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Silver Dart

Silver Dart

__NOTOC__ The Silver Dart (or Aerodrome #4) was an early aircraft which was flown off the ice at Baddeck, Nova Scotia on February 23, 1909. This was the first controlled powered flight in Canada and the British Empire. The plane was piloted by one of its designers, John McCurdy. The original Silver Dart was the fruit of the Aerial Experiment Association formed under the guidance of Alexander Graham Bell. The frame and structure of the Silver Dart was made of steel tube, bamboo, friction tape, wire, and wood. The wings were covered with rubberized silk balloon-cloth. Its engine was a reliable V-8 that developed 35 hp (26 kW) at 1000 rpm supplied by Glenn Curtiss. It had no brakes. The propeller was carved from a solid block of wood. The airplane had what is now called a canard or an "elevator in front" design. Like most aircraft of its day it had poor control characteristics. By the time the Silver Dart was constructed in late 1908, it was the Aerial Experiment Association's fourth flying machine. One of its precursors, the June Bug, had already broken records. It won the Scientific American Trophy for making the first official one kilometer flight in North America. But the Silver Dart outdid this when on March 10 1909, McCurdy flew the airplane on a circular course over a distance of more than 35 km (20 mi). The first passenger flight in Canada was made in the Silver Dart on August 2 1909. The Canadian Army was unimpressed at the headway made by the group. The general impression of the time was that airplanes would never amount to much in actual warfare. Despite official skepticism the Association was finally invited to the military base at Petawawa to demonstrate the airplane. The sandy terrain made a poor runway for an aircraft with landing wheels about 2 inches (50 mm) in diameter. The Silver Dart had great difficulty taking off. On its fifth flight McCurdy wrecked the craft when one wheel struck a rise in the ground while landing. The career of the Silver Dart thus ended ignominiously. There is a reconstruction of the Silver Dart at the Canadian Aviation Museum in Ottawa. The reconstruction was built by volunteers from the Royal Canadian Air Force between 1956 and 1958 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first flight. The aircraft flew on the day of the anniversary but crashed due to high winds.

Specifications (Silver Dart)

General Characteristics


- Crew: one pilot
- Length: 30 ft 0 in (9.15 m)
- Wingspan: 49 ft 1 in (14.96 m)
- Height: ft in ( m)
- Wing area: ft² ( m²)
- Empty: lb ( kg)
- Loaded: lb (390 kg)
- Maximum takeoff: lb ( kg)
- Powerplant: 1x Curtiss water-cooled V-8, 50 hp (37 kW)

Performance


- Maximum speed: 40 mph (64 km/h)
- Range: 20 miles (35 km)
- Service ceiling: ft ( m)
- Rate of climb: ft/min ( m/min)
- Wing loading:
- Power/Mass:

Related content

Related development: Comparable aircraft: Designation sequence: #1 - #2 - #3 - #4 - #5

External link


- [http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-75-419-2424-20/that_was_then/science_technology/silver_dart Audio recording of a CBC Interview with pilot John McCurdy about the first flight] Category:Canadian experimental aircraft 1900-1909 Category:U.S. experimental aircraft 1900-1909 Category:Cape Breton Island

Baddeck, Nova Scotia

The village of Baddeck is located on Cape Breton Island in the Province of Nova Scotia, Canada It is situated on the shores of the beautiful Bras d'Or Lake (Golden Arm) in the heart of Cape Breton lsland. According to some historians the name Baddeck is derived from the Mi'kmaq 'Abadak' meaning place with an island near.

History

The earliest recorded European visitation was that of the French Catholic missionaries who came as early as 1629. Of these, the only one of whom there is historical record is the Abbe Maillard, who came from France to Louisbourg. In about 1790 Loyalist Captain Jonathan Jones and his family arrived. They were the first English settlers having been given grants of crown land in the Baddeck River area. They were closely followed by other Loyalists and many immigrants from Scotland. In 1813, Lieutenant James Duffus, whose wife was a sister-in-law of Sir Samuel Cunard founder of the Cunard Line of steamships, was given a grant of land which proved to be the island referred to in the naming of Baddeck. Here he carried on a mercantile business until his death more than twenty years later, during which time the place was known as Duffus Island. In 1833 a Mr. William Kidston, returning to Scotland from Halifax was shipwrecked off Cape North and found his way to Baddeck and the lsland. Here he met and married the widow of James Duffus. The Island's name was later changed to Kidston's Island. The community owes much to Mr. Kidston. It was he who advised the separation of Cape Breton and Victoria Counties and gave the site of the present Court House to the village. The Kidston business was moved to the mainland in 1840. It was later taken over by a gentleman from Colchester County named Angus Tupper. His wife was the daughter of the Hon. David McCurdy, and when her husband died, her brother Edward McCurdy arrived to help her with the business. The McCurdy family was later induced to settle in Baddeck and with their coming came further progress for the growing community. The head of the family, Hon. Mr. McCurdy, set up a business and brought a young man named Thompson from Pictou County to start a Tin-smithing shop. A shoe making business was next started by a Mr. Procter which led to the establishing of two tanneries on the shore road. The McCurdy family contributed much to the growth and development of Baddeck. One of their direct descendants, the late Hon. John A.D. McCurdy, former Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, made history on a cold day in February, 1909 when he made the first airplane flight in the British Empire at the wheel of the Silver Dart the used the frozen Baddeck Bay as its runway. The history of the village proper began in 1839 with the settlement of two families on the mainland. One was that of Joseph Campbell, a native of Newry, Ireland who built an Inn on a property near Indian Cove. The Inn also contained a tavern and a Post Office, and Mr. Campbell became Baddeck's first Post Master. Mail was brought from Sydney by carriers on foot with the mail bags on their backs. Mr. Campbell later moved to the United States. The second family was that of Hector MacLean of Scotland who built his home on the property adjoining the old Knox Cemetery on the Bay Road. Between these two homesteads there were no other residences but the wigwams of the Indians along the shore of the Lake. In 1841, Mr. Charles J. Campbell, who in later years was known far and wide as the Hon. C. J. Campbell, opened a store on the waterfront. He catered to the large Scottish trade in the area and across the lake in Boisdale, Iona, Grand Narrows, and Washabuct. He swept all opposition before him for was he not a Highlander, speaking the Gaelic as his mother tongue. The Hon. Mr. Campbell who was largely responsible for the growth of the village. In addition to his mercantile business he undertook shipbuilding and turned out many large ships between 1844 and 1881. He also developed the Kelly's Cove coal deposits and built his home which later became the Hotel Baddeck which eventually burned down. He named it 'Duntulum House', a name now given to one of our streets and where now stands the Alderwood Rest Home. He also donated the land for the new cemetery and was one of the first to be interred there. The settlement of New Campbellton was named in his honor and for many years his face looked out from a plaque above the door of 'Gertrude Hall' which was destroyed by fire in 1939. About this time a far-seeing resident named Hezekiah Ingraham took steps to educate his family. He hired a teacher and set aside a room in his home where the children of the neighbourhood were introduced to the three 'R's'. Though himself a Protestant, he made no religious distinction. This is surprising because at that time religious intolerance and bigotry was the rule, but more than a few Catholic children were among those receiving instruction. Soon the small room could no longer contain the numbers and so the first school in Victoria County was built. Later it was enlarged and from Baddeck Academy have gone forth men and women who were to distinguish themselves and bring honor to their homeland at the Bar, in the pulpit, in the medical profession, on the political platform and in business throughout Canada and the United States. Among the pioneer families who lived in the area at this time we find such names as Sparling, Leaver, Taylor, Robertson, and others many of which still remain throughout the area. The first church built in Baddeck was erected on the Bay Road in 1841. It was removed in 1865 and a larger edifice took its place. In 1890 this was abandoned and Greenwood Church was built on its present site. In 1925 when Greenwood joined the union, a new Knox Church, the present structure, was built on Grant Street. A Methodist Church was built but was later domolished because of diminishing membership though the Rectory still stands and is used as a dwelling. In 1880 St. Peter's Church of England and a Congregational Church were built. The latter was later purchased by Mrs. Dr. Bell and renamed 'Gertrude Hall'. For a time it housed the Baddeck Public Library but was destroyed by fire in 1939 when only 1,800 of its 8,000 books were saved. The first Catholic Church was built on the present site in 1858 and was named St. Michael's. It was lost in the big fire of 1926, but a new St. Michael's soon rose from the ashes of the old one. The first freight and passenger ship to come up the Bras d'Or Lake was called 'Banshee', which arrived in 1855. As the years went by, and more and more business opened up, more and larger ships arrived and an extensive export business was carried on with Newfoundland and the French Island of St. Pierre. Chief exports were cattle, sheep, and farm produce. New buildings went up, among them the Telegraph House (still operated by descendants of the first owners, Mr. and Mrs. David Dunlop) in 1860. Prominent among business names of that time were Joseph Hart and Son, MacKay and MacAskill, J.P. MacLeod, D.F. MacRae (White Store), John E. Campbell and others. In 1885, Alexander Graham Bell, his wife Mabel, and their two young daughters, arrived by boat from the Strait of Canso. They fell in love with Baddeck and returned to build their beautiful home on Beinn Bhreagh. Thus began a new era for the people of the village. The Bells took them all to their hearts and their home and Doctor and Mrs. Bell did a great deal to promote culture, sociability, and industry among the villagers. In his lab on the mountain top, Doctor Bell conducted many experiments, built boats, and gave employment to many of the people; while Mrs. Bell did much to foster home industries, among them the hooking of rugs for which the village of Chéticamp is today so famous. Doctor Bell died at Baddeck in 1922. His life companion followed him in a few months and together they sleep at the top of their beautiful mountain under a simple boulder of granite. In these early days Baddeck was an up and coming community. It boasted three newspapers: The Telephone edited by Mr. Charles Pippy; The lsland Reporter, Mr. W.F. McCurdy; and later the Victoria News by Mr. Charles Gilman. It had five doctors, three lawyers, a drug store, two hotels, six stores, a Chinese laundry, two merchant tailors, marble and granite works, a Brass Band and Band stand, a photographic store, plank sidewalks, and telephone facilities. The Court House was built in 1890 and the Yacht Club in 1902. The Home and School Association had its birth at Baddeck in l895 and the Public Library of 8,000 books was housed in Gertrude Hall. The outlying sections at this time were all prosperous farms until the markets for their produce were lost. Today there are ghost farms where once flourished stables full of beautiful horses and cattle. The homes were furnished with hand woven carpets, drapes, linen and bedding, and much of their furniture was made by hand, many of them being skilled craftsmen. In the 1900's tragedy struck twice in Baddeck. In 1908 a terrible epidemic of cholera broke out, taking the lives of thirty-one persons in a short time. On the eve of Labour Day on a Sunday in 1926, a disastrous fire broke out in the general store of MacKay and MacAskill on Main Street. The fire fighters were hampered by lack of equipment and before dawn more than twenty buildings were destroyed in the conflagration. During World War II the Royal Canadian Navy named a Flower class corvette HMCS Baddeck. Today Baddeck boasts a well-equipped Volunteer Fire Department, a large, consolidated school, a colonial styled Provincial building, a new hospital, a home for the aged, a beautifully constructed Museum built by the Federal Government to house the works of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, a well-stocked Public Library, a world-class golf course, yacht club, excellent hotel and motel facilities, and a fine selection of eating and shopping establishments.

