and-ride lot.
Jolson's
The Jazz Singer is the first popular "talkie."
1928
Boeing
Field opens.
In
one day, September 1, 1928, Boy Scouts place 3,000 markers at every mile across
the coast-to-coast Lincoln Highway.
Highway
99 completed between Tacoma and Seattle, ending interurban service.
Pushing
his Napier-powered Bluebird to 206.956mph, Malcom Campbell retrieves the
land speed record at Daytona. But two months later, the record is broken by
American Ray Keech.
Ente
(Duck), the world's first aircraft powered by rocket engine, completes the
first flight in Germany.
More
than 8,000 postmasters contacted to arrange for town names to be painted on
rooftops
The
teletype machine makes its debut.
In
Schenectady, N.Y., the first scheduled television broadcasts.
Times
Square gets moving headlines in electric lights.
1929
U.S.
stock market crashes
The
Great Northern Railway completes the eight-mile long Cascade Tunnel, the
longest rail tunnel in the United States, running from Scenic to Berne.
The
Bennie Railplane: While railroad engineering stagnated between the world wars,
one unique demonstation line was built by Scottish engineer George Bennie. The
short test track was built over a railroad line near Glasgow, Scotland. Two
electrically-powered propellers delivered 240 horsepower in a short burst for
acceleration to the cruise speed of 160 kph. There were plans for a high-speed
link between London and Paris, with a seaplane to carry passengers across the
English Channel, but the grave economic difficulties of the 1930's doomed the
Railplane from the start.
Henry
Segrave breaks the land speed record again in his Golden Arrow at Daytona, taking it
to 231.446mph.
The
British dirigible, R101, is rebuilt for more lift. It becomes the largest
manmade object ever to fly.
The
Graf Zeppelin circles the globe in 12 days. Starting from Lakehurst, New
Jersey, the Graf Zeppelin stops only in Tokyo, Japan, Los Angeles, California,
and Lakehurst.
H.
Noordung publishes The Problems of Navigating Space, describing a space station.
First
color television transmission, Bell Telephone Laboratories.
1930
Playland,
a 12-acre "million dollar pleasure resort," opened with a flourish on
May 24th, along the shores of Bitter Lake, north of the Seattle city limits.
The Dipper was its grand attraction, a state-of-the-art roller coaster soaring
85 feet into the air with 3,400 feet of track filled with reverse curves,
60-degree banks, and one virtual somersault. The new pleasure spot boasted
being the biggest and finest amusement park in the whole of the Pacific
Northwest. Playland thrilled park goers for 30 years until its demise in 1961.
First
television system suitable for home use developed by Philo T. Pharnsworth.
Ford’s
Model T has put all electric automobile manufacturers out of business.
Automatic
transmission for vehicles.
The
American Interplanetary Society is formed in New York by G. Edward Pendray,
David Lasser and others.
Raketenflugplatz,
the first rocket test range, is declared operational near Berlin, Germany.
First
radio-equipped airport control tower is built in Cleveland, Ohio
"Golden
Age" of radio begins in U.S.
Vannevar
Bush's partly electronic computer (Differential Analyzer) can solve
differential equations.
William
Beebe descends 1,426 feet in a bathysphere attached to a barge by a steel
cable.
AT&T
trials picture telephone.
1931
Seattle’s
Hooverville is founded on the tide flats - a community of homeless, jobless
men.
Olympic
Loop Highway (U.S. 101) opens.
Wiley
Post and Harold Gatty land in New York after record-setting round-the-world
flight of 8 days, 15 hours, and 51 minutes.
RCA
broadcasts experimental TV image of familiar Felix the Cat.
In
Berlin, lone genius Konrad Zuse invents a computer, but is ignored.
Ernst
Ruska invents the electron microscope. An electron microscope depends on
electrons rather than light to view an object, electrons are speeded up in a
vacuum until their wavelength is extremely short, only one hundred-thousandth
that of white light. Electron microscopes make it possible to view objects as
small as the diameter of an atom.
1932
State
builds George Washington Memorial Bridge (Aurora Bridge) without streetcar
tracks.
Carlton
Cole Magee invents the first parking meter. First used in Oklahoma City in
1935.
Auguste
Piccard and Max Cosyns climb to a record 53,152 in a balloon.
Sergei
Korolev leads tests of rocket-propelled glider
Frits
Zernike invented the phase-contrast microscope that made possible the study of
colorless and transparent biological materials. He won the Nobel Prize in
Physics in 1953 for it.
Zoom
lens invented.
1933
The
Seattle Art Museum opens in Volunteer Park.
President
Franklin D. Roosevelt begins New Deal programs; Grand Coulee Dam begun.
Feb.
24th: John S. Wheeler (Boyes associate and longtime monorail
promoter) dies still believing monorail was the way to go for Puget Sound
transit system.
San
Antonio: first large city to replace all streetcars with buses.
President
Roosevelt takes U.S. off gold standard.
British
Interplanetary Society is founded in Liverpool.
Wiley
Post sets new record for around-the-world flight of 7 days, 18 hours, and 49
minutes
Drive-in
movie theater opens in Camden, New Jersey.
Louis
Ce Corlieu patents the first swim fins.
Buckminster
Fuller’s Dymaxion Car.
1933-1934:
World’s
Fair, Chicago – A Century of Progress
1934
Puget
Power created out of anti-trust break up of Stone & Webster.
The
Great Depression hits home, and Washington State unemployment crests at 40%.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt combats unemployment with the
"alphabet soup" of public works programs.
AAA
directional signs aided motorists before the State takes over the job in 1934.
WA
Highway Department establishes the first truck weighing stations.
New
York: Transport Workers Union of America founded
President
Franklin D. Roosevelt cancels all airmail contracts and instructs the Army Air
Corps to carry the mail.
Jean
and Jeannette Piccard take the Century of Progress to 58,000 feet. She is the
first woman to reach the stratosphere.
Wurlitzer
and Seeburg make eye-catching jukeboxes.
In
Germany, a mobile television truck roams the streets, catches Nazi rally.
Half
of the homes in the U.S. have radios.
William
Beebe and Otis Barton descend 3,028 feet (923 meters) in a bathysphere.
Muzak
founded.
1935
The
Kalakala, flagship ferry of the Black Ball Line, takes her maiden voyage July
3.
Will
Rogers and Wiley Post stop at the Renton airport prior to departing for Alaska,
where they are killed in a plane crash.
From
1931 to 1935, Malcom Campbell makes and breaks the land speed record five times
in Bluebird. On 3 September 1935, he breaks the 300mph barrier, reaching
301.13mph.
Public
Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 enacted requiring most power companies to
divest themselves of public transportation operations and elimination of much
private public transportation financing.
U.S.
Army captains Orvil Anderson and Albert William Stevens climb to a record
72,395 feet in their helium balloon Explorer II. Their record stands for 21 years.
A
telephone call goes around the world
Watson
Davis proposes mechanized literature searching machine.
1936
Under
a cloud of pessimism, FDR’s ERPCC (Electric Railway Presidents Conference
Committee) began its research into ways of reversing transit decline by
producing in effect a new generation of high performance streetcars in the hope
of bolstering the efficiency of the many urban areas suffering from automobile
competition. One factor that could not have been foreseen by the ERPCC was
action of a dubious nature within the transit industry itself when a pro-bus
company acquired control of systems and reversed plans to modernise with PCC
streetcars.
Bus
manufacturers began to assume control of or influence street railways, leading
to rapid replacement of streetcars with buses.
First
large-scale federal government public transportation assistance (Public Works
Administration).
Jet
engine invented by Frank Whittle and Hans von Ohain.
Helicopter
invented by Heinrich Focke.
First
chair lift for skiers at a brand-new American ski resort, Sun Valley in Idaho
200
television sets, worldwide.
Turing
describes a general purpose computer.
1937
Bonneville
Dam on the Columbia River completed.
President
Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” funnels hundreds of millions
of dollars into the state for hydroelectric dams, irrigation, harbors, parks,
bridges, and roads.
The
State adopts a new Highway Code and creates a Toll Bridge Authority within the
Department of Highways to finance high-cost projects through user charges.
Legislature
raises speed limit to 50 m.p.h.
Final
paving opens four lanes to traffic on Pacific Highway (SR 99) from Olympia to
Everett.
May
16th, at 7:25 pm, the German zeppelin Hindenberg, the largest aircraft
ever to fly, exploded while attempting to land in Lakehurst, NJ. This signaled
the end of the luxury airship era and the first hydrogen age. A recording of
the crash is the first coast to coast broadcast.
World’s
Fair, Paris
Mexico
nationalizes railroads.
Jean
Piccard pilots the Pleiades on a flight where 92 balloons carry his gondola
Alan
Turing's "On Computable Numbers" starts computer revolution
Electron
microscope by Hillier and Prebus
NBC
sends mobile TV truck onto New York streets.
Sylvan
Goldman invents the shopping cart.
1938
Emil
Sick, president of Rainier Breweries, opens Sick's Stadium to house his
Rainiers baseball team.
Boeing
307 Stratoliner, the first commercial plane with a pressurized passenger cabin.
Twenty-five
Northwest climbers join together to found Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI), a
cooperative to purchase climbing gear.
Ground
is broken for the construction of the first floating bridge across Lake
Washington.
Chicago:
first use of federal capital funding to build a public transportation rail
line.
First
flight of Graf Zeppelin II.
Nylon,
polyvinyl, polystyrene introduced.
Automatic
clothes dryer.
1939
Seattle-Everett
interurban service ends. Seattle voters vote to retain streetcars but national
automakers block needed financing.
First
successful helicopter flight.
First
jet aircraft, the experimental Heinkel He-178 by Hans von Ohain, flies.
Chicago:
first street with designated bus lane.
“Statistical
Method from the Viewpoint of Quality Control” by Walter Shewart - the
origin of statistical approach to manufacturing quality.
Atanasoff-Berry
Computer, first electronic digital computer
Bush
constructs prototype Microfilm Rapid Selector (MRS).
Regular
electronic TV broadcasts begin in the U.S.
1939-1940
New
York World’s Fair
World’s
Fair, San Francisco – Golden Gate International Exposition
1939-45
World
War II
The
war had profound effects on Washington, spurring development of new aircraft
factories, shipyards, dams, harbors, airports, and the Hanford reservation,
along with the roads and bridges needed to serve them.
