Aerial History In Connecticut

If you want to learn more about Aerial history, I recommend checking out the Connecticut University Library. This one is focused on the aerial history in Connecticut. They have impressive photographs. There are also many great links in Google.

Connecticut University Library - History of Aerial Photography in Connecticut
http://www.cslib.org/AERIALS/Aerialshist.htm

What Do Hot-Air Balloons, Kites, Rockets & Pigeons Have In Common?

The Professional Aerial Photographers Association has an excellent page for the history of aerial photography. It all started in 1855 when the French photographer and balloonist, Gaspar Felix Tournachon, also known as Nadar, patented his idea for using the aerial photographs in map making and surveying. Three years later he took an aerial shot of a French village called Petit-Becetre. He took the shot from a tethered hot air balloon that was 80 meters above the ground. However, this photograph among other early photographs from Nadar didn't survive. Today the only earliest photograph that is still in existence is a James Wallace Black's 1860 image of Boston from a hot-air balloon. When it wasn't necessary to carry heavy equipment anymore, due to advancement of the dry plate process, Triboulet took the first photo from a free flight balloon in 1879 of Paris.

As you continue reading more about the history of aerial photography, you'll read about further methods of the aerial history from the 19th century throughout the 20th century. The other methods were kites, pigeons, rockets and at last the airplanes. The aerial photography was used first for military purposes. After the war, for a successful business purposes and for private use.

The images above were taken by a pigeon. As a matter of fact, you can see the wings on the top left image. The pigeon carry a tiny breast-mounted camera that was developed by Julius Neubranner in 1903. These Bavarian Pigeons use the camera largely for the military use. The birds were introduce at the 1909 Dresden International Photographic Exhibition that also had the birds' popular aerial photos postcards that depicted the aerial shots of the exhibition.

PAPA - History of Aerial Photography
http://www.papainternational.org/history.html

More Skooters At Historical Glen Echo Park

Here is another one. A site called Glen Echo Park - The Bumper Car Pavilion. The historical Echo Park is located in Washington DC by the Potomac. What we are seeing here in this url are photos of the bumper cars and the exterior of the Pavilion from the park's heydays. Most of the pictures are from the first half of the 20th century starting in the 1920s. It doesn't show every decade nor every single year (there are no photos from the 50's and the 70's). The last photos are from the early 1980's. It's not an extensive collection and not all photos show the cars. Some show the exteriors outside the Pavilion. Originally it had a different name. The original name for the pavilion was "The Skooter" to "Dodgem" and Finally to the Bumper Car Pavilion.

Glen Echo Park - The Bumper Car Pavilion
http://www.nps.gov/archive/glec/bcar/index.html

The Dodgems & The Skooters

So far this is the best site that I've been able to find so far about the bumper cars. They are also called skooters (no typo here) and dodgems. Those are the little mini cars that you see in amusement parks. You drive in a small arena where you bump into other cars.

I did see a few other sites, but they usually had one or two old photos and not much information. So this site has the most info and most [old] photos that I could find so far.

Lusse Auto Scooters
http://www.lusseautoscooters.com/

The Way Nurses Used To Be

This site belongs to the Mount Saint Vincent University. They present their online project called "Nursing History Digitization Project - Nursing Education in Nova Scotia".

A short excerpt from the introduction (see Home page) explains the purpose of this project: "This site, which was developed by the Mount Saint Vincent University Archives, explores the history of nursing education in Nova Scotia from 1890, when the Victoria General Hospital established the first nursing school in Nova Scotia, to the late twentieth century. "

If you look at the left column, you'll see that the nursing history project is divided into 8 sub categories. Personally, I liked them all, but mostly the Male Nurses, Racial Exclusion, and the Hospital Based Nursing Programs. A well site.

The images above are called "Graduation Class 1899" (with two male nurses), and "Student Nurses Attending a Class" from the 1940s.