External links


- [http://www.baddeck.com/ Baddeck] Category:Communities in Nova Scotia Category:Cape Breton Island

1909 in aviation

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1909:

Events

February


- February 23 - John McCurdy makes the first aeroplane flight in Canada in the Silver Dart

May


- May 14 - Samuel Cody makes the first aeroplane flight in the UK longer than 1 mile (1.6 km) in British Army Aeroplane No. 1.

July


- The International Exhibition of Aviation opens in Frankfurt-am-Main (now known as ILA and regularly held in Berlin).
- July 25 - Louis Blériot claims a £1,000 prize from the British Daily Mail newspaper for being the first pilot to cross the English Channel. He makes the crossing in his Blériot Type XI from Les Barraques (near Calais) to Northfall Meadow (near Dover Castle) in 37 minutes. Blériot also received an additional £3,000 from the French government.

August


- First International Air Races held in Reims. Glenn Curtiss wins Major Prize.

October


- Die Deutsche Luftschiffahrt Aktiengessellschaft (DELAG) becomes the world's first airline, founded at Frankfurt-am-Main.
- October 30 - John Moore-Brabazon in a Short Brothers aircraft flies the first circular mile in the UK and wins £1,000 from the Daily Mail newspaper.

November


- November 3 - Alec Ogilvie patents the first airspeed indicator.
- November 4 - John Moore-Brabazon makes the first live cargo flight by airplane when he puts a small pig in a waste-paper basket tied to a wing-strut of his airplane.
- November 16, foundation of the first air transport company in the world, DELAG (German Aviation Company).

First flights

Entered service

March
- Zeppelin LZ 3 into the German Army as the Z 1 August
- August 1 - Wright 1908 Flyer into the US Army as Aeroplane No. 1 Category:Timeline of aviation Category:1909

British Empire

The British Empire was the world's first global power and the largest empire in history. It was a product of the European Age of Discovery that began with the global maritime empires of Portugal and Spain in the late 15th century. By 1921 the British Empire held sway over a population of about 470–570 million people—roughly a quarter of the world's population—and covered about 14.3 million square miles (more than 37 million km²), almost a third of the world's total land area. Though it has since almost completely disappeared, there remains a strong influence across the world, such as in economic practice, legal and government systems, the spread of many traditionally British sports (such as cricket) and also the spread of the English language.

Background: The English and Scottish Empires

The Anglo-Norman Kingdom

In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, conquered England and made asserted his right to be king, giving England its first overseas territory (Normandy). The new rulers had dual roles. First, as kings of England they were sovereign lords. Second, as dukes of Normandy, they were vassals of the kings of France. This led to centuries of conflicts which ended with their loss of French holdings in 1558. In the meantime, the annexation of Ireland began in 1172 and Wales was conquered in 1282.

Growth of the overseas empire

1282, site of England's first overseas colony.]] The overseas British Empire — in the sense of British oceanic exploration and settlement outside of Europe and the British Isles — was rooted in the pioneering maritime policies of King Henry VII, who reigned 1485–1509. Building on commercial links in the wool trade promoted during the reign of his predecessor King Richard III, Henry established the modern English merchant marine system, which greatly expanded English shipbuilding and seafaring. The merchant marine also supplied the basis for the mercantile institutions that would play such a crucial role in later British imperial ventures, such as the Massachusetts Bay Company and the British East India Company. Henry's financial reforms made the English Exchequer solvent, which helped to underwrite the development of the Merchant Marine. Henry also ordered construction of the first English dry dock, at Portsmouth, and made improvements to England's small navy. Additionally, Henry sponsored the voyages of the Italian mariner John Cabot in 1496 and 1497 that established England's first overseas colony - a fishing settlement - in Newfoundland, which Cabot claimed on behalf of Henry.