Gas
rationing is imposed and maximum speed limits are reduced to 35 m.p.h.
1940: Federal government
loans Seattle $10 million to retire streetcar debt and fund new bus and trackless
trolley system.
Mercer
Island (or Lake Washington) Floating Bridge and Tacoma Narrows Bridge open a
day apart in July. The latter collapses during a November storm.
First
time bus ridership exceeds street railway ridership in U.S.
San
Francisco becomes last surviving cable car transit agency.
Germans
begin work on the A4 (V-2) ballistic missile
Battle
of Britain begins when Luftwaffe begins attacking shipping in the English
Channel and limited bombing against RAF bases
The
London Blitz begins
Burma-Shave
roadside ads.
U.S.
gets first regular TV station, WNBT, New York; estimated 10,000 viewers.
In
France, discovery of Lascaux caves reveals fine paleolithic animal drawings.
1941
Grand
Coulee Dam completed
United
States enters World War II in
December after Pearl Harbor, Hawaii bombed by Japan.
Last
Seattle streetcar completes its run and tracks are torn up and sold for scrap.
Under
Federal controls, U.S. oil production skyrockets to the point that output
during the war roughly equals that of all oil ever extracted from U.S. soil
previously. Domestic energy consumption is curtailed by law, with a strict
rationing system and encouragement for industry
and
citizens to power their businesses and homes with coal instead of oil.
Konrad
Zuse's Z3 in Germany is the first computer controlled by software.
New
York, NY: first racially-integrated bus operator workforce.
1942
Just
months after the U.S. Navy installations at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, are bombed by
the Japanese, nearly 13,000 Americans of Japanese descent are evacuated from
the coastal areas of Washington State to inland internment camps.
The
relocation of Japanese farmers results in a shortage of agricultural workers
and the cancellation of Bellevue's Strawberry Festival.
First
human-made atomic reaction by Enrico Fermi and team.
German
V2 rocket covers a distance of 200 km, first vehicle to break the sound
barrier.
By
this date, Japan occupies 25% of Earth
Atanasoff
and Berry in Iowa build the first electronic digital computer.
Duct
tape (the WWII military version) is invented by Johnson and Johnson to keep
moisture out of ammunition cases. Because it is waterproof, and made from
cotton duck, it is called “duck tape.” The post-war, silver version
is renamed “duct tape.”
1943
Hanford
Engineer Works built to produce plutonium for the WWI bomb "Little
Boy"
Los
Angeles: first rail line in expressway median (Pacific Electric Railway).
Colossus
calculator/computer by Alan Turning
First
electronic computer by Max Newman and T.H. Flowers.
President
Roosevelt orders (Executive Order 9412) Federal takeover of railroads to
prevent shutdown by labor.
British
code breaking machine Colossus cracks Germany's Enigma code.
Jacques
Cousteau and Emile Gagnan design and test the first Aqua-Lung.
In
the Pearl Harbor salvage operations, navy divers spend about 16,000 hours
under-water performing some 4,000 dives.
Naval
engineer Richard James discovers that a torsion spring will "walk"
end over end when knocked over, and the “Slinky” is born.
The
"walkie-talkie" backpack FM radio.
1944
Annual
Seattle Transit ridership peaks at all-time record of 130 million trips.
Army
returns control of railroads to private ownership.
President
Franklin D. Roosevelt signs legislation authorizing a network of rural and
urban express highways called the "National System of Interstate
Highways," but the legislation lacks funding.
The
Jet Propulsion Laboratory is formed from GALCIT
Japan
begins launching 9,000 balloons carrying small bombs over the Pacific Ocean in
the hope that the wind would carry them to the United States.
Harvard's
Mark I, first digital computer to be put in service. First programmer of Mark
I, Grace Hopper.
First
high-fidelity recordings
Lemkin
coins term 'genocide'
1945
First atomic bomb exploded by
Oppenheimer and team.
U.S.
bombs Hiroshima and Nagasaki to help end WWII.
Dick
McAbee buys 105 acres in Crown Hill for development.
On
the World War II home front, Seattle industries mobilized to manufacture ships,
tanks and planes for war.
Japanese
Americans begin returning to their homes, not always receiving a warm welcome.
Team
of German rocket designers led by Wernher von Braun surrender to the U.S. Army
Roosevelt
meets with King Ibn Saud of Arabia aboard an American battleship. During this
meeting Roosevelt and Ibn Saud come to verbal agreement that the U.S. will
protect the Saudi regime in exchange for access to Saudi oil. This agreement is
still in force in 2005.
Capt.
John Mullin "liberates" two German tape recorders; starts U.S.
industry.
Arthur
Clarke envisions geosynchronous communication satellites.
The
entire United States sits by the radio to attend FDR's funeral.
Vannevar
Bush conceives idea of hyperlinks, hypermedia..
First
bumper stickers in US.
1945-1970
Toyota
Production System by Taiichi Ohno and Toyota team - became key manufacturing
strategy of 1970-2002
1946
Highest-ever
public transportation ridership (23.4 billion).
U.S.
Supreme Court bans racial segregation in interstate transportation.
President
Truman (Executive Order 9727) authorizes Federal control of railroads to
prevent collapse of transportation system during strike.
First
flight of XS01 rocket research plane takes place
McDonnell
XFD-1 becomes first jet fighter to take off from and land on the deck of an
aircraft carrier
August
-- President Harry S. Truman signs The Atomic Energy Act of 1946, placing the
newly devised nuclear energy industry under civilian control.
University
of Pennsylvania's ENIAC computer by Mauchly and Eckert heralds the modern
electronic computer.
1947
First
supersonic aircraft, the Bell XS-1, flown by Chuck Yeager, flies 700 miles per
hour
Chuck
Yeager pilots the X1-A to a record Mach 2.4
Howard
Hughes' Spruce Goose, the largest plane ever, makes its single flight
Air
Force forms Project Blue Book to investigate UFOs
October
-- The Atomic Energy Commission begins work on a report investigating peaceful
uses of nuclear energy.
Dennis
Gabor, Hungarian engineer in England, invents holography.
'Cybernetics'
defined by Norbert Wiener at MIT
1948
Washington's
first TV station (KING-TV) begins broadcasting in Seattle.
Transister
invented by Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain.
President
Truman (Executive Order 9957) authorizes Army to operate railroads.
Army
terminates operation of railroads
LP
("long playing") record runs 25 minutes per side; old record: 4
minutes.
From
RCA: a 16-inch television tube and the Ultrafax system that can transmit one
million words per minute.
Soviet
R-1 rocket is launched for the first time
Otis
Barton descends in a modified bathysphere to a depth of 4500 feet, off the
coast of California.
1949
The
passenger terminal at Seattle-Tacoma Airport is dedicated.
Major
earthquake.
Chicago
Federal jury convicts GM of having criminally conspired with Standard Oil of
California, Firestone Tire and others to replace electric transportation with
gas- or diesel-powered buses and to monopolize the sale of buses and related
products to local transportation companies throughout the country.
Upper
stage of a V-2 rocket reaches a maximum velocity of 5,150 miles per hour
Soviet
Union tests its own nuclear bomb
The
tolls are removed from the Lacey V. Murrow floating bridge, marking the beginning
of the suburban population explosion.
Magnetic
core computer memory is invented.
Claude
Shannon's "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" that defines
modern information theory
Birth
of US network TV.
RCA
introduces 45 rpm record.
Ole
Christiansen, a Danish toy maker, invents Legos.
Mao
proclaims Peoples Republic of China.
1950-1953
Korean
War
1950
The
last Lake Washington ferry runs between Madison Park and Kirkland.
Replacement
Tacoma Narrows Bridge opens.
Northgate
Mall opens.
President
Truman orders Army to operate railroads to prevent strike from crippling transportation.
(Executive Order 10155.)
From
Earl Hilton, the credit card.
Xerox
photocopiers roll off the assembly line.
Turing's
Computing Machinery & Intelligence.
Cousteau
acquires the Calypso.
First
TV remote, the “Lazy Bones” from Zenith, attached to set by cable
1951
First
Seattle Seafair.
Washington
State takes over private Blackball ferry system. Last Kirkland-Seattle ferry
ends service.
Peak
year for the Roosevelt-commissioned streetcar: 4919 PCC streetcars in operation
in North America
Color
television sets go on sale.
FCC
approves test in Chicago of Phonevision subscription TV, $1 for a movie.
One
and a half million TV sets in U.S., a tenfold jump in one year.
Teleoperated
articulated arm by Raymond Goertz for Atomic Energy Comission
Univac
I is the first mass-produced computer.
1.5
million television sets in US.
Deepest
ocean point found -- The British ship Challenger II bounces sound waves
off the ocean bottom and discovers the Marianas Trench, nearly seven miles
deep.
1952
King
County voters reject proposed "home rule" charter, which includes
regional transit authority; region’s first shopping center opens at
Northgate.
ALWEG
Monorail: Swedish industrialist Dr. Axel Lennart Wenner-Gren was the first to
build a monorail test track after World War II. Wenner-Gren's first system
design was geared more towards a high-speed city to city rail system. Seen here
is the scaled-down train which attained speeds near 160 km on an oval test
track in Fuhlingen, Germany. While impressive in speed and banking
capabilities, the ALWEG system didn't find its niche until a later version was
developed and unveiled in 1957
Hydrogen
bomb created by Edward Teller and team.
Bell
X-2 makes first flight, demonstrating advanced lightweight heat-resistant steel
alloy; reaches a record altitude of 125,907 feet
First
transister radio produced by Sony.
Army
returns railroads to private control.
Turing's
chess-playing computer program.
1953
First
portion of Seattle's Alaskan Way Viaduct between Battery and Dearborn streets
opens.
State
begins planning the future Interstate 5.
“Seattle
missed the boat by Muffing Monorail Project back yonder.” (Seattle Times
12/11/53 S7)
Bellevue
incorporates as a city of 10,000.
December
-- The Atoms For Peace program is unveiled by President Dwight Eisenhower.
Eisenhower proposed the creation of an international agency devoted to
developing peaceful nuclear technologies.
DNA
discovered by Crick and Watson.
1954
Alaskan
Way viaduct opens.
King
County's "Jet Age" begins with the maiden flight of the Dash-80, the
prototype of a Boeing 707 passenger jetliner. It is the first of the
jet-powered planes to be built at Boeing's Renton plant.
