Samuel Langley's Aerodrome

On May 6, 1896, spectators lined the banks of Washington’s Potomac River to watch the grand experiment. Using a catapult on top of a houseboat, Samuel Langley launched  his “aerodrome,” a 16-foot-long, 25-pound unmanned aircraft with two sets of silk-covered wings. Powered by a steam engine and two propellers, the craft rose 100 feet above the water and flew half  a mile down the river before dropping gently to the water. This was the first sustained flight by a heavier-than-air, powered vehicle.

Langley was an astrophysicist whose studies of solar radiation had earlier won him international recognition. In 1887, he had become secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. There he began studying how surfaces move through the air. Working with model planes powered  by rubber bands, he experimented with different designs until he launched his “aerodrome” in 1896.

Langley’s efforts to launch an aircraft with a man aboard were not successful, probably because  of structural weaknesses in his designs. But he lived to see his dream of manned, powered flight come true when the Wright brothers made their historic flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903.

The U.S. Navy’s first aircraft carrier, the USS Langley, honored Langley’s pioneering work, Langley Air Force Base in Virginia is also named for him.

The Cubans in America

Before Fidel Castro's Communist regime took power in Cuba in 1959, only 50,000 Cubans lived in the U.S.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of Cubans have fled the repression and economic problems of their homeland. Today, there are more than one million Cubans in the United States.

Many Cuban-Americans live in New York City, New Jersey, and California. But the vast majority live in and around Miami, Florida. There, about  150 miles from Havana, Cuba's capital, Cuban culture has taken root.

The heart of Miami's Cuban community is an area known as Little Havana. Spanish is the language of commerce there, and the Cuban way life prevails. Because many Cuban immigrants are well-educated professionals and skilled workers. Cuban-Americans are among the most prosperous of immigrant groups. They are a vital link between the United States and Latin American business communities, and a powerful political force in Florida and the nation.

American culture has been enriched by such Cuban-Americans as actor Andy Garcia, singer Gloria Estefan, writer Oscar Hijuelos, and the late Desi Arnaz, co-creator of television's I Love Lucy.

Although some Cuban-Americans look forward to returning to Cuba when Castro's government collapses and economic conditions improve, most plan to remain in their new homeland.

Grand Canyon National Park

The Grand Canyon in northern Arizona is nature's greatest sculpture. Up to 18 miles wide, a mile deep, and 280 miles long, this breathtaking gorge contains fantastically shaped peaks, buttes, and ravines.

Equally spectacular are the canyon's colors. The overall red glow changes in hue depending on the time of the day and the cloud cover. The many layers of rock sometimes glisten int he sun and make up dazzling rainbow of purples, pinks, greens, grays, and yellows.

The "sculptor" of the Grand Canyon is the winding Colorado River. Its rapid current sweeps tons of sand and gravel over  the riverbed every minute, scraping and pounding as the grit tumbles downstream. Over the eons, the river has cut steadily downward, while volcanic and seismic forces have thrust the earth upward on either side. Amazingly, the rock layers exposed by the river reveal nearly two billion years of geological history.

More than four million visitors view the Grand Canyon each year. Some hike the Bright Angel Trail to the bottom of the canyon. Others descend by mule, or ride through  on river rafts. Park headquarters and year-round campsites are found on the South Rim. Because of heavy snow, the thickly forested North Rim is closed in the winter.

The land that is now the Grand Canyon once lay beneath a sea. As a result, fossil hunters can find the remains of prehistoric sea creatures in the canyon's walls.

The Triangle Fire

In the early 1900s, immigrants poured into New York City. They took whatever jobs they could find. Many worked long hours at sewing machines in sweatshops which were often crowded lofts that turned out clothing for the garment industry. One such sweatshop was the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. It occupied the eighth, ninth and tenth floors of a building in Manhattan.

On March 25, 1911, as 500 of its young women workers were preparing to leave for the day, a fire broke out on the eighth floor. Within minutes, the fire had spread out of control. Workers panicked. Some crowded into freight elevators. Others rushed to the narrow stairwells. There, they found their way blocked – the company had locked most exits to prevent workers from stealing. A single fire escape collapsed under the weight of the fleeing women.