Henry VIII and the rise of the Royal Navy

The foundations of sea power, having been laid during Henry VII's reign, were gradually expanded to protect English trade and open up new routes. King Henry VIII founded the modern English navy (though the plans to do so were put into motion during his father's reign), more than tripling the number of warships and constructing the first large vessels with heavy, long-range guns. He initiated the Navy's formal, centralised administrative apparatus, built new docks, and constructed the network of beacons and lighthouses that greatly facilitated coastal navigation for English and foreign merchant sailors. Henry thus established the munitions-based Royal Navy that was able to repulse the Spanish Armada in 1588, and his innovations provided the seed for the imperial navy of later centuries.

The Elizabethan era

Elizabethan era.]] During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe in the years 1577 to 1580, only the second to accomplish this feat after Ferdinand Magellan's expedition. In 1579, Drake landed somewhere in northern California and claimed for the Crown what he named Nova Albion ("New Albion", Albion being an ancient name for Britain), though the claim was not followed by settlement. Subsequent maps spell out Nova Albion to the north of all New Spain. Thereafter, England's interests outside Europe grew steadily, promoted by John Dee, who coined the phrase "British Empire". An expert in navigation, many of the early English explorers visited him before and after their expeditions. His conception was derived from Dante's book Monarchia. A Welshman himself, his use of the term British fitted with the Welsh origins of Elizabeth's Tudor family. Humphrey Gilbert followed on Cabot's original claim when he sailed to Newfoundland in 1583 and declared it an English colony on August 5 at St John's. Sir Walter Raleigh organised the first colony in Virginia in 1587 at Roanoke Island. Both Gilbert's Newfoundland settlement and the Roanoke colony were short-lived, however, and had to be abandoned due to food shortages, severe weather, shipwrecks, and hostile encounters with indigenous tribes on the American continent. The Elizabethan era built on the past century's imperial foundations by expanding Henry VIII's navy, promoting Atlantic exploration by English sailors, and further encouraging maritime trade especially with the Netherlands and the Hanseatic League. However, the Elizabethan navy suffered severe defeats against the Spanish fleets in the Anglo-Spanish War following the Spanish Armada campaign, which weakened the Royal Navy and allowed Spain to retain effective control of Atlantic sea lanes until the 1630s, when decisive victories by the Dutch made the Netherlands the dominant seafaring nation in the Atlantic.

The Stuart era

The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 during the Anglo-Spanish War (1585-1604) helped to strengthen England's advance toward becoming a major naval power, but this naval advantage was lost in the attack upon Spain by the disastrous Drake-Norris Expedition of 1589, and subsequent naval and land defeats at the hands of Spain in the 1590s thwarted attempts to settle North America, and helped damage the English Exchequer. However it did give English sailors and shipbuilders vital experience. Finally in 1604, King James I of England negotiated the Treaty of London which ceased hostilities with Spain, and the first permanent English settlement followed in 1607 at Jamestown, Virginia. During the next three centuries, England extended its influence overseas and consolidated its political development at home. In 1707, the parliaments of England and Scotland were united in London as the parliament of Great Britain.

Scottish Empire

There were several pre-union attempts at creating a Scottish Overseas Empire, with various Scottish settlements in North and South America. The most famous of these was the disastrous Darién scheme which attempted to establish a settlement colony and trading post in Panama to foster trade between Scotland and the Far East. After union many Scots, especially in Canada and Australia, took up posts as doctors, lawyers and teachers. Progressions in Scotland itself during the Scottish enlightenment led to advancements throughout the empire. Scots settled across the Empire as it developed and built up their own communities such as Dunedin in New Zealand.

Colonisation

In 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed the island of Newfoundland as England's for Elizabeth I, reinforcing John Cabot's prior claim to the island in 1497, for Henry VII, as England's first overseas colony. Gilbert's shipwreck prevented ensuing settlement in Newfoundland, other than the seasonal cod fishermen who had frequented the island since 1497. However, the Jamestown colonists, led by Captain John Smith, overcame the severe privations of the winter in 1607 to found England's first permanent overseas settlement. The empire thus took shape during the early 17th century, with the English settlement of the eastern colonies of North America, which would later become the original United States as well as Canada's Atlantic provinces, and the colonisation of the smaller islands of the Caribbean such as Jamaica and Barbados. The sugar-producing colonies of the Caribbean, where slavery became the basis of the economy, were at first England's most important and lucrative colonies. The American colonies providing tobacco, cotton, and rice in the south and naval materiel and furs in the north were less financially successful, but had large areas of good agricultural land and attracted far larger numbers of English emigrants. materiel.]] England's American empire was slowly expanded by war and colonisation, England gaining control of New Amsterdam (later New York) via negotiations following the Second Anglo-Dutch War. The growing American colonies pressed ever westward in search of new agricultural lands. During the Seven Years War the British defeated the French at the Plains of Abraham and captured all of New France in 1760, giving Britain control over the greater part of North America. Later, settlement of Australia (starting with penal colonies from 1788) and New Zealand (under the crown from 1840) created a major zone of British migration. The entire Australian continent was claimed for Britain when Matthew Flinders proved New Holland and New South Wales to be a single land mass by completing a circumnavigation of it in 1803. The colonies later became self-governing colonies and became profitable exporters of wool and gold. See also British colonisation of the Americas, Colonial history of America

Free trade and "informal empire"

Main article: Pax Britannica. Pax Britannica The old British colonial system began to decline in the 18th century. During the long period of unbroken Whig dominance of domestic political life (1714–62), the Empire became less important and less well-regarded, until an ill-fated attempt (largely involving taxes, monopolies, and zoning) to reverse the resulting "salutary neglect" (or "benign neglect") provoked the American War of Independence (1775–83), depriving Britain of her most populous colonies. The period is sometimes referred to as the end of the "first British Empire", indicating the shift of British expansion from the Americas in the 17th and 18th centuries to the "second British Empire" in Asia and later also Africa from the 18th century. The loss of the Thirteen Colonies showed that colonies were not necessarily particularly beneficial in economic terms, since Britain could still dominate trade with the ex-colonies without having to pay for their defence and administration. Mercantilism, the economic doctrine of competition between nations for a finite amount of wealth which had characterised the first period of colonial expansion, now gave way in Britain and elsewhere to the laissez-faire economic liberalism of Adam Smith and successors like Richard Cobden. The lesson of Britain's North American loss — that trade might continue to bring prosperity even in the absence of colonial rule — contributed to the extension in the 1840s and 1850s of self-governing colony status to white settler colonies in Canada and Australasia whose British or European inhabitants were seen as outposts of the "mother country". Ireland was treated differently because of its geographic proximity, and incorporated into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801; due largely to the impact of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 against English rule. During this period, Britain also outlawed the slave trade (1807) and soon began enforcing this principle on other nations. By the mid-19th century Britain had largely eradicated the world slave trade. Slavery itself was abolished in the British colonies in 1834, though the phenomenon of indentured labour retained much of its oppressive character until 1920. The end of the old colonial and slave systems was accompanied by the adoption of free trade, culminating in the repeal of the Corn Laws and Navigation Acts in the 1840s. Free trade opened the British market to unfettered competition, stimulating reciprocal action by other countries during the middle quarters of the 19th century. 1840s and the beginning of the Pax Britannica.]] Some argue that the rise of free trade merely reflected Britain's economic position and was unconnected with any true philosophical conviction. Despite the earlier loss of 13 of Britain's North American colonies, the final defeat in Europe of Napoleonic France in 1815 left Britain the most successful international power. While the Industrial Revolution at home gave her an unrivalled economic leadership, the Royal Navy dominated the seas. The distraction of rival powers by European matters enabled Britain to pursue a phase of expansion of her economic and political influence through "informal empire" underpinned by free trade and strategic pre-eminence. Between the Congress of Vienna of 1815 and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Britain was the world's sole industrialised power, with over 30% of the global industrial output in 1870. As the "workshop of the world", Britain could produce finished manufactures so efficiently and cheaply that they could undersell comparable locally produced goods in foreign markets. Given stable political conditions in particular overseas markets, Britain could prosper through free trade alone without having to resort to formal rule. The Americas in particular (especially in Argentina and the United States) were seen as being well under the informal British trade empire due to Britain's enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine keeping other European nations from establishing formal rule in the area.