Seattle
annexes Crown Hill
First
flight of Boeing 707, first commercial jet transport
First
nuclear-powered submarine, the Nautilus, launched.
AT&T
demonstration of solar cells, at the National Academy of Science Meeting,
Washington, DC.
Buckminster
Fuller invents the geodesic dome, the lightest, strongest, and most
cost-effective structure ever devised.
U.S.
shaken by Edward R. Murrow TV documentary on Sen. Joseph McCarthy
Programmable
robot by George Devol.
IBM
writes a computer operating system for the 704.
Maser
by Charles Townes. (microwave amplification by stimulated emission of
radiation). Precursor to the optical laser (1960).
Georges
S. Houot and Pierre-Henri Willm used a bathyscaphe to exceed Barton's
1948 diving record, reaching a depth of 13,287 feet (4050 meters).
Regular
color TV broadcasts begin in the US.
TV
ad revenue exceeds radio revenue in US for first time.
1955
January
-- The Atomic Energy Commission announces a cooperative program between the
federal government and the nuclear power industry to develop power plants.
July
-- Arco, Idaho, with a population of 1,000, is the first U.S. town powered by
nuclear energy.
November
-- An experimental breeder reactor about 50 miles west of Idaho Falls, Idaho,
partially melts down during a test.
Hovercraft
invented by Christopher S. Cockerell.
First
major criminal violence against a U.S. airliner-Jack Graham places a bomb in
his mother's luggage; 44 people died
U.S.
Navy launches Operation Deep Freeze to establish Antarctic scientific bases
Atomic
Clock invented by Dr. L. Essen, O.B.E., F.B.H.I. National Physical Laboratory,
Teddington.
Tests
begin to provide massive digital communication via fiber optics.
SAGE
program begins computer-aided-design revolution.
Zenith
engineer Eugene Polley invents the "Flashmatic," the first wireless
TV remote. It used lights and set-mounted photocells. Tuner would rotate if any
bright light hit the TV.
1956
Federal
government establishes interstate highway program, authorizing billions of
dollars for highways.
WA
Department of Highways begins using its first “computer,” an IBM
Cardatype, in March 1956.
Skyway
Monorail: Monorail, Incorporated built a short test track of their suspended
system at Arrowhead Park in Houston, Texas. Each bogie was powered by a
310-horsepower Packard automobile engine. The driver was seated high above the
passenger carriage on one of the two bogies. After eight months of testing, the
track was dismantled and rebuilt at the Texas State fairgrounds where it ran
for many years. Its promoters claimed it could reach speeds of 160 km but no
Skyway transit installations were ever built.
U.S.
scientific group begins first serious study of an "anti-missile
missile"
The
first hard disk drive is created at IBM.
Television
in 71% of US households.
Ampex
builds first practical videotape recorder.
Zenith
Space Command TV remote introduced, using high-frequency sound.
Bell
Labs tests picture phone.
1957
State Highway
Department rejects second Seattle Transit System proposal to incorporate light
rail transit in new I-5 freeway design.
Washington
Public Power Supply System (WPSS) created to develop Washington's energy
resources
Ueno
Zoo: Japan in the 1950's was in an all-out effort to improve its transportation
systems. The first Japanese monorail debuted at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo in 1957.
Basically a modern version of Wuppertal's system, the Ueno line used
off-the-shelf parts including rubber tires. Japan would later adopt the Alweg
and Safege monorail systems and build more transit monorails than any other
country in the world.
ALWEG
Monorail: Based on knowledge gained from the original test track of 1952 and
subsequent modifications, ALWEG unveiled what has become the most successful
monorail system in July of 1957. Located at the same Fuhlingen test sight, this
was ALWEG's first full-scale monorail. It caught the attention of Walt Disney,
which resulted in the world's attention to the design after Disneyland opened
their ALWEG monorail in 1959. Today ALWEG-based systems exist all around the
world and many more are in the works.
First
Japanese car sold in US.
Sputnik
1 launched by USSR: first manmade satellite.
Sputnik
2 carries a dog, Laika, on a one-way space journey.
U.S.
attempts to launch the Vanguard satellite but fails
National
Association of Rocketry, the largest hobbyist group dedicated to building
working model rockets, is formed
Project
Skyhook balloon lifts the first balloon-borne telescope.
Hoffman
Electronics achieved 8-percent efficient solar cells.
September
-- President Eisenhower signs the Price-Anderson Act, which will protect
private citizens, public utilities, and contractors from incurring financial
hardship in the event of an accident at a nuclear power plant.
October
-- The Windscale plutonium production reactor catches fire spreading
approximately 20,000 curies of radioactive iodine across Great Britain and
northern Europe.
December
-- Shippingport, Pennsylvania is the site of the first full-scale nuclear power
plant in the U.S. The plant was able to generate 60 megawatts of electricity
after reaching full power 21 days after going on-line.
FORTRAN
becomes the first high-level computer programming language.
LISP
programming language by John McCarthy -- first step towards artifical
intelligence.
1958
Suburban
voters reject first "Metro" plan that includes transit service, but
approve second plan limited to waste treatment.
World’s
Fair, Brussels, Belgium – Expo ’58
SAFEGE
Monorail: In 1957, the eminent French bridge builder Lucien Chadenson became
interested in the Bennie Railplane experimental line. Also impressed by the
Paris Metro Route 11, which uses rubber tires, he decided to combine the two
principles. The result was a suspended monorail in which the bogies are
protected from weather conditions inside a steel or concrete box-beam above the
train. The test track operated for many years in Chateauneuf, south of Paris.
Film buffs may recognize it from the sixties classic "Fahrenheit
451."
“Speedy
Monorail line for World’s Fair here discussed.” (Seattle Times
4/2/58 S7)
“Monorail
routes may be studied.” (ST 4/4/58 S7)
“Fair
Monorail offered for $5,385,240.” ( ST 7/10/58 S7)
“Monorail
Inc. proposes 3.5 mile system” (Transit News July,1958)
Authority
to allow railroads to discontinue commuter passenger service transferred from
states to U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission.
NASA
established
First
communications satellite, SCORE, launched by USA
Number
of drive-in theaters in U.S. peaks near 5,000.
Laser
invented at Bell Labs.
Seymour
Cray at Control Data builds a transistorized computer.
Defense
Department creates ARPA, forerunner of the Internet.
Physicist
Werner Heisenberg explains his uncertainty principle.
USS
Nautilus successfully passes under the North Pole. First Submarine ever to
cross over the top of the world.
Great
Leap Forward in China results in death of 20 million people.
1959
On the 50th anniversary of the original Ocean to Ocean contest,
the Ford Motor Company commemorated its 1909 “victory” with a
highly publicized “re-enactment” of the run to Seattle.
“Advisors
Cite Monorail Advisability” (Seattle Times 1/30/59 S7)
“Monorail
with radical power idea proposed for Exposition” (ST 2/24/59 S7)
“Transit
to have Monorail line; Lockheed to erect.” (Transit News April 1959)
“Lockheed
system to be chosen.” (ST $/29/59 S7)
“Talks
on Monorail financing planned.” (ST 4/30/59 S7)
“Proposed
Gyro-Glide Monorail for 1961 exposition in Seattle” (Mass Transportation,
May 1959, pp.10-12)
“Monorail
for Seattle still uncertain. No Seattle Transit funds will be used.”
(Municipal News 6/20/59 p.20)
Marcus
Whitman Junior High School built, Crown Hill.
Disneyland/Alweg
Monorail: No monorail in history captured the attention of the public quite
like Walt Disney's Alweg Monorail did when it opened in 1959. The result would
be the unfortunate type-casting of monorails being "theme park
rides," except in Japan. Later versions of the Disneyland monorail
improved on the Alweg system and in 1971 a larger dual-rail system was built in
Florida at Walt Disney World.
Pan American
World Airways begins Seattle-Tacoma Airport's first regularly scheduled jet
service.
Soviet Luna
2 becomes first satellite to reach the Moon
Integrated
circuit invented by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments.
Hoffman
Electronics achieves 10-percent efficient, commercially available solar cells.
Post Office tries,
abandons effort to move mail by submarine-fired missiles.
Physicist
Richard Feynman delivers his "Plenty of room at the bottom" talk that
introduces the concept of nanotechnology.
1960
Seattle
population grows to 560,000, while King County suburban areas swell by 43% to
378,000 residents.
First portion
of Interstate 5 opens in Tacoma.
“Offer
made to Transit System by ALWEG International inc.” (Seattle Times 2/2/60
S7)
“Monorail
Problem Shifted (to Century 21).” (ST 3/22/60 S7)
“Century
21 in Monorail Pact.” (ST 12/22&23/60 S7)
Hoffman
Electronics achieves 14-percent efficient solar cells.
Echo I, a
U.S. balloon in orbit, reflects radio signals to Earth.
Joseph
Kittinger sets altitude record of 102,800 feet in the Excelsior III before
jumping from gondola and exceeding speed of sound in free fall, length of
parachute descent sets another record
Kennedy-Nixon
debates draw huge numbers of viewers, voters.
First working
laser was made by Theodore H. Maiman in 1960 at Hughes Research Laboratories in
Malibu, California, narrowly beating several research teams including those of
Charles Townes at Columbia University, and Arthur L. Schawlow at Bell
laboratories.
Jacques
Picard and Don Walsh descended to 35,820 feet (10,918 meters) in the
bathyscaphe Trieste.
6,000
computers in operation in US.
1961
WA
Legislature adopts Highway Advertising Control Act to remove billboards in
March 1961 (four years ahead of National Highway Beautification Act).
“Seattle
Previews its Monorail” (Engineering News Record, 3/23/61 p 43)
“West
Coast Monopoly on Monorails” (Metropolitan Transportation April 1961 p
23)
“Seattle
preparing to demonstrate Monorail rapid transit for World’s Fair.”
(Western City Dec. 1961, p 26)
Turin,
Italy: The first full scale non-test track Alweg line. It ran at Italia 61,
which celebrated Italy's national centenary. Over one and a half million
passengers traveled on the line for the short period of the fair. Plans to
operate the monorail on a permanent basis and extend it to Moncalieri never
came to fruition.
First
significant federal public transportation legislation (Housing & Urban
Development Act of 1961).
Black
box flight recorder invented.
