Before there were lasers, there were masers, which amplified microwaves rather than light—hence the “M” versus the “L” in the acronym.  In 1953, a physicist named Charles Townes and two colleagues at Columbia University built a device that energized ammonia molecules to produce amplification of microwaves at a frequency not seen before. This invention was based on theoretical principles put forth by Soviet physicists a few years earlier. But actually both masers and lasers were based on the principle of stimulated emission proposed by Albert Einstein back in 1917, when he correctly postulated that when atoms are pushed into an excited energy state, they can amplify radiation at the much higher frequency.

A few years after he developed the maser, Townes had teamed up with Arthur Schawlow, a physicist at Bell Labs, and began working on amplifying visible light as the beam source, rather than microwaves. By 1958, the two had worked out the theoretical model and published their calculations in the Physical Review. That same year, Bell Labs filed a patent application for what they were calling an “optical maser.” As it turned out, during that time at Columbia University, a graduate student named Gordon Gould was also working on a theoretical model of amplifying light using thallium, and coined the term laser in a published paper he authored in 1959.

With the theories of Townes and Gould getting published in scientific journals, it didn’t take long before some intelligent scientists actually built working laser. The honor of the first goes to Theodore Maiman. While working at the Hughes Research Laboratories in California, Maiman used a ruby crystal to produce his light, a ruby red beam. Other lasers followed, including one using helium and neon, invented by another pioneering Bell Labs team. Soon, there was the argon ion laser, the carbon dioxide laser and the first chemical laser.

All of this exciting research had important applications. Because lasers amplify light in a coordinated and parallel fashion, the beam that is produced is perfectly linear, giving it extraordinary range with virtually no diffusion of the beam (a laser shot from the earth to the moon 240,000 miles away is calculated to only spread out to about 2 ½ miles). Because of this parallel amplification of light waves, the beam itself becomes very, very hot, which makes them perfectly suited for laser surgery in medicine, for cutting metals in industrial processes and creating great dramatic moments in film and television. Who can ever forget James Bond about to get carved up by and industrial laser in Goldfinger, when Bond asks, “Do you expect me to talk” and Goldfinger says back, “No Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.”

In addition,  lasers have a lot of practical applications in our daily lives as well.  We have laser light shows for entertainment, laser tag for fun, our DVD and Blu-ray players also use lasers to read the disks and many of us have had LASIK eye surgery to give us back to 20/20 vision. Now if we could just get those sharks to wear lasers on their heads, maybe Dr. Evil would be happy as well.

Copyright Davison 2013

Photos:

http://emmybella.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/lasers.jpg

http://cdn.meme.li/instances/400x/30270801.jpg

http://blog.chili-tv.it/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/James-Bond-e-il-raggio-laser-di-Goldfinger.jpg

http://cdn.meme.li/instances/400x/26420749.jpg

Sources:

http://inventors.about.com/od/lstartinventions/a/laser.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_R._Bennett,_Jr

http://g-net.blogspot.com/2004/07/light-amplification-by-stimulated.html

The post History Tuesday: Lasers appeared first on Davison.

Some people believe that fireworks were invented in China about 2,000 years ago. Others say it happened sometime during the Sung Dynasty (960-1279 AD). Either way, China is generally acknowledged as the birthplace of fireworks. The story began when an alchemist mixed sulfur, charcoal and saltpeter together to see what would happen when it caught fire. Of course, it flashed brilliantly. He then decided to pack the black powder (i.e., gunpowder) into a hollow bamboo shoot to see what would happen.

The bamboo packed with gunpowder shot flames out the ends and lo and behold, the rocket was born. When the powder was packed tightly and both ends were sealed, it became a firecracker. Soon, everyone was using these rockets and firecrackers for entertainment and celebrations as well as to scare off evil spirits and promote prosperity. But it didn’t take long for somebody to figure out that these rockets and firecrackers could have a military application, and there are verified historical reports that rockets were used against the Mongol invaders in 1279. As explorers such as Marco Polo visited China, they returned home with gunpowder, fireworks, and rockets—and the knowledge needed to create them. Interestingly, China still remains the king of fireworks. Today, the country manufacturers and exports an estimated 90% of all the fireworks in the world.

The basics of fireworks hasn’t changed that much since the beginning—gunpowder is packed in a tube that powers the rocket into the sky where firecrackers, known as stars, are ignited and explode in the air. Of course, there have been some changes that have increased the beauty and power of these aerial bombs: copper, barium and sodium were added to the gunpowder mix to give us those awesome colors; timers were added to explode the shells at precise time intervals; and the stars were configured to either explode or squiggle through the sky. Now, fireworks are launched using compressed air rather than gunpowder, which makes setting off fireworks safer. This also allows for better timing of launches, making it easier to accurately synchronize the pyrotechnic display with music and other show features.

This week, as we have done for over two hundred years, Americans will celebrate the fourth of July with fireworks displays in just about every city, township and borough across the country. We’ll sit on our blankets or our lawn chairs, drinks in hand and eyes transfixed on the skies as the first rocket shoots off and bursts into an explosion of dazzling light. We will feel the shock waves of the loud booms and hear those “ooohs” and “aaaahs” that are almost an involuntary response to the beauty and power of fireworks.  Happy Fourth of July!!!

Copyright Davison 2013

Sources

http://library.thinkquest.org/15384/history/

http://www.fireworks.com/fireworks-university/history-fireworks/

http://chemistry.about.com/od/historyofchemistry/a/fireworkhistory.htm

http://www.thefireworksfirm.co.uk/25-interesting-facts-about-fireworks.php

The post History Tuesday: Fireworks appeared first on Davison.