British East India Company

Main article: British East India Company The British East India Company was probably the most successful chapter in the British Empire's history as it was responsible for the colonisation of the Indian subcontinent, which would become the British Empire's largest source of revenue, along with the conquest of Hong Kong, Singapore, Ceylon, Malaya (which was also one of the largest sources of revenue) and other surrounding Asian countries, and were thus responsible for establishing Britian's Asian empire, the most important component of the British Empire. The British East India Company originally began as a joint-stock company of traders and investors based in Leadenhall Street, East London, which was granted a Royal Charter by Elizabeth I in 1600, with the intent to favour trade privileges in India. The Royal Charter effectively gave the newly created Honourable East India Company a monopoly on all trade with the East Indies. The Company transformed from a commercial trading venture to one which virtually ruled India as it acquired auxiliary governmental and military functions, along with a very large private army consisting of local Indian sepoys, who were loyal to their British commanders and were probably the most important factor in Britain's Asian conquest. The British East India Company eventually became the world's first multinational corporation and Britain's largest source of income until its collapse in 1857. [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FQP/is_4718_133/ai_n8694155] The Company also had interests along the routes to India from Great Britain. As early as 1620, the company attempted to lay claim to the Table Mountain region in South Africa, later it occupied and ruled St Helena. The Company also established Hong Kong and Singapore; employed Captain Kidd to combat piracy; and cultivated the production of tea in India. Other notable events in the Company's history were that it held Napoleon captive on Saint Helena, and made the fortune of Elihu Yale. Its products were the basis of the Boston Tea Party in Colonial America. In 1615, Sir Thomas Roe was instructed by James I to visit the Mughal Emperor Jahangir (who ruled over most of the Indian subcontinent at the time, along with parts of Afghanistan). The purpose of this mission was to arrange for a commercial treaty which would give the Company exclusive rights to reside and build factories in Surat and other areas. In return, the Company offered to provide to the emperor goods and rarities from the European market. This mission was highly successful and Jahangir sent a letter to the King through Sir Thomas. The British East India Company found itself completely dominant over the French, Dutch and Portuguese trading companies in the Indian subcontinent as a result. In 1634, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan extended his hospitality to the English traders to the region of Bengal, which had the world's largest textile industry at the time. In 1717, the Mughal Emperor at the time completely waived customs duties for the trade, giving the Company a decided commercial advantage in the Indian trade. With the Company's large revenues, it raised its own armed forces from the 1680s, mainly drawn from the indigenous local population, who were Indian sepoys under the command of British officers.

Expansion

sepoys established the Company as a military as well as a commercial power.]] The decline of the Mughal Empire, which had separated into many smaller states controlled by local rulers who were often in conflict with one another, allowed the Company to expand its territories, which began in 1757, when the Company came into conflict with the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj Ud Daulah. Under the leadership of Robert Clive, the Company troops and their local allies defeated the Nawab on 23 June 1757 at the Battle of Plassey, mostly due to the treachery of the Nawab's former army chief Mir Jafar. This victory, which resulted in the conquest of Bengal, established the British East India Company as a military as well as a commercial power, and marked the beginning of British rule in India. The wealth gained from the Bengal treasury allowed the Company to significantly strengthen its military might and as a result, extend its territories, conquering most parts of India with the massive Indian army it has acquired. They fought many wars with local Indian rulers during their conquest of India, the most difficult probably being the four Anglo-Mysore Wars (between 1766 and 1799) against the South Indian Kingdom of Mysore ruled by Hyder Ali, and later his son Tipu Sultan. Mysore was only defeated in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War by the combined forces of Britain and of Mysore's neighbours, for which Tipu Sultan and Hyder Ali are remembered in India as legendary rulers. There was a number of other states which the Company couldn't conquer through military might, mostly in the North, where the Company's presence was ever increasing amidst the internal conflict and dubious offers of protection against one another. Coercive action, threats and diplomacy aided the Company in preventing the local rulers from putting up a united struggle against it. By the 1850s, the Company ruled over most of the Indian subcontinent and as a result, the Company began to function more as a nation and less as a trading concern. They were also responsible for the illegal Opium trade with China against the Qing Emperor's will, which later led to the two Opium Wars (between 1834 and 1860). As a result of the Company's victory in the First Opium War, it established Hong Kong. The Company also had a number of wars with other surrounding Asian countries, the most difficult probably being the three Anglo-Afghan Wars (between 1839 and 1919) against Afghanistan, which were mostly unsuccessful.

Collapse

The Company's rule effectively came to an end 100 years after its conquest since 1757, when the 1857 Indian Mutiny took place, known to many Indians as the First War of Independence, which saw many of the Company's Indian sepoys begin an armed uprising against their British commanders, after a period of political unrest triggered by a number of political events. One of the major factors was the Company's introduction of the Lee-Enfield rifle, where its cartridges, which were covered by greased cow fat and pig fat, were supposed to be cut by the teeth before the cartridges were loaded into the rifles. Cow fat was forbidden for the Hindu soldiers, while pig fat was forbidden for the Muslim soldiers, so they had to either "bite the bullet" or resist their commanders. Another factor was the execution of the Indian sepoy Mangal Pandey who was hanged for attacking and injuring his British superiors, possibly out of insult for the introduction of the Lee Enfield rifle or a number of other reasons. These factors combined with a number of other reasons resulted in the Mutiny, which eventually brought about the end of the British East India Company's regime in India, and instead led to 90 years of direct rule of the Indian subcontinent by Britain, after the British East India Company was dissolved. The period of direct British rule in India is known as the British Raj, when the regions of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh would collectively be known as British India. The former British East India Company headquarters in Leadenhall Street, East London was taken over by Lloyds Bank in 1873. Leadenhall Street is now resided by a large Bengali community, around where the former headquarters were.

Breakdown of Pax Britannica

As the first country to industrialise, Britain had been able to draw on most of the accessible world for raw materials and markets. But this situation gradually deteriorated during the 19th century as other powers began to industrialise and sought to use the state to guarantee their markets and sources of supply. By the 1870s, British manufactures in the staple industries of the Industrial Revolution were beginning to experience real competition abroad. Industrialisation progressed rapidly in Germany and the United States, allowing them to take over the "old" British and French capitalisms as world leader in some areas. The German textile and metal industries, for example, had by 1870, surpassed those of Britain in organisation and technical efficiency and usurped British manufactures in the domestic market. By the turn of the century, the German metals and engineering industries would even be producing for the free trade market of the former "workshop of the world". While invisible exports (banking, insurance and shipping services) kept Britain "out of the red," her share of world trade fell from a quarter in 1880 to a sixth in 1913. Britain was losing out not only in the markets of newly industrialising countries, but also against third-party competition in less-developed countries. Britain was even losing her former overwhelming dominance in trade with India, China, Latin America, or the coasts of Africa. Britain's commercial difficulties deepened with the onset of the "Long Depression" of 1873–96, a prolonged period of price deflation punctuated by severe business downturns which added to pressure on governments to promote home industry, leading to the widespread abandonment of free trade among Europe's powers (in Germany from 1879 and in France from 1881). The resulting limitation of both domestic markets and export opportunities led government and business leaders in Europe and later the US to see the solution in sheltered overseas markets united to the home country behind imperial tariff barriers: new overseas subjects would provide export markets free of foreign competition, while supplying cheap raw materials. Although she continued to adhere to free trade until 1932, Britain joined the renewed scramble for formal empire rather than allow areas under her influence to be seized by rivals.