NASA
astronaut Alan Shepard, Jr. becomes the first American to fly into space
President
John F. Kennedy announces that an American will land on the moon before the end
of the decade
U.S.
Air Force Major Robert White flies the X-15 research plane over Mach 5
January
-- The SL-1 reactor, located at Idaho Falls, goes out of control causing a
rupture of the building.
First
manned (Yuri Gagarin) space mission launched by USSR.
First
electronic game - Spacewars - from MIT
Silicon
chips.
1962
Seattle
World's Fair – Century 21: Man in the Space Age. Between April 21 and
October 21, nearly ten million visitors attend.
Touch-tone
phones are a big hit at the Fair.
In conjunction with the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, a 1909
Model T was driven along the 1909 race route, stopping in 85 cities on its way to
Seattle. On hand to greet the car at the finish line was William Clay Ford,
Henry’s grandson.
“Monorail
makes trial run” (Seattle Times 3/4/62 S7)
“Monorail
is magic carpet to Fair.” (ST 4/8/62 S7)
“What
is Monorail’s future?” (Municipal News 5/28/62 p. 70,75)
“Monorail
future uncertain” (ST 6/17/62 S7)
“Monorail
Terminal shrinking urged” (ST 11/28/62 p.16)
Seattle's
ALWEG Monorail opens for World's Fair.
Most
of Interstate-5 completed through Seattle. Its soaring Ship Canal bridge opens.
The
277-mile highway cost nearly $1 million per mile to build.
Voters
reject Metro request for transit planning authority.
Evergreen
Point Floating Bridge opens.
Nihon/Lockheed
Monorail: This unique system was invented in the USA and built at a test track
in Gifu, Japan. While actually being selected for both Seattle and Tokyo, Alweg
later won out for those milestone monorails. The Lockheed design is similar to
Alweg in that it uses a concrete beam, but the track and wheels are steel. Two
were built for transportation in Japan, yet they no longer operate.
New
York: first automated heavy rail line (Grand Central Shuttle).
The
Inuyama Monorail opens. It was the first multi-station Alweg monorail in Japan.
The Japanese Hitachi Company had been impressed with the Seattle World's Fair
Alweg installation and purchased the technology that same year. A little known
fact of monorail history is that the Alweg Company sold old blueprints to the
Japanese so they wouldn't have the latest improvements made to the system. Even
so, Hitachi would go on to install more Alweg-based transit monorails than
anyone in the world to this date.
Nara
Dreamland amusement park monorail opens in Japan.
Bumble
Bee Monorail opens in Santa’s Village, Skyforest, California.
Ranger
4 becomes first U.S. spacecraft to reach the moon
General
Motors installs its first industrial robot, a Unimate.
The
Telstar satellite sends television across the Atlantic.
Mariner
II sends radio signals from Venus.
Light-emitting
diode by Nick Holonyak
1962-1975: Vietnam War
1963
Evergreen
Point Floating Bridge opens a year late.
Highway
I-405 takes shape.
Cinerama
Theatre opens.
“Deadline
near for decision on Monorail” (ST 3/17/63 S7)
“Trustees
take step to save Monorail” (ST 3/29/63 p.1)
Chicago
becomes last city with surviving interurban line (Chicago, South Shore, &
South Bend Railroad).
Miami
Seaquarium Spacerail monorail opens in Florida.
At
407.45mph, American Chris Breedlove breaks the 400mph barrier in his Spirit
of America at Bonneville salt flats, Utah. It is the first purely
jet-propelled land speed record.
Stratoscope
II balloon takes high-resolution celestial photographs and transmits data on
planets and stars
From
Phillips of Holland comes the audio cassette.
TV
news "comes of age" in reporting JFK assassination.
Computer
mouse by Douglas Engelbart
1964
First
major U.S. government public transportation program (Urban Mass Transportation
Act)
“Bullet”
Train introduced in Japan with top speed of 130 m.p.h. linking Tokyo and Osaka.
Tokyo/Haneda
Monorail opens in time for the Olympics: The Tokyo/Haneda Monorail was the
first major system to incorporate the Alweg design and use switches for
direction reversal. It has been carrying people from the Haneda airport to a
station on Tokyo's main rail loop ever since, safely and at a profit.
Picturephone
tested: Disneyland to N.Y. World's Fair. Public dislikes it.
Mariner
IV sends television images from Mars.
Ranger
7 is launched, takes more than 4,000 photos of the Moon
Russian
scientists bounce a signal off Jupiter.
SEALAB
I, begins in July with a three
week stay for four divers at a depth of 193 feet.
McLuhan's
Understanding Media describes the global village.
Olympic
Games in Tokyo telecast live globally by satellite.
Moore's
Law about processing power.
The
Beatles pay their first visit to Seattle.
1964-1965
New
York World’s Fair.
AMF
Monorail at New York World's Fair: In an effort to promote their Safege
licensed monorail, AMF installed and operated a one-station I-Beam monorail for
the two-year New York World's Fair. The dual-rail system looped around the
amusement area. An earlier Disney monorail plan to surround the entire
fairgrounds was rejected, probably due to a much higher price tag. While AMF
never sold or built any Safege Monorails, this installation was responsible for
many of today's enthusiasts first ride on monorail.
1965
Major
earthquake in Seattle.
“Transit
takes over Monorail maintenance May 1st, when Seattle takes over
Century 21 Corp.” (Transit News June 1965 p.1,3)
“Monorail
fare to be cut in half June 1st.” (ST 5/19/65 S7)
“Parking
lot operator sues over Monorail” (ST 9/25/65 S7)
Metro
leader James Ellis calls for "Forward Thrust" to manage growth
through regional improvements and transit. Interstate-5 completed between
Everett and Tacoma.
Ted
Griffin purchases Namu, the world's first captive killer whale, and transports
him to Seattle for display at his waterfront aquarium.
King
County acquires its first computer.
Craig
Breedlove in Spirit of America-Sonic I, travels at 600.601mph on land.
First
spacewalk - Alexei Leonov
Gemini
7 and Gemini 6 rendezvous in space
November
-- A major electrical power outage in the northeastern U.S. prompts proponents
of nuclear power to push it as a necessary alternative energy source.
SEALAB
II -- three teams of divers spend 10 -16 days each at a depth of 205 feet (65
meters)
CONSHELF
III: At a depth of 328 feet, a six-man team spends 22 days on the bottom of the
ocean.
Ford
offers 8-track tape players on next year's model cars.
Western
Electric uses lasers in industry.
Simon
predicts "machines will be capable of doing any work a man can do" by
1985.
The
word "hypertext" is coined by Ted Nelson. Non-sequential text can
branch.
Ralph
Nader's Unsafe at Any Speed attacks Detroit's auto industry.
1966
“Investment
firm favors Monorail to two airports” (ST 6/22/66 R25)
Monorail
opens at Busch Gardens in Florida, using two propane-fired, air-cooled,
aluminum Corvair engines per train to produce the AC power necessary for the
electric motors.
U.S.
Department of Transportation established.
First
direct TV pictures from the moon.
Star
Trek begins to be televised
Hughes
Surveyor 1 makes first soft landing on the moon
In
China, the Cultural Revolution.
1967
First
Puget Sound Regional Transportation Plan rules out rail transit in favor new
highways and roads.
World’s
Fair, Montreal,
Quebec - Expo ’67
Extensive
“minirail” monorail system, one loop remains today at La Ronde
Amusement Park.
Launch
pad fire kills NASA astronauts Chaffee, Grissom, and White
Pre-recorded
movies on videotape sold for home TV sets.
Floppy
disk by IBM
1968
King
County voters approve 7 of 12 Forward Thrust bond issues, but reject 47-mile
rail transit plan costing $1.15 billion ($385 million local).
Nine-member
County Council and elected County Executive put into place by King County
voters.
“Work
to begin on Monorail terminal” (ST 1/5/68 S7)
“Youths
walk Monorail tracks to Center” (ST 9/26/68 S7)
World’s
Fair, San Antonio, Texas – Hemisfair ’68
Cleveland:
first rail station at an airport opened.
First
Orbiting Astronomical Observatory flies; conducts astronomy from orbit
Apollo-8
completes world's first trans-lunar flight and orbit of the Moon
Supersonic
transport (SST)
Magnetic-stripe
credit cards.
Intelsat
completes global communications satellite loop.
Windows,
mouse, keyboard and hypertext coordinated on computer by Douglas Engelbart.
Crick
& Watson's The Double Helix
1969
State
Legislature authorizes use of MVET for transit if matched by local tax dollars.
The last stop
light between Vancouver and Blaine (on I-5) was removed in 1969.
“Expenses
covered: receipts reflect ‘normal’ year.” (ST 7/19/69 p.10)
“Monorail
trains near 400,000 mile mark.” (ST 10/19/69 p.32)
First
flight of Boeing 747.
First
men on the Moon. Astronauts send live photographs from the moon to worldwide
audience.
When
the city's 50-story Seattle-First National Bank Building opens, it is the
tallest building in Seattle, and locals describe it as "The Box the Space
Needle Came In."
California
State Fair and Exposition monorail opens.
The
Philadelphia Zoo Safari Monorail opens. It is billed as the first zoo monorail
at America's first zoo. Removed in 2002.
Sony
brings out 3/4" U-Matic, first videotape cassette editing system.
Television
in 97% of US households.
The
Woodstock music festival.
ARPANET
operating - preliminary to Internet.
1970
Second
Forward Thrust rail plan fails amid Boeing Bust, and reserved federal funds are
allocated to Atlanta; for the first time, the census counts more King County
residents living outside Seattle than within.
Environmental
lawsuits are filed to halt construction of Interstate 90 between I-405 and I-5.
World’s
Fair, Osaka, Japan – Expo ’70
Boeing
747 Jumbo jet enters commercial service.
Congress
passes the Rail Passenger Service Act creating Amtrak, which today serves more
than 20 million customers annually on its national network of intercity trains
and employs 23,000 people.
“City
to offer traffic plan (extend Monorail 1,400 ft.).” (ST 3/13/70)
Thousands of
demonstrators leave the University of Washington campus to "take" the
Freeway on their way to the Federal Courthouse, in protest against the U.S.
bombing of Cambodia.
Fort Walton
Beach, FL: first dial-a-ride demand response transit agency.