Fire trucks rushed to the scene, but their ladders were too short to reach the loft. Horrified bystanders watched as workers, many with their clothes and hair on fire, jumped from the windows to their death on the street below.

In less than 30 minutes, 146 people were killed. Investigators failed to determine the cause of the fire. But they found many people at fault – the factory owners, the fire department, and city officials. The tragedy drew attention to unsafe factory conditions and helped start a reform movement.

After the fire, New York City passed laws to improve workplace safety.

1997

Some of 1997’s news headlines seemed to come straight from science-fiction novels. Scottish scientists produced the first clone of an animal, a sheep; a robotic vehicle, the Sojourner, toured the surface of Mars, sending back close-up pictures; and comet Hale-Bopp, a brilliant three-tailed visitor from space glowed in the night sky.

Americans mourned two much-loved world figures in 1997. Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a Paris car crash on August 31. Widely admired for her warmth and her charitable work, the former wife of Prince Charles of Britain was just 36 when she was killed. Then, on September 5, news came of the death of 87-year-old Mother Teresa, a Roman Catholic nun who had devoted her life to helping the poor and sick in India and elsewhere in the world.

U.S.  President Bill Clinton started his second term amid a controversy over campaign financing, and investigations continued through the year. In April, Minnesota and the Dakotas were hit with devastating floods after a severe winter. And in June, a jury found Timothy McVeigh guilty in the 1995 bombing of a federal office building in Oklahoma City – the worst terrorist act in U.S. history.

Tara Lipinski, 14, became the youngest-ever world figure-skating champion in 1997; and Tiger Woods, 21, became the youngest pro to win the prestigious Masters golf tournament.

Shay's Rebellion

Daniel Shays was angry. The Massachusetts farmer had fought bravely in the Revolution. But five years after the war, he believed that he and his neighbors were being treated unfairly by the state. Farmers were earning less and paying more taxes. Many were deeply in debt. They asked the state for relief, but got none.

So Daniel Shays took action.

Late in 1786, Shays led 600 angry people to the courthouse in Springfield. They wanted the judges to stop putting debtors in jail. The state militia scattered the crowd, but the unrest spread.

In January, 1787, Shays led a band of men against the arsenal in Springfield. The militia opened fire and routed the rebels. Shays fled to Vermont and conducted raids across the border. But he was soon captured. Although he and 13 others were condemned to death, they were eventually pardoned.

Shays’ Rebellion pointed out the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation, the loose association of states that was adopted after the Revolution. Many Americans felt they needed a stronger federal government, with the power to deal with the rebellions that crossed state borders. When the new U.S. Constitution was proposed in 1787, it was quickly ratified by Massachusetts.

It is rarely taught that Daniel Shays had fought during the Revolution and while doing so he met the Marquis de Lafayette.  The Marquise gave Shays a valuable sword.   Unfortunately, Shays had to sell the sword during the postwar hard times.

The image with this post is Daniel Shays, on the left....as portrayed  in Bickerstaff's Boston Almanack.

Hurricane Andrew

Every year between May and November, people in the eastern U.S. watch for hurricanes. These vast tropical storms in the Carribean Sea travel northwest, striking at the Caribbean islands and sometimes at the mainland of North America. One of the most terrible of these storms was Hurricane Andrew, which struck in August of 1992.

Andrew first hit the islands of the Bahamas and then moved northwest toward Florida. Modern weather prediction gave people a day or two to prepare. But there was no way to prepare for a storm as large as Andrew.

The center of the storm struck south of Miami on August 24. With wind gusts up to 165 miles an hour, Andrew leveled whole communities in a few hours. The winds uprooted trees, threw trucks on top of buildings, and reduced mobile homes to splinters. Driving rains flooded low-lying areas an swelled rivers to torrents.

The storm lost force as it crossed Florida, but when it reached the Gulf of Mexico it regained strength. On the evening of August 25, it slammed into the coast of southwestern Louisiana, causing still more destruction.

Andrew killed 14 people and left 250,000 homeless. Damage was estimated at $30 billion, making it the most destructive storm in U.S. history.

Andrew was the first storm of 1992.