Britain and the New Imperialism

Main article: New Imperialism. New Imperialism.]] The policy and ideology of European colonial expansion between the 1870s and the outbreak of World War I in 1914 are often characterised as the "New Imperialism". The period is distinguished by an unprecedented pursuit of what has been termed "empire for empire's sake", aggressive competition for overseas territorial acquisitions and the emergence in colonising countries of doctrines of racial superiority which denied the fitness of subjugated peoples for self-government. During this period, Europe's powers added nearly 8,880,000 sq mi (23,000,000 km²) to their overseas colonial possessions. As it was mostly unoccupied by the Western powers as late as the 1880s, Africa became the primary target of the "new" imperialist expansion, although conquest took place also in other areas — notably south-east Asia and the East Asian seaboard, where the United States and Japan joined the European powers' scramble for territory. Britain's entry into the new imperial age is often dated to 1875, when the Conservative government of Benjamin Disraeli bought the indebted Egyptian ruler Ismail's shareholding in the Suez Canal to secure control of this strategic waterway, a channel for shipping between Britain and India since its opening six years earlier under Emperor Napoleon III. Joint Anglo-French financial control over Egypt ended in outright British occupation in 1882. Fear of Russia's centuries-old southward expansion was a further factor in British policy: in 1878 Britain took control of Cyprus as a base for action against a Russian attack on the Ottoman Empire, after having taken part in the Crimean War 1854–56 and invading Afghanistan to forestall an increase in Russian influence there. Britain waged three bloody and unsuccessful wars in Afghanistan, as ferocious popular rebellions, invocations of jihad and inscrutable terrain frustrated British objectives. The First Anglo-Afghan War led to one of the most disastrous defeats of the Victorian military when an entire British army was wiped out by Russian-supplied Afghan Pashtun tribesmen during the 1842 retreat from Kabul. The Second Anglo-Afghan War led to the British debacle at Maiwand in 1880, the siege of Kabul and British withdrawal into India. The Third Anglo-Afghan War of 1919 stoked a tribal uprising against the exhausted British military on the heels of World War I and expelled the British permanently from the new Afghan state. The "Great Game" in Inner Asia ended with a bloody and wholly unnecessary British expedition against Tibet in 1903–04. At the same time, some powerful industrial lobbies and government leaders in Britain, later exemplified by Joseph Chamberlain, came to view formal empire as necessary to arrest Britain's relative decline in world markets. During the 1890s Britain adopted the new policy wholeheartedly, quickly emerging as the front-runner in the scramble for tropical African territories. Britain's adoption of the New Imperialism may be seen as a quest for captive markets or fields for investment of surplus capital, or as a primarily strategic or pre-emptive attempt to protect existing trade links and to prevent the absorption of overseas markets into the increasingly closed imperial trading blocs of rival powers. The failure in the 1900s of Chamberlain's Tariff Reform campaign for Imperial protection illustrates the strength of free trade feeling even in the face of loss of international market share. Historians have argued that Britain's adoption of the "New imperialism" was an effect of her relative decline in the world, rather than of strength. The evolution of colonialism in India should dissuade people from sweeping generalisations and over-simplifications regarding the roles of inter-capitalist competition and accumulated surplus in precipitating the era of the New Imperialism. Formal empire in India, beginning with the Government of India Act of 1858, was a means of consolidation, reacting to the abortive Indian Mutiny, which was in itself a conservative reaction among Indian traditionalists to British policy in the subcontinent.

Britain and the Scramble for Africa

Main article: Scramble for Africa. Scramble for Africa In 1875 the two most important European holdings in Africa were Algeria and the Cape Colony. By 1914 only Ethiopia and the republic of Liberia remained outside formal European control. The transition from an "informal empire" of control through economic dominance to direct control took the form of a "scramble" for territory by the nations of Europe. Britain tried not to play a part in this early scramble, being more of a trading empire rather then a colonial empire; however, it soon became clear it had to gain its own African empire to maintain the balance of power. As French, Belgian and Portuguese activity in the lower Congo River region threatened to undermine orderly penetration of tropical Africa, the Berlin Conference of 1884–85 sought to regulate the competition between the powers by defining "effective occupation" as the criterion for international recognition of territorial claims, a formulation which necessitated routine recourse to armed force against indigenous states and peoples. Britain's 1882 military occupation of Egypt (itself triggered by concern over the Suez Canal) contributed to a preoccupation over securing control of the Nile valley, leading to the conquest of the neighbouring Sudan in 1896–98 and confrontation with a French military expedition at Fashoda (September 1898). In 1899 Britain completed her takeover of what is today South Africa. This had begun with the annexation of the Cape in 1795 and continued with the conquest of the Boer Republics in the late 19th century, following the Boer Wars. Cecil Rhodes was the pioneer of British expansion north into Africa with his privately owned British South Africa Company. Rhodes expanded into the land north of South Africa and established Rhodesia. Rhodes' dream of a railway connecting Cape Town to Alexandria passing through a British Africa covering the continent is what led to his company's pressure on the government for further expansion into Africa. British gains in southern and East Africa prompted Rhodes and Alfred Milner, Britain's High Commissioner in South Africa, to urge a "Cape-to-Cairo" empire linking by rail the strategically important Canal to the mineral-rich South, though German occupation of Tanganyika prevented its realisation until the end of World War I. In 1903, the All Red Line telegraph system communicated with the major parts of the Empire. Paradoxically Britain, the staunch advocate of free trade, emerged in 1914 with not only the largest overseas empire thanks to her long-standing presence in India, but also the greatest gains in the "scramble for Africa", reflecting her advantageous position at its inception. Between 1885 and 1914 Britain took nearly 30% of Africa's population under her control, compared to 15 per cent for France, 9 per cent for Germany, 7 per cent for Belgium and 1 per cent for Italy: Nigeria alone contributed 15 million subjects, more than in the whole of French West Africa or the entire German colonial empire.

Home Rule in white-settler colonies

Britain's empire had already begun its transformation into the modern Commonwealth with the extension of Dominion status to the already self-governing colonies of Canada (1867), Australia (1901), New Zealand (1907), Newfoundland (1907), and the newly-created Union of South Africa (1910). Leaders of the new states joined with British statesmen in periodic Colonial (from 1907, Imperial) Conferences, the first of which was held in London in 1887. The foreign relations of the Dominions were still conducted through the Foreign Office of the United Kingdom: Canada created a Department of External Affairs in 1909, but diplomatic relations with other governments continued to be channelled through the Governors-General, Dominion High Commissioners in London (first appointed by Canada in 1880 and by Australia in 1910) and British legations abroad. Britain's declaration of war in World War I applied to all the Dominions. But the Dominions did enjoy a substantial freedom in their adoption of foreign policy where this did not explicitly conflict with British interests: Canada's Liberal government negotiated a bilateral free-trade Reciprocity Agreement with the United States in 1911, but went down to defeat by the Conservative opposition. In defence, the Dominions' original treatment as part of a single Empire military and naval structure proved unsustainable as Britain faced new commitments in Europe and the challenge of an emerging German High Seas Fleet after 1900. In 1909 it was decided that the Dominions should have their own navies, reversing an 1887 agreement that the then Australasian colonies should contribute to the Royal Navy in return for the permanent stationing of a squadron in the region.