First
monorail to use French Safege system opens in Japan. It still runs 6.6
kilometers, from the Ofuna rail station to the coastal area of Enoshima (20
miles southwest of Tokyo), and has eight stations.
Bar codes.
1971
Expansion
of I-90 halted due to inadequate environmental impact statement.
In
March, the U.S. Senate rejects funding of the Supersonic Transport. In 1968,
more than 100,000 work in local Boeing plants; by 1972, only 32,500 are left.
“26
hurt as Monorail train crashes.” (ST 7/26/71 A1)
“Back-up
brake system fails.” (ST 7/26/71 A8)
“Repairs
begin on Monorail train.” (ST 8/3/71 C15)
“Damaged
Monorail unit to be moved (to transit shops).” (ST 9/24/71 D3)
“Monorail
crash victims may now get paid.” (ST 12/7/71 A11)
First
federally subsidized intercity passenger railroad (AMTRAK) formed.
Walt
Disney World Monorail opens in Florida. Six stations, 23.6 Kilometers.
NASA
launches Pioneer 10; first spacecraft to reach the outer planets
Salyut-1,
the first orbital station, is launched in Russia; the crew dies on landing
Magic
Mountain theme park “minirail” monorail opens in California with
three stations.
Intel
builds the microprocessor, "a computer on a chip"
Wang
1200 is world's first word processor.
1972
“What
do you do with a Monorail?” (P-I 3/10/72 A3)
“Red
Monorail train may be out til September.” (ST 4/30/72 B6)
“Dime
now buys a ride on Monorail.” (ST 5/25/72 D9)
Monorail
raises fare again – 25c as of Oct. 9th.
King
County voters approve Metro Transit plan limited to bus service.
Seattle
voters scrap R. H. Thomson Expressway and reject Bay Freeway.
King
County voters approve 0.3% sales tax increase to allow Metro to take over
Seattle Transit and suburban bus companies. County-wide transit ridership at
low of 31 million.
San
Francisco: first computer-controlled heavy rail transit agency (Bay Area Rapid
Transit District).
Public
transportation ridership in U.S. hits all-time low (6.6 billion)
A
satellite is used for live television transmission.
Landsat
I, "eye-in-the-sky" satellite, is launched.
Pong
is first electronic video game for TV as an add-on.
1973
Metro
Transit introduces "ride-free" zone in downtown Seattle.
“Damaged
Monorail car back on the beam.” (ST 3/29/73 A20)
“Monorail’s
red train goes back on run.” (ST 6/6/73 B4)
Seattle
central alley transit (SCAT), a proposal for automated metropolitan transit,
Phase 1 (downtown circulator) / by an association of John Graham and Company,
Michael Baker, Jr., inc., Westinghouse Electric Corporation.
Trapped
by "stagflation," King County residents endure oil shortages, rising
prices, and gas rationing. Transit ridership increases 8%.
State's
first acoustical freeway barriers and first “High Occupancy
Vehicle” (HOV) lanes are introduced.
Some
public transportation service required to be accessible to disabled
(Rehabilitation Act of 1973).
Boston,
Dayton, OH, Philadelphia, San Francisco, & Seattle become last surviving
trolleybus systems.
October
-- The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) votes to cut oil exports
by five percent until Israel agrees to withdraw from all Arab territories it
occupied during the Yom Kippur War. Failing to achieve that result, Saudi
Arabia decides days later to cut oil production by 25 percent and joins with
other oil-producing nations in an embargo of oil shipments to the United
States, for its support of Israel. An "Energy Crisis" grips the U.S.,
resulting in price gouging, gas lines and rationing.
Skylab
orbital lab is launched
Pioneer
10 flies past Jupiter
Super
8 home movie cameras with magnetic striping for sound.
1974
World’s
Fair, Spokane, Washington – Expo ’74
U.S.
District Judge George Boldt hands down the decision that Washington's Native
American fisherman are entitled to 50% of harvestable salmon, by treaty rights.
OPEC
oil embargo spurs Congress to pass National Mass Transportation Act, providing
the first federal aid for transit operating costs, and to impose a 55 m.p.h.
freeway speed limit (lifted in 1996).
“Fast
action hoped for repair of Monorail terminal.” (ST 7/3/74 A4)
“Monorail:
fast repair or closure?” (PI 7/3/75 A5)
1.9
million ride Monorail in 1974
Boston,
Cleveland, Newark, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, & San Francisco
become the last street railway systems.
First
federal public transportation operating assistance legislation (National Mass
Transportation Assistance Act of 1974)
Beaulieu,
England Monorail opens: 1.6 km , 2 stations.
Phatasialand
Jet Monorail opens at theme park in Brühl, Germany.
NASA
launches the first geosynchronous meteorological satellite, SMS-1
UPC
bar code scanner introduced by NCR.
Hand
held electronic calculator by TI.
The
word "Internet" enters the lexicon in a paper by Vint Cerf.
Ted
Nelson's Computer Lib.
First
molecular electronic device patent filed.
1975
Microsoft
founded, major producer of computer software
Harper's
Magazine rates Seattle the most livable city in the U.S.
World’s
Fair, Okinawa, Japan – Expo ‘75
Last
manual telephone switchboard in Maine is retired.
First
handheld mobile phone.
BASIC
becomes the first programming language for the personal computer.
Kurzweil
invents flat-bed scanner.
L5
Society is formed with idea of space colonization
Apollo-Soyuz
Test Project, joint U.S. - USSR mission; spacecraft dock in space
Venera
9 sends pictures of the surface of Venus.
1976
Dixy
Lee Ray, first woman governor of Washington elected
Authorized
by Forward Thrust, the Kingdome opens on March 27, and serves 73,000,000
visitors before its implosion in 2000.
Metro
buys 145 articulated diesel coaches rather than ones using natural gas.
Seattle,
Mercer Island, Bellevue, King County and State Highway Commission agree on
smaller I-90 with six traffic lanes and two transit lanes, plus landscaping and
lidding.
“Monorail
as people mover proposed.” (ST 6/30/76 A1)
“Monorail
may be extended to Center House, garage.” (ST 6/30/76 A5)
“People
mover plan survives judging (convert Monorail to automated transit
system).” (ST 9/22/76 A8)
Viking
spacecraft land on Mars and transmit first images from the surface
The
Apple I. Steve Jobs sells his VW van to raise manufacturing funds.
The
Cray-1 supercomputer can do 240 million calculations per second.
Kurzweil
Reading Machine.
Viking
II sends color photos from Mars.
1977
SAFECO
Insurance becomes first employer to subsidize transit passes for its workers.
“Federal
funds sought: City wants Metro OK of Monorail extension.” (ST 8/18/77 A9)
“Monorail
expansion plan in the works.” (ST 8/31/77 p.4)
“Monorail
bid: Only an inquiry.” (ST 10/7/77 A14)
Voyager
1 launched to begin "Grand Tour" of solar system
San
Diego: first wheelchair-lift-equipped fixed-route bus.
The
Apple II microcomputer is a best seller.
An
electronic mail system is developed at the University of Wisconsin.
In
Chicago, AT&T transmits telephone calls by fiber optics.
Odetics
builds the first computer controlled Walking Robot.
Scientists
aboard the deep sea submersible, Alvin, discover and document incredible deep
sea hydrothermal vents in the eastern Pacific ocean.
1978
The
Seattle school district adopts a mandatory busing plan to racially integrate
its schools.
“Turning
point for Monorail.” (ST 1/11/78 A12)
“City
gets $88,000 for Monorail study.” (PI 1/27/78 A6)
“A
modern train that can (and may).”
(Seattle Sun 5/31/78 p.3)
“Monorail
spruceup: trains, terminal to get paintjob.” (ST 6/18/78 A1)
“Connection
to the conventions? (speculation)” (Weekly 12/13/78 p.4)
Space
Invaders, the first video game to reach the mainstream.
1979
King
County voters reject plan to "merge" Metro with King County.
Expanded
services and high gas prices result in annual ridership of 58 million.
City
of Seattle starts Commuter Pool with 21 public vans.
Sick's
Stadium is demolished.
The
western pontoons of the Hood Canal Floating Bridge were swept away by a storm
on February 13, 1979.
In
the first railroad line rehabilitation project in the West, WSDOT starts work
on a 61-mile spur line between Metaline Falls and Newport.
Federal
courts lift injunction on final I-90 construction west of I-405.
“Meeting
to review plans for Monorail.” (ST 2/25/79 K5)
“Monorail
perks planners interests again.” (ST 3/1/79 B5)
“Probe
of Monorail crash (1971) begins.” (ST 5/22/79 A1, 15)
“Monorail
brake system to be inspected.” (ST 5/23/79 A14)
“Probe
of monorail crash may take months.” (ST 5/30/79 A5)
“Monorail
air brakes did not fail.” (PI 6/21/79 A13)
March --
Equipment failures and human error contribute to an accident at the Three Mile
Island nuclear reactor at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the worst nuclear accident
in U.S. history.
Sony
Walkman tape player
USENET
begins.
Sylvia
Earle walks on the sea floor at a record depth of 1,250 feet.
1980
Census
shows 1.27 million King County residents, of whom 494,000 live within Seattle
city limits.
Mount
St. Helens erupts on May 18, wiping out much of SR 504 and temporarily closing
more than 1,000 miles of state highways.
“The
forgotten Monorail.” (Weekly 1/9/80 p.13-14)
“Grant
for Westlake Monorail Terminal.” (PI 6/28/80 A2)
“Funds
arrive for new Monorail terminal.” (ST 6/29/80 D2)
First
successful flight of solar-powered aircraft by Paul Macready.
San
Diego: first completely new U.S. light rail transit agency in decades (San
Diego Trolley).
President
Jimmy Carter signs Staggers Rail Act, deregulating railroads and leading to
divestiture of thousands of miles of unprofitable lines.
1%
of U.S. homes have VCRs.
Number
of computers in US exceeds one million
Sony
introduces the consumer camcorder.
Voyager
1 sends back images of Saturn and its moons, one billion miles away.
The
Nautilus, the worlds first nuclear powered ship, is decommissioned, after 25
years and almost half a million miles.
1981
Puget
Sound Council of Governments (now Regional Council) renews rail transit
planning.
Solar
Challenger, solar-powered airplane, flies.