Nursing History Digitization Project
http://www.msvu.ca/library/archives/nhdp/history.htm

YouTube - You Scream I Scream - Dog

When I saw this video about a month ago, I thought it was hilarious. I should have posted it back then. At first it seems like it's gonna be one of those 'cute' videos, but as I kept watching I saw it was not. It was a parody that kept me chuckling. In a way it was so true. I enjoyed watching it again and again. It's one of the best videos that I have seen in a long time.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6C6YCTNqVo

YouTube - M&M's - Which Hand (1950's)

According to "MandMsCommercial", 1950's M&M's commercial might be the brand's first ad. Unfortunately, the quality is bad and there is enough contrast. but if you darken your screen a little bit you might see better.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gtM_mmvDww

The Early Evolution Of The Treadmill In Prison

After I was done writing this post, I realized that I strayed from my original purpose. I intended to write about the history of the treadmill. Instead, I found myself focusing more on the use of treadwheel at the prison system centuries ago. It was new to me. The Hubpage site states that the history of the treadmill started during the Roman and Greek eras. It was more focused on the treadmill from a health perspective and as a cardio invention. This was the type of information that I looked for. But as soon as I read that it started in prison, I became curious.

Origins & History of the Treadmill
http://hubpages.com/hub/Origins--History-of-the-Treadmill

Did you know that a few centuries ago the treadmill, which was referred to as the treadwheel those days, was very popular? However, it wasn't for personal achievements at all. It was rather a form of punishment in prisons early in the 1800's. This is where the treadwheel spewed out. As you may have figured out already, these early treadmills, or treadwheels as I should call them, looked nothing like the modern treadmills which are still evolving. The prisoners were forced to use it and had to walk for miles on it. It was clearly a form cruelty and torture and served no purpose and without any benefits.

If you are interested to learn about prisons and the punishments during the early 1800's. There are many other good sites about punishment in prisons in the early 1800's in Europe and the US. Most of them are about prison's punishment and the atrocious system, but of them have a brief mention about the treadwheels.

I have seen only very few images of the treadwheels that were used in prisons. It was hard to find them. I've seen the photograph in several sites though. You can also learned more from some of the sites where I got the images from, except the science site which is a picture library site. The category on this site is about the punishment and very depressing. So just be aware that if you go there, you might be disturbed by other images (which are not related to the treadwheel). You can find lighter subjects from the main page (click the icon on the top left).

As for the National Archive site, you may want to check out this page as well:

National Archive -Why were Victorian Prisons so tough?
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/lessons/lesson24.htm

The images from bottom to top are from:

Gravel Roots
http://www.gravelroots.net/petworth/prison.html

** I lost the information for the original site for this illustration. But there is another site with the same image, just a smaller one from the Lancaster Castle movie site. There is also a trailer for the movie. By The Way, it is an interesting site.

Lancaster Castle - Crime and punishment
http://www.lancastercastle.com/html/history/crime_and_punishment.php

The National Archives Learning Curve - Prisoners on a treadwheel at Pentonville Prison 1895
http://www.learningcurve.gov.uk/snapshots/snapshot24/B95E1338181E4E6C89A0DA004675F763.htm

*Problem with the link above? Use the link below:
*Learning Curve - Prisoners on a treadwheel at Pentonville Prison 1895
http://tinyurl.com/ykgcszl

Science & Society - Image Preview
http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10315808

It's A Bigfoot!!

Learn about the history of the Monster Truck and Bigfoot. It was in 1974, when Bob Chandler drove the his monster truck in a field over cars to crash them and test the truck. This truck was the early Bigfoot version (the second version came in 1982). The reason he did it was for his four wheel drive performance shop's promotion. Chandler's video was seen by an event promoter who then asked Chandler to do it in front of a crowd. Chandler initially hesitated but eventually agreed to do so. The rest is history. An interesting one too, as you'll also learn the origin behind the phrase "Monster Truck" in Wikipedia (at the end of the second paragraph).

Wikipedia - Monster Trucks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_truck

Below is the original Bigfoot in action It's a 5:35 minutes clip. By the way, when I typed "bigfoot monster truck" in the search box, I got 2,240 results. But after watching some, I saw that lots of them are about the monster trucks in general. I really liked the early trucks clips. Those are classics.



YouTube Bigfoot the Monster Truck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY8VFWfxdZA

Catch A Lesson About The 19th Century Baseball

This is a really nice looking site about baseball in the 19th century. Baseball fans and experts will probably notice the differences.

19th Century Baseball
http://www.19cbaseball.com/