The impact of the First World War

Royal Navy The aftermath of World War I saw the last major extension of British rule, with Britain gaining control through League of Nations Mandates in Palestine and Iraq (British League of Nations Trust Territory of Iraq) after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, as well as in the former German colonies of Tanganyika, South-West Africa (now Namibia) and New Guinea (the last two actually under South African and Australian rule respectively). The British zones of occupation in the German Rhineland after World War I and West Germany after World War II were not considered part of the Empire. But although Britain emerged among the war's victors, and her rule expanded into new areas, the heavy costs of the war undermined her capacity to maintain the vast empire. The British had suffered millions of casualties and liquidated assets at an alarming rate, which led to debt accumulation, upending of capital markets and manpower deficiencies in the staffing of far-flung imperial posts in Asia and the African colonies. Nationalist sentiment grew in both old and new Imperial territories, fuelled by pride at Empire troops' participation in the war and the grievance felt by many non-white ex-servicemen at the racial discrimination they had encountered during their service to the Empire. The 1920s saw a rapid transformation of Dominion status. Although the Dominions had had no formal voice in declaring war in 1914, each was included separately among the signatories of the 1919 peace Treaty of Versailles, which had been negotiated by a British-led united Empire delegation. In 1922 Dominion reluctance to support British military action against Turkey influenced Britain's decision to seek a compromise settlement. Full Dominion independence was formalised in the 1926 Balfour Declaration and the 1931 Statute of Westminster: each Dominion was henceforth to be equal in status to Britain herself, free of British legislative interference and autonomous in international relations. The Dominions section created within the Colonial Office in 1907 was upgraded in 1925 to a separate Dominions Office and given its own Secretary of State in 1930. Canada led the way, becoming the first Dominion to conclude an international treaty entirely independently (1923) and obtaining the appointment (1928) of a British High Commissioner in Ottawa, thereby separating the administrative and diplomatic functions of the Governor-General and ending the latter's anomalous role as the representative of the head of state and of the British Government. Canada's first permanent diplomatic mission to a foreign country opened in Washington, DC in 1927: Australia followed in 1940. Egypt, formally independent from 1922 but bound to Britain by treaty until 1936 (and under partial occupation until 1956) similarly severed all constitutional links with Britain. Iraq, which became a British Protectorate in 1922, also gained complete independence ten years later in 1932. The last colonial expansion of the British Empire was the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme, begun in 1938 and abandoned in 1963. The last territorial expansion of the British Empire was the annexation of Rockall to the west of the Outer Hebrides in 1955. The Royal Navy landed a party of seamen on the isle and officially claimed the rock in the name of the Queen. The action was prompted by the imminent intention of the Ministry of Defence to test launch a nuclear missile from the Outer Hebrides. It was feared that the heretofore unclaimed island might be used by the Soviet Union as a site for surveillance equipment. In 1972 the Isle of Rockall Act formally incorporated the island into the United Kingdom, although this was not accepted by Ireland.

The end of British rule in Ireland

Ireland.]] In 1919 Irish guerrillas, known as the Irish Republican Army under the leadership of General Michael Collins began a military campaign against British rule called the Anglo-Irish War. The war ended in 1921 with a stalemate that resulted in the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The treaty divided Ireland into two states, most of the island (26 counties) became the Irish Free State an independent dominion nation within the British Commonwealth; while the six counties in the north with a largely loyalist, Protestant community remained a part of the United Kingdom as Northern Ireland. In 1948 Ireland became a republic, fully independent from the United Kingdom. Ireland's Constitution claimed the six counties of Northern Ireland as a part of the Republic of Ireland until 1998. The issue over whether Northern Ireland should remain in the United Kingdom or join the Republic of Ireland has divided Northern Ireland's people and led to a long and bloody conflict known as the Troubles. However the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 brought about a ceasefire between most of the major organisations on both sides, creating hope for a peaceful resolution.

Decolonisation and Decline

1998 ]] The rise of anti-colonial nationalist movements in the subject territories and the changing economic situation of the world in the first half of the 20th century challenged an imperial power now increasingly preoccupied with issues nearer home. The Empire's end began with the onset of the Second World War, when a deal was reached between the British government and the Indian independence movement, whereby the Indians would co-operate and remain loyal during the war, after which they would be granted independence. Following India's lead, nearly all of Britain's other colonies would become independent over the next two decades. The end of Empire gathered pace after Britain's efforts during World War II left the country all but exhausted and found its former allies disinclined to support the colonial status quo. Economic crisis in 1947 made many realise that the Labour government of Clement Attlee should abandon Britain's attempt to remain a first-rank power. Britain's declaration of hostilities against Germany in September 1939 did not commit the Dominions. All the Dominions except Australia and Ireland issued their own declarations of war. The Irish Free State had negotiated the removal of the Royal Navy from the Treaty Ports the year before, and chose to remain legally neutral throughout the war. Australia went to war under the British declaration. World War II fatally undermined Britain's already weakened commercial and financial leadership and h

John McCurdy

John Alexander Douglas McCurdy (August 2, 1886 – June 25, 1961) was a Canadian aviation pioneer and lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia from 1947 to 1952. Born in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, schooled at St. Andrew's College (Aurora, Ontario), he graduated from the University of Toronto in mechanical engineering in 1906. In 1907, he joined Alexander Graham Bell's Aerial Experiment Association. On February 23 1909, he became the first person to fly an airplane in Canada, when he piloted the Silver Dart off the ice of Bras d'Or Lake in Nova Scotia. In 1910, he was the first Canadian to be issued a pilot's license. In 1973, he was inducted into Canada's Aviation Hall of Fame.

Reference


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External link


- [http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-75-419-2424-20/that_was_then/science_technology/silver_dart CBC 1949 radio archive] McCurdy, John McCurdy, John McCurdy, John McCurdy, John

Aerial Experiment Association

The Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) was formed in 1907 under the tutelage of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell. The AEA came into being when John Alexander Douglas McCurdy and his friend Frederick W. "Casey" Baldwin, two young engineers fresh out of the University of Toronto, decided to spend the summer in Baddeck, Nova Scotia. McCurdy had grown up there, and his father was the personal secretary of Dr. Bell. He had grown up close to the Bell family and was well received in their home. One day, as the three sat with Dr. Bell discussing the problems of aviation, Bell's wife, Mabel, suggested they form a company to exploit their collective ideas. Being independently wealthy, she offered to bankroll the idea, taking care of one of the major problems facing aviators of the day. The American motorcycle designer and manufacturer, and recognized expert on gasoline engines, Glenn H. Curtiss also became a member of the association. Curtiss had visited the Wright Cycle Company to discuss aeronautical engineering with Wilbur and Orville Wright but the Wrights did not want to cooperate with him in the development of aircraft. The group attracted sufficient attention to inspire the United States government to request that an official observer be allowed to join. Their nominee was Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge. This collaboration lead to very public success. One of their planes, the June Bug, won the Scientific American Trophy by making the first official one kilometer flight in North America. Their fourth flying machine, the Silver Dart, constructed in 1908, made the first controlled powered flight in Canada on February 23 1909 when it was flown off the ice of Bras d'Or Lake near Baddeck by McCurdy who had been one of its designers. On March 10 1909, McCurdy set a record when he flew the airplane on a circular course over a distance of more than 32 km (20 miles). The Association made the first passenger flight in Canada on August 2, also in the Silver Dart. Much development also took place in Hammondsport, New York where experimentation was done on development of the first seaplane. Category:Aviation Category:Cape Breton Island

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Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell (March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-American scientist and inventor. He was, until recently, widely considered to be the inventor of the telephone, although this matter has become controversial, with a number of people claiming that Antonio Meucci was the 'real' inventor. In addition to his work in telecommunications technology, he was responsible for important advances in aviation and hydrofoil technology.