First
space shuttle, Columbia, launched
Gerd
Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer invented the scanning tunneling microscope that gives
three-dimensional images of objects down to the atomic level. They won the
Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. It is the strongest microscope to date.
The
laptop computer is introduced by Tandy.
21,000
industrial robots in use in Japan v 6,000 in US.
MS-DOS
by Microsoft
1982
George
Benson’s Waterfront Streetcar enters service (it is extended in 1990;
City Councilman Benson also saved the Monorail during the Westlake Center
development and championed installation of rails in the downtown bus tunnel).
Replacement
Hood Canal Bridge opens to traffic on October 3rd.
World’s
Fair, Knoxville, Tennesee
Miami
MetroZoo four-station monorail opens.
Sony
of Japan and Philips of the Netherlands bring out the compact disc.
USA
Today
typeset in regional plants via satellite
200
computers connected to the internet worldwide.
1983
Metro
approves construction of downtown transit tunnel for new "dual-mode"
electric-diesel buses.
“First
major refurbishing of Monorail since ’62 is planned.” (ST 4/21/83
D1)
The
first Post-Intelligencer newspapers are published on Times presses under the
Joint Operating Agreement.
Wah
Mee Massacre in Seattle’s International District.
Federal
public transportation trust fund for capital projects created thru dedication
of one cent of federal gas tax.
TGV
(Train à Grande Vitesse) introduced in France, linking Paris and Lyon
with maximum speed of 168 m.p.h.
At
Black Rock Desert, Nevada, Englishman Richard Noble travels at 633.468mph in Thrust
2,
bringing the land speed record to Britain.
Specially
built 1-kW, PV-powered car, the Solar Trek, drives across Australia, covering
4000 km in less than 20 days. Later the same year, the car drove 4000 km, from
Long Beach, CA, to Daytona Beach, FL, in 18 days.
President
Reagan announces development of a missile shield to defend against Soviet ICBM
attacks, dubbed "Star Wars""
Audio
music cassettes outsell LP records.
AT&T
forced to break up; 7 Baby Bells are born.
Number
of computers in US exceeds ten million
Time magazine names
computer as 'Man of the Year'.
1984
Seattle
Commuter Pool and 130 vans transferred to Metro
World’s
Fair, New Orleans, Louisiana – Louisiana World Exposition
“Monorail
rolls into the ad age.” (PI 2/29/84 A9)
“(Mayor)
Rice sees red over Monorail paint job.” (PI 3/3/84 C1)
“Monorail
fare will rise to 60c.” (PI 11/8/84 E1)
Dortmund
University, Germany: Peoplemover-scale, Safege-style suspended monorail opens.
Transrapid
Test Facility opens at Emsland, Germany, to develop and test high-speed maglev
monorails.
French
and Soviets send Vega spacecraft to Venus and use balloons to study Venus'
atmosphere.
Apple
Macintosh and IBM PC AT are introduced.
The
one-megabyte memory chip.
Laser
jet desktop printer by HP.
William
Gibson coins term 'cyberspace' in Neuromancer
1985
King
County passes first true growth management plan to combat sprawl.
The
76-story Columbia Seafirst Center opens, the tallest building west of the
Mississippi, at twice the height of the Space Needle.
“Monorail
blunder: Why didn’t they measure it sooner?” (ST 5/21/85 A8)
“City
officials talk of junking monorail.” (PI 7/3/85)
“Rice
makes Monorail an issue in race for mayor.” (ST 7/9/85 B2)
“Cost
of Westlake Monorail terminal triples.” (ST 7/11/85 B1-2)
“Sibonga
opposes spending more cash on Monorail.” (PI 7/16/85 A3)
“Funds
to repair Monorail denied.” (ST 8/1/85 E1)
“Vote
may shut down Monorail for 3 years.” (PI 8/1/85 A1)
“Monorail
station funded.” (9/10/85 D2)
“Fund
track uncertain for Monorail project.” (ST 10/2/85 B1)
World’s
Fair, Tsukuba, Japan – Expo ’85
Kitakyushu City
Monorail opens in Japan. This is the Alweg-type system that spurred the
Japanese monorail revival.
Voyager
2 starts providing data on Uranus
Microsoft
ships Windows 1.0
Martin
Green team, University of New South Wales, Australia, breaks the 20-percent
efficiency barrier for silicon solar cells under 1-sun conditions.
Average
US TV viewing peaks at 7 hours 10 minutes per day.
Worldwide
mass communication harnessed for "Aid to Africa" appeal.
In
Japan, 3-D television; no spectacles needed.
50
newspapers now offer online access to news texts.
The
wreck of the Titanic is found.
Buckyballs
discovered
1986
"Incentive
Agreement" between Metro, City of Bellevue and Bellevue Downtown Association
to develop "Transportation Management Association" and increase
transit services is implemented.
Microsoft
goes public.
King
County, originally named for Franklin Pierce's vice president, William R.D.
King, is renamed in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King.
World’s
Fair, Vancouver, British Columbia – Expo ’86
Fair’s
monorail system was officially opened by William Shatner (Captain Kirk of Star
Trek) on August 13, 1987. Transported to Alton Towers, England in 1990, where
it now carries passengers from a remote parking lot to the entrance of this
popular park.
“UMTA
rejects repair fund request.” (ST 1/16/86 D2)
“Monorail
needs new tires, at cost of maybe $50,000.” (PI 1/30/86 D1)
“Price
of tires deflated.” (PI 2/1/86 D1)
“Royer
will offer new plan to save Monorail.” (ST 2/15/86 A12)
“One
train Monorail studied.” (PI 2/20/86 A10)
“Seattle
gets grant to move Monorail.” (PI 7/25/86 D1)
“Monorail
service to stop for two weeks (to complete temporary terminal).” (ST 9/1/86 B1)
Lotte
World (Korea) Indoor-outdoor minirail monorail opens.
Runaway
reactions during a test at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor near Kiev, located in
the what was then the Soviet Union, causes a series of explosions that rupture
the containment structure and send massive amounts of radiation through the
Northern Hemisphere.
Shuttle
Challenger explodes
Dick
Rutan and Jeana Yeager land at Edwards Air Force Base in the Voyager, became
the first aviators to circle the globe nonstop without refueling; also endured
the longest flight to that time
US
business uses 2.5 trillion pages of paper.
Number
of computers in US exceeds 30 million.
First
fiber-optic cable across English Channel activated.
Voyager
2 sends back images of Uranus.
Atomic
force microscope (AFM) invented,
1987
Boeing
transfers its fleet of 100 vans and 65 vanpool groups to Metro Rideshare.
Clovis
Points discovered in an East Wenatchee orchard.
“Bang!
Monorail hits wall with shower of glass.” (ST 8/28/87 E1)
“Metro
blames driver for Monorail accident.” (PI 11/10/87 A1)
In
the 3100-km Pentax World Solar Challenge race across Australia for PV-powered
cars, the GM Sunraycer wins by 950-km, with an average speed of approximately
71 kph.
First
single-electron transistor created.
1988
Metro
agrees to share downtown bus stops with Community Transit for express bus
service from Snohomish County.
Legislature
creates High Speed Rail Commission to study statewide “bullet
train” concepts.
Metro
signs "Eastside Action Plan" to increase intra-suburban service among
Kirkland, Redmond, Bellevue and other destinations.
World’s
Fair, Brisbane, Australia - World Expo ’88
“A
tight fit for Monorail and Westlake Center.” (ST 10/20/88)
“New
Monorail station may open by November 20th.” (ST 11/11/88 C17)
“Monorail
back on track. Westlake Center platform fixed.” (PI 11/11/88 C3)
The
Monorail Society founded - advocacy organization and information clearinghouse.
Still the best source for all things monorail-related:
http://www.monorails.org/
The
Chiba City "Townliner" monorail opens in Japan. It has 18 stations,
is currently the longest suspended monorail system in the world, and it is
getting longer.
Sea
World - Gold Coast Monorail
opens; Von Roll Type II system with three stations. First monorail in
Australia.
Sydney
Metro Monorail opens with seven stations (now eight). This Von Roll Type 3
train is Australia’s second monorail..
First
B-2 stealth bomber is rolled out
NASA
signs formal agreement with 11 nations and ESA to participate in Space Station
Freedom
Sony
introduces the Pocket Discman.
Who
Framed Roger Rabbit? feature film combines live action, animation. Plot deals with
conspiracy against electric streetcar line.
First
transatlantic telephone call over fiber optics line.
"Hacker"
and "Worm" enter the Internet lexicon.
CDs
now outsell vinyl records.
98%
of U.S. homes have at least one television set.
First
transatlantic fibre optic cable completed.
First
"designer protein" created.
1989
Commuter
Challenge program formed.
In
this year of the centennial of Washington statehood, Norm Rice is elected
Seattle's mayor, the first African-American to hold that office.
Third
floating bridge across Lake Washington (later named for Homer M. Hadley) opens
on June 4th.
“Regrettable
buys – Monorail ranks right up there (Product of Nazi arms giant, Alfred
Krupp).” (ST 2/8/89 B1)
“Monorail
finally using Westlake Station.” (ST 2/23/89 A7)
Miami:
first completely new commuter rail transit agency in U.S. in decades
(Tri-County Commuter Rail Authority).
Broadbeach
Monorail opens in Australia: Casino-Hotel-shopping center-beach transit with
three stations.
Voyager
2 sends back images of Neptune.
Vacationers
can buy single use, throwaway cameras.
The
Japanese submersible, Shinkai 6500, succeeds in a test dive to a depth of
21,414 feet (6,527m) in the Japan Trench, the greatest depth ever attained by
any manned vessel (that returned to the surface).
Berlin
Wall comes down.
1990
State
Legislature approves expanded growth management powers and planning for Puget
Sound rapid transit system.
Federal
Judge William Dwyer rules Metro Council unconstitutional.
Federal
Clean Air Act passed.
King,
Pierce and Snohomish counties set up Regional Ridematch System.
Original
Lake Washington floating bridge sinks during repairs.
The
1.3 mile Metro bus tunnel opens beneath downtown Seattle; today, it
accommodates 25% of the city's rush-hour commuter bus traffic.
Virtually
all public transportation service in U.S. required to be accessible to disabled
(Americans with Disabilities Act of of 1990)
First
section (6.6 kilometers) of Osaka (Japan) Monorail opens. Eventually it will be
over 50 kilometers long.
