Long before COVID, during the early 1900’s, summer was not a welcomed season for both parents and children. For back then, summer was also ‘Polio Season.’ Children were susceptible to poliomyelitis, an incurable disease that affects the central nervous system resulting in paralysis. Polio is a highly contagious virus that spreads from contact with waterContinue reading “The Race for the Polio Vaccine – Salk vs. Sabin”
Category Archives: Historic Technology
Nikola Tesla and his Wardenclyffe Tower
The eccentric inventor Nikola Tesla had worked with the likes of both Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse.
The Mariana Trench – a Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
A decade before the Apollo Moon Missions, two aquanauts, traveled to the last unexplored place on Earth, the deepest point under all the Earth’s oceans. On 23 January 1960, Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, in the bathyscaphe Trieste, descended down to the bottom of Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, 7 miles, (11 km) beneathContinue reading “The Mariana Trench – a Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”
The Mahanoy Plane – the Mother of all Inclined Railroads
In the Coal Mining Region of Pennsylvania, Appalachian valleys from Harrisburg to Scranton contain prized veins of hard, black Anthracite coal. From the Civil War to the 1940’s, coal was the undisputed King of Fuels in the United States and the world. For Schuylkill County, there was one big problem, getting all that precious black coal,Continue reading “The Mahanoy Plane – the Mother of all Inclined Railroads”