Biography

Born Alexander Bell in Edinburgh, Scotland, he later adopted the middle name Graham out of admiration for Alexander Graham, a family friend. His family was associated with the teaching of elocution: his grandfather in London, his uncle in Dublin, and his father, Alexander Melville Bell, in Edinburgh, were all professed elocutionists. The latter has published a variety of works on the subject, several of which are well known, especially his treatise on Visible Speech, which appeared in Edinburgh in 1868. In this he explains his method of instructing deaf mutes, by means of their eyesight, how to articulate words, and also how to read what other persons are saying by the motions of their lips. Alexander Graham Bell was educated at the Royal High School of Edinburgh, from which he graduated at the age of 13. At the age of 16 he secured a position as a pupil-teacher of elocution and music in Weston House Academy, at Elgin, Moray, Scotland. The next year he spent at the University of Edinburgh. From 1866 to 1867, he was an instructor at Somersetshire College at Bath, Somerset, England. While still in Scotland he is said to have turned his attention to the science of acoustics, with a view to ameliorate the deafness of his mother. In 1870, at the age of 23, he immigrated with his family to Canada where they settled at Brantford. Before he left Scotland, Bell had turned his attention to telephony, and in Canada he continued an interest in communication machines. He designed a piano which could transmit its music to a distance by means of electricity. In 1873, he accompanied his father to Montreal, Canada, where he was employed in teaching the system of visible speech. The elder Bell was invited to introduce the system into a large day-school for mutes at Boston, but he declined the post in favor of his son, who became Professor of Vocal Physiology and Elocution at Boston University's School of Oratory. At Boston University he continued his research in the same field, and endeavored to produce a telephone which would not only send musical notes, but articulate speech. With financing from his American father-in-law, on March 7, 1876, the U.S. Patent Office granted him Patent Number 174,465 covering "the method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically ... by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound", the telephone. After obtaining the patent for the telephone, Bell continued his many experiments in communication, which culminated in the invention of the photophone-transmission of sound on a beam of light — a precursor of today's optical fiber systems. He also worked in medical research and invented techniques for teaching speech to the deaf. The range of Bell's inventive genius is represented only in part by the eighteen patents granted in his name alone and the twelve he shared with his collaborators. These included fourteen for the telephone and telegraph, four for the photophone, one for the phonograph, five for aerial vehicles, four for hydroairplanes, and two for a selenium cell. Bell had many great ideas that he thought of that are now real inventions. During his Volta Laboratory period, Bell and his associates considered impressing a magnetic field on a record, as a means of reproducing sound. Although the trio briefly experimented with the concept, they were unable to develop a workable prototype. They abandoned the idea, never realizing they had glimpsed a basic principle which would one day find its application in the tape recorder, the computer, and the CD-ROM. Bell's own home used a primitive form of air conditioning, in which fans blew currents of air across great blocks of ice. He also anticipated modern concerns with fuel shortages and industrial pollution. Methane gas, he reasoned, could be produced from the waste of farms and factories. At Beinn Bhreagh, he experimented with composting toilets and devices to capture water from the atmosphere. In a magazine interview published shortly before his death, he reflected on the possibility of using solar panels to heat houses. In 1882, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In 1888, he was one of the founding members of the National Geographic Society and became its second president. He was the recipient of many honors. The French Government conferred on him the decoration of the Légion d'honneur (Legion of Honor), the Académie française bestowed on him the Volta Prize of 50,000 francs, the Royal Society of Arts in London awarded him the Albert medal in 1902, and the University of Würzburg, Bavaria, granted him a Ph.D. He was awarded the AIEE's Edison Medal in 1914 for "For meritorious achievement in the invention of the telephone." Bell married Mabel Hubbard, who was one of his pupils at Boston University, as well as a deaf-mute, on July 11, 1877. His invention of the telephone was actually a device he was trying to create that would allow him to communicate with his wife and his deaf mother. He died at his estate at Beinn Bhreagh, Canada, near Baddeck, Canada, in 1922 and is buried alongside his wife atop Beinn Bhreagh Mountain overlooking Bras d'Or Lake. He was survived by two of their four children. Bell was named among the "American Greats".

Bell and decibel

The bell is a unit of measurement invented by Bell Labs and named after Bell. The bell was too large for everyday use, so the decibel (dB), equal to 0.1 B, became more commonly used. The dB is commonly used as a unit for measuring sound intensity.

The photophone

Another of Bell's inventions was the photophone, a device enabling the transmission of sound over a beam of light, which he developed together with Charles Sumner Tainter. The device employed light-sensitive cells of crystalline selenium, which has the property that its electrical resistance varies inversely with the illumination (i.e., the resistance is higher when the material is in the dark, and lower when it is lighted). The basic principle was to modulate a beam of light directed at a receiver made of crystalline selenium, to which a telephone was attached. The modulation was done either by means of a vibrating mirror, or a rotating disk periodically obscuring the light beam. This idea was by no means new. Selenium had been discovered by Jöns Jakob Berzelius in 1817, and the peculiar properties of crystalline or granulate selenium were discovered by Willoughby Smith in 1873. In 1878, one writer with the initials J.F.W. from Kew described such an arrangement in Nature in a column appearing on June 13, asking the readers whether any experiments in that direction had already been done. In his paper on the photophone, Bell credited one A. C. Browne of London with the independent discovery in 1878—the same year Bell became aware of the idea. Bell and Tainter, however, were apparently the first to perform a successful experiment, by no means any easy task, as they even had to produce the selenium cells with the desired resistance characteristics themselves. In one experiment in Washington, D.C. the sender and the receiver were placed on in different buildings some 700 feet (213 metres) apart. The sender consisted of a mirror directing sunlight onto the mouthpiece, where the light beam was modulated by a vibrating mirror, focused by a lens and directed at the receiver, which was simply a parabolic reflector with the selenium cells in the focus and the telephone attached. With this setup, Bell and Tainter succeeded to communicate clearly. The photophone was patented on December 18 1880, but the quality of communication remained poor and the research was not pursued by Bell.

Metal detector

Bell is also credited with the invention of the metal detector in 1881. The device was hurriedly put together in an attempt to find the bullet in the body of U.S. President James Garfield. The metal detector worked, but didn't find the bullet because the metal bedframe the President was lying on confused the instrument. Bell gave a full account of his experiments in a paper read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science in August 1882.

Experimental aircraft

Bell was also interested in aircraft and was a supporter of aerospace engineering research through the Aerial Experiment Association. The Association was officially formed at Baddeck, Nova Scotia in October 1907 at the suggestion of Mrs. Mabel Bell and with her financial support. It was headed by the inventor himself. The founding members were four young men, American Glenn H. Curtiss, a motorcycle manufacturer who would later be awarded the Scientific American Trophy for the first official one-kilometre flight in the Western hemisphere and later be world-renowned as an airplane manufacturer; Frederick W. "Casey" Baldwin, the first Canadian and first British subject to pilot a public flight in Hammondsport, New York; J.A.D. McCurdy; and Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, an official observer of the U.S. government. One of the project's inventions, the aileron, is a standard component of aircraft today. (Note that the aileron was also invented independently by Robert Esnault-Pelterie.) In 1909, Bell's Silver Dart made the first controlled powered flight in Canada. However, a series of Canadian flights failed to interest the Canadian military in developing the airplane.

The hydrofoil

The March 1906 Scientific American article by American hydrofoil pioneer William E. Meacham explained the basic principle of hydrofoils. Bell considered the invention of the hydroplane as a very significant achievement. Based on information gained from that article he began to sketch concepts of what is now called a hydrofoil boat. Bell and Casey Baldwin began hydrofoil experimentation in the summer of 1908 as a possible aid to airplane takeoff from water. Baldwin studied the work of the Italian inventor Enrico Forlanini and began testing models. This led him and Bell to the development of practical hydrofoil watercraft. During his world tour of 1910–1911 Bell and Baldwin met with Forlanini in Italy. They had rides in the Forlanini hydrofoil boat over Lake Maggiore. Baldwin described it was as smooth as flying. On returning to Baddeck a number of designs were tried culminating in the HD-4. Using Renault engines a top speed of 54 miles per hour was achieved accelerating rapidly, taking wave without difficulty, steering well, showing good stability. Bell's report to the navy permitted him to obtain two 350 horsepower (260 kW) engines in July 1919. On September 9 1919 the HD-4 set a world's marine speed record of 70.86 miles per hour. This record stood for ten years.