Hubble
Space Telescope reaches orbit; shows that its mirror was incorrectly shaped
World
Wide Web described by Tim Berners-Lee
First
commercial provider of dial-up net access
US
business uses 4 trillion pages of paper.
The
Video Toaster, a low cost video effects tool.
1991
Gulf
War One
Local
grunge band Nirvana releases Nevermind, which sells more than 10 million
copies.
Seattle
area congestion rated fourth worst in the nation.
High
gas prices push annual transit ridership to 74.6 million.
“Ride a
Monorail into a better transit future – new, improved trains could carry
commuters across lake.” (ST 2/10/91 D3)
“Fast
track to nowhere: In 29 years the Monorail really hasn’t gone very
far.” (PI 5/13/91)
“Monorail
fare, cost of parking to go up for visits to Seattle Center.” (Daily Briefing 12/27/91 B3)
Public
transportation buses in U.S. subject to strict pollution controls (Clean Air
Act of 1990)
Federal
government allowed to subsidize its employees' commuting costs.
Chester
Zoo Monorail opens in England.
Jurong
Birdpark (Singapore) Panorail (Von Roll monorail) opens.
Tampa
International Airport automated “peoplemover” monorail opens in
Florida as an indoor parking lot connector.
Galileo
makes first visit to an asteroid
IBM's
first revenue decline in 45 years.
Recordable
compact disc drivers, CD-Rs, reach the market. One CD-R, costing maybe 30
cents, holds as much information as 6.7million IBM punch-cards.
Hypertext
Markup Language (HTML) written; helps create the World Wide Web.
3
out of 4 U.S. homes own VCRs; fastest selling domestic appliance in history.
Michelangelo
is first computer virus to gain international attention.
Carbon
nanotubes discovered.
1992
Voters
approve King County's absorption of Metro services effective 1994; State completes
last mile of Interstate-90 at cost of $1.2 billion.
First
section of Spirit Lake Memorial Highway (SR 504) opens on Mt. St. Helens.
World’s
Fair, Seville, Spain – Expo ’92
Fair
has a Von Roll Type Two Monorail, which is later (1996) moved to Germany to
become the Europa Park Express Monorail, running from a remote parking lot to
the popular theme park.
France-NASA
launch the Topex/Poseidon spacecraft to measure ocean topography; tracks El
Nino
World’s
Fair, Genoa, Italy – Genoa Expo ‘92
1993
King,
Pierce, and Snohomish Counties form Regional Transit Authority (RTA, future
Sound Transit).
Employers
with 100 or more full-time employees implement staff commuting programs to
comply with Commute Trip Reduction Law passed in 1991.
Jan.
14th: Simpsons episode, “Marge vs. the Monorail”
airs.
World’s
Fair, Taejon, South Korea – Expo ’93
Fair’s
monorail still running as a tourist attraction.
Window
on the World Theme Park monorail opens. First monorail in China.
Public
transportation workers in safety-sensitive positions subjected to drug and
alcohol testing in U.S.
Transrapid
07 maglev monorail establishes a world record for passenger-carrying maglev
vehicles when it reaches a speed of 450 km/h (279mph).
Kodak
and Apple produce first digital still image camera for consumers.
IBM
posts US$8.1billion loss,
Hubble
Servicing Mission corrects curvature of mirror
Rumors
fly that cellphones cause brain cancer; sales continue to soar.
DVD
invented by Toshiba.
Graphical
user interface, Mosaic, is developed for the World Wide Web.
First
nanotechnology lab in the US.
1994
Metro
becomes King County Department of Metropolitan Services.
Metro's
vanpool program tallies 2.7 million passenger trips.
The
“Chunnel” opens, linking France and England with rail service and a
tunnel for passenger cars.
“Seattle,
wake up to the Monorail – quiet, clean, inexpensive. It should be more
than a tourist toy.” (ST 6/26/94 B5)
Dick
Falkenbury, a Seattle tour-bus driver, draws an X-shaped monorail map and
begins gathering petition signatures in a grass-roots movement to build a
longer system.
Bangkok,
Thailand monorail opens – goes from shopping center to Future World theme
park.
U.S.
robotic moon mission Clementine is launched
GaInP/GaAs
2 terminal concentrator cell (180X) becomes the first solar cell to exceed 30%
conversion efficiency (made at NREL)
The
Netscape Navigator replaces Mosaic as a World Wide Web browser.
Internet
mass marketing brings "spamming" into the lexicon.
1995
First
RTA plan, costing $6.7 billion, fails to win needed three-county majority for
new taxes.
530
Metro Rideshare vans in use.
Seattle
Public Schools' mandatory busing ends.
Newark
International Airport monorail opens in New Jersey.
First
mile of Robert N. Broadbent Las Vegas Monorail opens in Nevada.
NASA
begins the X-33 experimental rocket
Steve
Fossett sets a balloon distance record of 5,208 miles
Astronomer
Wendy Freedman tries to determine the age of the universe using photos from the
Hubble Space Telescope
Astronomer
Wendy Freedman tries to determine the age of the universe using photos from the
Hubble Space Telescope
The
FCC allows radio stations to operate with no one there.
1996
The
new Washington State History
Museum opened.
Revised
"Sound Transit" plan, costing $3.9 billion, passes.
Transportation
Commission adopts the State’s first 20-year surface transportation plan.
Rideshare
program, coordinated by state and local transit authorities, begins in
Thurston, Pierce, King, Kitsap, and Snohomish counties.
“Monorail
proposal stays on track – measure should be on Fall 1997 ballot.”
(ST 11/13/96 B3)
Barra
Shopping Center Monorail opens with three stations, near Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil.
Mars
Global Surveyor launches; first "better, faster, cheaper" spacecraft
The
world's most advanced solar-powered plane, the Icare, flew over Germany. The
wings and tail surfaces of the Icare are covered by 3000 super-efficient PV
cells, with a total area of 21 m2.
45
million Internet users, including 30 million in U.S.
Computer
makers sell flat-panel displays.
1997
“Reinventing
the wheel: the Monorail Initiative is flaky and unfounded, but it may be
Seattle’s chance for a revolutionary transit system that works.”
(Weekly 10/22/97 p.18)
“Monorail
tries to get on organization track – only 5 volunteers for 12 member
board.” (ST 12/20/97 A13)
The Boeing
Company merges with its greatest competitor, McDonnell-Douglas.
Jacksonville,
Florida’s downtown peoplemover automated monorail opens with eight
stations and 4.3 miles of track.
Richard
Noble's team builds Thrust SSC and with Andy Green at the helm, it breaks
the sound barrier – moving at 763.04 mph on land.
Steve
Fossett sets a balloon distance and duration record by flying 9,672 miles in a flight
lasting 146 hours and 54 minutes in the Solo Spirit
NASA
launches Cassini spacecraft to Saturn
Mars
Pathfinder spacecraft lands on Mars; explores planet with miniature rover
Sojourner
Zeppelin
launches new Zeppelin NT airship.
DVD
players and movies are on the fast track to success.
IBM
computer defeats world chess champion Garry Kasparov.
From
Kodak, the first point-and-shoot digital camera.
Pathfinder's
Mars pictures released; NASA website gets 46 million hits.
November:
The
passage of cabbie Dick Falkenbury's Initiative 41 creates the Elevated
Transportation Company to develop a 40-mile monorail system in Seattle, and
instructs the City Council to get it built. Advocates believe the system can be
privately built and operated without tax subsidies.
First
DNA-based nanomechanical device created.
1998
World’s
Fair, Lisbon, Portugal – Expo ’98
Seattle
Monorail gets first new engines in
36 years.
Washington
State Ferries launches its first passenger only ferry, Chinook.
The
U.S. Department of Justice and 20 state attorneys general sue Microsoft for
violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act.
“Monorail
plan – Personal Rapid Transit is the way to go instead of
Monorail.” (ST 4/7/98 B5)
First
section of Tama, Japan Monorail opens. Eventually it will have over 90
kilimeters of guideways.
Seven-station
monorail opens in Shenzhen, China.
First
module of International Space Station is assembled
HDTV
broadcasts begin in the United States.
Estimated
number of World Wide Web pages: 300 million. Estimated number of Web pages
added each day: 1.5 million.
150
million Internet users estimated at year's end, half in the U.S.
1999
State
Initiative 695 slashes automobile excise tax revenue for transportation, but
does not affect special Sound Transit taxes.
In
November, protestors and police clash in the streets of Seattle as the World
Trade Organization meets.
“Plan
sees 7 mile loop – local firm has big hopes for downtown system.”
(PI 5/13/99 B1)
“Monorail’s
big need – Clout – get politicos aboard say experts.” (ST
7/28/99 B1)
With
state funding and aid, Amtrak inaugurates “Cascades” rail service
between Eugene and Seattle, with three new “Talgo” cars.
Restored
Cinerama Theatre opens.
Two-station
monorail opens at Mirabilandia Ravenna Amusement Park in Savio, Italy.
Two-station
Intamin monorail opens at park in Magdeburg, Germany.
Breitling
Orbiter sets record for round-the-world balloon trip
China
launches first CZ-2F rocket, intended to launch the first Chinese astronauts
into space
150
million internet users worldwide (over 50% in US).
Virus
after virus attack computers. Melissa is the worst yet.
World
worries about Y2K bug; great sums spent to solve the problem.
Mule
train still delivers mail down the south face of the Grand Canyon.
The
Ikonos satellite can detect an object on Earth as small as a card table.
Molecular-scale
computer switch created.
2000
In
this year's census, metropolitan Seattle and King County is home to a
population of 1,700,000 that is 76% white, 11% Asian, 6% Latino, 5% black and
1% Native American.
Facing
resistance from city elected leaders, ETC runs out of funding and disbands.
Top
Sound Transit executives resign amid revelations of massive cost overruns.
“Monorail
expansion may be dead.” (ST 2/19/2000 A1)
“Backers
keep Monorail plan alive.” (ST 2/25/2000 B6)
“City
Hall won’t put Monorail on track, but case for expanded service goes to
court.” (ST 5/31/2000 B1)
“Stalled
Monorail waits for push. Seattle voters will decide Tuesday whether to give it
a shove with Proposition 2.” (PI 11/3/2000 B1)
On
March 26, the Kingdome is imploded.
World’s
Fair, Hanover, Germany – Expo 2000
Sunway
City, Malaysia monorail opens.