Eugenics

Along with many very prominent thinkers and scientists of the time, Bell was connected with the eugenics movement in the United States. From 1912 until 1918 he was the chairman of the board of scientific advisors to the Eugenics Record Office associated with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, and regularly attended meetings. In 1921 he was the honorary president of the Second International Congress of Eugenics held under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Organizations such as these advocated passing laws (with success in some states) that established the compulsory sterilization of people deemed to be, as Bell called them, a "defective variety of the human race". Much of his thoughts about people he considered defective centered on the deaf because of his long contact with them in relation to his work in deaf education. In addition to advocating sterilization of the deaf, Bell wished to prohibit deaf teachers from being allowed to teach in schools for the deaf, he worked to outlaw the marriage of deaf individuals to one another, and he was an ardent supporter of oralism over manualism. His avowed goal was to eradicate the language and culture of the deaf so as to force them to integrate into the hearing culture for their own long-term benefit and for the benefit of society at large. Although this attitude is widely seen as paternalistic and arrogant today, it was accepted in that era. Although he supported what many would consider harsh policies today, he was not unkind to deaf individuals. He was a personal and longtime friend of Helen Keller, and his wife Mabel, a former student of his, was deaf. Together they had children, none of whom were deaf. Bell was well known as a kindly father and loving family man who took great pleasure playing with his many grandchildren.

External links


- [http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=42027 Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online]
- [http://bell.uccb.ns.ca/ Alexander Graham Bell Institute]
- [http://www.bellhomestead.ca/ Bell Homestead, National Historic Site]
- [http://www.alexanderbell.com/ Alexander Bell.com - Telecom Pioneers by Phonebook of the World.com]
- [http://histv2.free.fr/bell/bell1.htm Bell's speech] before the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston on August 27, 1880, presenting the photophone. Very clear description. Published as "On the Production and Reproduction of Sound by Light" in the American Journal of Sciences, Third Series, vol. XX, #118, October 1880, pp. 305 - 324; and as "Selenium and the Photophone" in Nature, September 1880.
- [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=174465.WKU.&OS=PN/174465&RS=PN/174465 United States Patent and Trademark Office], patent US174465 for the telephone.
- [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/bellhtml/bellhome.html Alexander Graham Bell family papers] Online version at the Library of Congress comprises a selection of 4,695 items (totaling about 51,500 images) containing correspondence, scientific notebooks, journals, blueprints, articles, and photographs documenting Bell invention of the telephone and his involvement in the first telephone company, his family life, his interest in the education of the deaf, and his aeronautical and other scientific research. Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham Bell, Alexander Graham ja:アレクサンダー・グラハム・ベル simple:Alexander Graham Bell th:อเล็กซานเดอร์ เกรแฮม เบลล์

Glenn Curtiss

Glenn Hammond Curtiss (May 21, 1878 – July 23, 1930) was an aviation pioneer and founder of the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, now part of Curtiss-Wright Corporation.

Birth

He was born in 1878 in Hammondsport, New York to Frank Richmond Curtiss and Lua Andrews.

Marriage

Curtiss married Lena Pearl Neff, daughter of Guy L. Neff, in Hammondsport on March 7, 1898.

Early career

As a bicycle racer, Western Union bicycle messenger and bicycle shop owner Curtiss, as the internal combusion engine became available, became interested in motorcycles. He began manufacturing motor-bicycles with his own single cylinder internal combustion engines, the first with a tomato can for a carburetor. In 1903 he set a world speed record by averaging 64 mph (103 km/h) for one mile (1.6 km). In 1907 he set a new record of 136.36 mph (219.31 km/h), with his 40-hp V8 powered motorcyle of his own design. At this time he was America's No. 1 maker of high-performance motorcycles.

Wright brothers

In August 1906, while with Tom Baldwin and his airship in Dayton, Curtiss visited the Wright brothers (after they'd help corrall their airship) and discussed aeronautical motors and their propellers, a subject of mutual interest. Because Curtiss made America's finest lightweight motors, Alexander Graham Bell persuaded him to join his Aerial Experiment Association in 1907 to build aircraft, succeeding with America's first public and official airplane flight on July 4, 1908.

Competition

Aerial Experiment Association In August 1909, Curtiss competed in the world's first air meet, the Grande Semaine d'Aviation flying contest at Reims, France, organised by the Aero-Club de France. The Wrights, selling their machines in Berlin at the time, did not compete, but nevertheless sued Curtiss, alleging their patent was being infringed. He continued, completing a 10 km course at 46.5 mph (75 km/h) in just under 16 minutes, 6 seconds faster than runner-up Louis Bleriot and won the Gordon Bennett Cup. For this he became, after Bleriot, the No. 2 pilot in Europe (Wrights Nos. 14 and 15).

The other Pulitzer prize

On May 29, 1910, Curtiss flew from Albany, New York, along the Hudson River, to New York City, to win a $10,000 prize backed by publisher Joseph Pulitzer. He covered 137 miles (220 km) in 153 minutes, averaging nearly 55 mph (89 km/h), then flew over Manhattan Island, and circled the Statue of Liberty. Curtiss received the first U.S. pilot's license in 1911, the Wrights were Nos. 4 and 5.

Patent dispute

The patent dispute with the Wright brothers continued for several years until it was resolved during WW1, just after Wright ceased making airplanes due to their "killer" reputation (the last Wright was a single copy, made in 1916).

World War I

1911 With the involvement of the US in World War I in 1917, the U.S. government gave a contract to Curtiss to build airplanes for the US Army.

Death

He died in 1930 in Buffalo, New York, from complications after appendix surgery, and was buried in Pleasant Valley Cemetery in Hammondsport, New York.hi

Timeline


- 1878 Birth in Hammondsport, New York
- 1898 Marriage
- 1900 Manufactures Hercules bicycles
- 1901 Motorcycle designer and racer
- 1903 1st American motorcycle champion at 56.4 s/mile
- 1904 Thomas Scott Baldwin mounts Curtiss motorcycle engine on a hydrogen-filled dirigible
- 1904 Set ten mile world speed record
- 1904 Invented handlebar throttle control
- 1905 G.H. Curtiss Manufacturing Company, Inc. created
- 1905 Set world speed records for 1, 2, and 3 miles on motorcycle
- 1906 Curtiss writes the Wright brothers offering them an aeronautical motor, and meets them - by chance - three months later.
- 1907 Curtiss joins Alexander Graham Bell in experimenting in aircraft
- 1907 Set world speed record of 77.6 mph on motorcycle
- 1907 Set world speed record at 136.36 mph in his V8 motorcycle Ormond Beach, Fl
- 1908 First Army dirigible flight (Curtiss as flight engineer)
- 1908 First flight of an aircraft controlled by ailerons
- 1908 Lead designer and pilot of "June Bug" July 4,1908 First public flight in North America
- 1909 Produced and sold first private aircraft in US
- 1909 Won first international air speed record with 46.5 mph in Reims, France
- 1909 First US licensed aircraft manufacturer.
- 1910 Long distance flying record of 150 miles from Albany to New York City, first airmail
- 1909 Established first flying school in U.S. and Exhibition Company
- 1910 First (simulated) bombing runs