November:
Initiative
53 passes, providing the ETC with a $6 million budget and two years to put a
plan on the Seattle ballot.
Russian
scientists experiment with an inflatable reentry vehicle
NASA
flies the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission to obtain precise altitude data for
three-dimensional electronic maps
Concorde
crashes near Paris; planes taken out of service
April:
the dot.com industry crashes.
5.1
billion emails are sent in the U.S.; 8.2 billion worldwide.
Y2K
bug tamed, but it was expensive.
Love
Bug virus infects 45 million computers worldwide.
US
launches National Nanotechnology Initiative.
2001
A
severe earthquake near Olympia causes more than $1 billion in damage to roads
and infrastructure on February 28th.
9/11
attack on NYC and Pentagon temporarily shut down many transportation systems
and lead to intensified security precautions for airports, ferries, railroads,
and highways.
“Schell
supports new Monorail. Mayor shifts gears on plan for North Seattle.” (ST
8/22/2001 B1)
Tokyo
Disneyland monorail opens.
In
September the City of Calgary, Alberta announced its decision to use commercial
wind energy as the primary source of the light rail C-train's electricity.
NASA's
Ultra-Long Duration Balloon program launches test balloons in Australia.
More
than 58,000 computer viruses exist.
DVD
sales pass VCR sales; 40+ million U.S. homes have DVD.
UK
workers spend more time with email than with their children.
Logic
gates made entirely from nanotubes.
2002
“Citywide
Monorail on track; vote on Ballard-West Seattle route possible this Fall after
draft plan is approved.” (PI 6/4/2002 B1)
“Preserve
existing Monorail elsewhere.” (PI 6/20/2002 B6)
“Big
wheels oil the Monorail campaign.” (PI 9/24/2002 A1)
“Monorail,
it’s a go; in nail-biter, ‘yes’ votes finish 868 ahead;
opposition to disband.” (ST 11/20/2002 A1)
Aug.
5, 2002
— ETC publishes the Seattle Popular Monorail Plan, which proposes a
publicly funded, 19-station "Green Line" through the western side of
the city.
Voters
face Tim Eyman's Initiative 776 to repeal local auto excise taxes; $1.5 billon
Monorail plan; and Referendum 51 to raise gas taxes for $8 billion in state
transportation improvements.
Suspended
monorail (Siemens Skytrain) connector between a rail station and the airport
terminal opens at Düsseldorf International Airport, Germany.
ESA
launches Envisat to take simultaneous readings of atmospheric and terrestrial
features and contribute to understanding of global change
Found
in a South African cave, 77,000-year-old geometric carvings on stones.
2003
Income
from a new car-tab tax to build the monorail comes in one-third short of what
the agency estimated before the election. The shortfall reignites public debate
over whether the project should continue. Tight revenues become one reason for
the agency to consider building four of the 14 miles with a single track,
shared by northbound and southbound trains, instead of dual tracks. (Another
reason is the lesser bulk of having one track rather than two.)
“Two
Monorail giants duel for Seattle prize: one system lets you go from car to car,
the other is sleeker.” (PI 3/12/2003 B1)
“
Steinbrueck wants Monorail route to avoid Seattle Center.” (PI 9/11/03
B2)
“Groundbreaking
for Seattle light rail.” (ST 11/8/03 B1)
“Engineers
think smaller for Monorail bridge.” (PI 12/12/03 B3)
“One-track
Monorail would save money.” (PI 12/17/03 B1)
Five-cent-per-gallon
gas tax increase takes effect on July 1st, to fund $4.2 billion in priority
"nickel projects."
Naha
Monorail opens on Okinawa.
Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia Monorail
opens - Asia's largest monorail outside Japan, built by Monorail Malaysia.
Fastest
maglev train yet, at 581 km/h (363 mph) Japan, MLX01 train (manned).
Fastest
rail vehicle ever, at 5,722 mph (Mach 8.6). USA, Holloman Air Force Base High
Speed Test Track, unmanned rocket sled.
International
piracy of films is rampant.
Estmated
5 trillion unwanted messages set on the Internet.
U.S.
law bars telemarketers from "Do not call" phone list.
2004
Monorail
leaders believe tourist rides could boost project. They envision scenic Green
Line tours complete with onboard movie.” (ST 3/6/04 B1)
March
29—
After more than a year of listening to neighborhood comments, the monorail's governing
board approves an alignment that places tracks on the west side of 15th Avenue
Northwest in Ballard, Second Avenue downtown, and California Avenue Southwest
in West Seattle — within 6 feet of some buildings. The route curves
through Seattle Center, at the request of theatre and neighborhood groups that
opposed putting trains over Mercer Street. A Delridge station in West Seattle
is moved to the Nucor steel mill site, instead of next to Longfellow Creek and
single-family homes.
Other
features include multiple see-through elevators in each station instead of
escalators; bicycle access on all trains; energy-efficient braking systems; and
fare gates to ensure each rider buys a ticket. Columns would be as wide as 6
feet, instead of the 3 feet proposed in the 2002 campaign.
“Monorail
gears up $2.6 million ad blitz. Move draws criticism, but agency says it needs
to spread the word.” (ST 4/16/04 A1)
“Monorail
route will go through Center; Council OKs plan that avoids Mercer Street. Park
preservationists dealt a setback.” (PI 5/4/04 A1)
May
31—
One of two trains on the original 1962 Monorail line catches fire, trapping
about 100 riders over Fifth Avenue for a few minutes until firefighters and a
rescue train arrive. Fire Marshal John Nelsen says he will require emergency
escape catwalks for the Green Line.
“Monorail
to sit out tourist season.” (ST 6/24/04 B1)
June
14—
The Seattle City Council approves the track alignment in an 8-to-1 vote, after
adding several more feet of separation between trains and buildings. One lane
of car traffic will likely be removed from Second Avenue so that monorail
supports can be built out in the street, not in sidewalks.
“Monorail
opening delayed; full start now set for 2009.” (PI 7/15/04)
“Landlords
emerge as foes to Monorail.” (ST 8/2/04 A1)
“Monorail
to get back on track; Nickels announces plan to restore damaged train, improve
safety.” (PI 8/13/04 B1)
August — The Cascadia
Monorail Co., a consortium led by Washington Group International, Fluor and
Hitachi, submitted the only bid to build and operate the monorail. Contract
negotiations begin. Hitachi currently serves nearly a half-million riders a day
on six Japanese monorail lines. A second team, led by train giant Bombardier of
Canada, pulled out, mainly because its partners were unable to comply with the
monorail agency's extremely tough liability rules. The monorail agency also
made last-minute changes in the stations and catwalks that caught Bombardier's
team by surprise.
“Monorail
recall can go to vote, court says.” (ST 9/14/04 B1)
“Monorail
to restart by Christmas, but with only one train. The other won’t be back
until April.” (PI 12/9/04 B1)
“The
old Monorail rides again; the red train reopens to cheers from downtown
businesses.” (PI 12/17/04 B1)
WSDOT
announces that tunnel is preferred replacement for Alaskan Way Viaduct on
December 7th.
Expansion
of Robert N. Broadbent Las Vegas Monorail opens in Nevada, with seven stations.
First
commercial Transrapid maglev monorail system begins operating between Pudong Shanghai
International Airport and the Shanghai Lujiazui financial district. The
Transrapid in Shanghai has a design speed of over 500 km/h (310 mph) and a
regular service speed of 430 km/h (267 mph).
SpaceShipOne
- first commercial manned space flight.
Survey
lists cellphones as chief American love/hate object.
Photos
by two rover vehicles beamed back from Mars
Some
employers use GPS tracking to see if service workers are on the job.
2005
Proposed
start of construction, Green Line.
“Monorail
agency sues to gain right of way.” (ST 2/2/05)
“Monorail
vs. ‘sinking ship’ garage: Supreme Court tussle shapes up over
triangle of land downtown.” (PI 3/17/05)
World’s
Fair, Nagakute & Seto, Japan – Expo 2005
June
3rd: The Seattle Monorail Project announces a tentative $1.6 billion
contract with Cascadia, which is led by Fluor Enterprises and train supplier
Hitachi of Japan.
June
23rd: Green Line financing and debt costs balloon to $11 billion
over 50 years.
“State
treasurer says halt monorail” (ST 6/23/2005)
June
28th: City Council okays South Lake Union streetcar line.
June
30th: Public support for Green Line slipping
July
1st: Financing plan for Green Line abandoned. Project in limbo.
July
5th: Horn and Weeks, two top Monorail officials, resign
July
6th: First in a series of public meetings on the future of the
monorail project.
It
is widely argued that we have now reached the point of Peak Oil, that extraction and
production of fossil fuels will soon begin a slow but inexorable decline, at
ever greater cost, both financially and environmentally, at a time when demand
is growing faster than ever. This spells the end of cheap oil and major
stresses on our oil-guzzling civilization.
July
7th: Oil tops $61 a barrel.
Five-station
Intamin monorail system scheduled to open in Moscow.
Chongqing,
China: China's first major Alweg-type monorail system, with 17 stations, is
scheduled to open. Part of the line is a subway.
Expo
2005 in Seto Japan opens with he Linear Shinkansen Bullet Train System -Maglev
monorail service capable of traveling at 500 kilometers per hour.
iPod
holds up to 15,000 tunes, but fits into a shirt pocket. Equivalent to the data
that could be stored on half a billion IBM punch-cards. – a stack about
31 miles high
US
Supreme Court rules that distributors of file-swapping software can be held
liable for copyright infringement.
The
US government decides to indefinitely retain control of the 13 root servers
that direct all internet traffic to the right locations.
2006
Hitachi’s
“Sentosa Express” four-station monorail slated to open in
Singapore.
2007
Seattle’s
famous 1962 ALWEG Monorail scheduled for demolition.
Indonesia's
first major Alweg-type monorail system slated to open in Jakarta with 29
stations.
2010
Entire
Green Line to be completed?
2030
Two
million additional citizens expected to live in Washington.
2055
According
to the June 2005 revised financing plan for the first phase of the Seattle
monorail system (The Green Line), Seattleites will have finished paying $11 billion
for a $2 billion monorail ($9 billion in interest) – assuming that there
are still as many or more people driving private automobiles in Seattle through
2055 (to pay the car-tab tax). Plan scrapped in July 2005.