Real ‘chewing gum’ goes back to the 1860s, and its invention is credited to a man named Thomas Adams. Adams was working with chicle, a sap gum derived from Mexican sapodilla trees. He was trying to use it to make bicycle tires, rain gear, toys, or just about anything normally made from rubber —remember the big rubber craze of the mid-1800s—but he was never able to get the chicle supple enough to respond like vulcanized rubber. The story goes that he was about to throw out all of his experiments when he saw a little girl buying some paraffin chewing gum at a drug store. He though that his chicle had to taste better than wax and popped a piece into his mouth and starting chewing.  It did taste better, and he really liked it! Adam’s started a company with his sons and soon they were selling Adams New York Chewing Gum, Black Jack Licorice Gum, and as you might have guessed, Chiclets.

As sales grew, so did competition; and in 1892, a name synonymous with chewing gum came into the picture: Wrigley.  William Wrigley originally sold soap and baking powder but began making chewing gum in 1892 so that he could package a free box of gum with each can of baking powder he sold.  Soon the gum was more popular than the baking powder, so the company retooled and made the chewing gum its main product. By 1893, Wrigley launched his classic chewing gum brands, including Juicy Fruit, Spearmint, and Doublemint gum.  By 1906, Wrigley was the number one brand of chewing gum in the country.

There were many other companies competing for their share of the US chewing gum market in the late 1800s, and many folks continued to jump into the fray. In 1893, Dr. Edward Beeman, an Ohio physician, added pepsin powder to chewing gum and marketed it as a digestive aid.  In 1899, New York druggist Franklin Canning invented Dentyne gum to help people get rid of bad breath.  In 1906, Frank Fleer invented the world’s first bubble gum, but it was too sticky and never sold well.  It took over twenty years, but he finally fixed the problem; and introduced every kid’s favorite Double Bubble in 1928.  By the 1950s, sugarless chewing gum came onto the market—it was invented by a dentist, of course.  And in 1951, the Topps Company got their sales into high gear by adding player baseball cards to each package of gum.

Not much has changed in the last fifty years or so. Kids still love bubble gum and adults still use chewing gum mostly as a breath freshener. But no matter why we use it, chewing gum is one of those little pleasures in life that Americans still seem to enjoy.

Copyright Davison 2013

Photos:

http://northernwoodlands.org/images/articles/spruce_gum2.jpg

http://degree3.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/chicklets-739420.jpg

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/files/2013/04/bubble-gum2.jpg

Sources:

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bladams.htm\

http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventions/a/gum.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrigley_Company

The post History Tuesday: Chewing Gum appeared first on Davison.

The history of video games goes back as far as 1947, when a couple of physicists—and the original video heads—named Tom Goldsmith and Estle Mann applied for a patent for an interactive electronic game they described as a ‘cathode ray tube amusement device.’ The game consisted of trying to shoot down an airplane by maneuvering a dot over the plane and firing your machine gun.  It sounds pretty cool for 1947; but unfortunately, while they did receive the patent in 1948, they were never able to market the game.

Then in 1952, a Cambridge PhD student named Alexander Douglas was writing his thesis on computer/human interaction when he built the first digital graphics game to run on a computer. It was called ‘Noughts and Crosses’ (or tic-tac-toe in the US) and known by its shorthand name of OXO. It used a rotary phone dial to let you place your symbol in the tic-tac-toe matrix. Unfortunately, this too was never marketed, since you needed a University sized computer to run the program. In fact, most of these early computer games were built at universities and required large mainframe computers to operate; therefore, they couldn’t be practically marketed.

Still, there were many games being created in the 1950s and 1960s, so the idea of the video game had clearly captured the imagination of a lot of very bright people. For instance, in 1961, students at MIT created a game called SpaceWar!, where (you guessed it) players fired missiles at each other’s spaceships. In 1966, a couple of defense contractor physicists developed Chase, the first game designed to play on a standard television set. In 1969, a bunch of AT&T computer programmers created a game called Space Travel and in the process, invented the UNIX operating system.

Then in the 1970s, things changed. In 1971, a couple of guys named Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney created a coin-operated arcade version of Spacewar! and named it Computer Space. They sold the concept to a manufacturing company who built and sold around 1,500 machines to pinball arcades around the country. Though the game was hard to play and wasn’t a big money maker, it did make history as the first mass-produced video game that was available for commercial sale. And with the money they made from the sale of that game, Bushnell and Dabney founded Atari, Inc. in 1972.

Atari was, of course, the first true video game company in the world, and became an overnight success with the release of the most famous video game ever, Pong. Atari sold over 19,000 Pong machines and went on to create some of the most iconic games in history like Asteroids and Lunar Lander. But the genius of Atria was that they were not content to merely make arcade games, they realized that the big money was in creating games that could be played at home on a TV, so they created the Atari Video Computer System (later renamed the Atari 2600) that could play all of Atari’s games. Marketing genius, to say the least.

Atari has, of course, spawned many imitators and competitors, a few of which have displaced Atari as king of the video game. Heavy hitters like Sony (PS3), Microsoft (Xbox 360), and Nintendo (Wii) have taken over and dominate the market, with the help of third party developers who created games like the BioShock, Halo and Call of Duty franchises. And the future looks bright thanks to developers at companies such as Valve and Rockstar Games, who not only put quality over quantity with their products but also look to innovate with their story, gameplay and graphics. So as we load up our favorite game and kill some zombies or maniacal robots, let’s give a nod of thanks to those pioneers who started it all.

Copyright Davison 2013

Images:

http://www.video-game-history.com/images/video-game-history.jpg
http://www.authenticsociety.com/Images/Content/VideoGames/oxo-a-s-douglas-original-tic-tac-toe-game-screenshot.png
http://blog.aurorahistoryboutique.com/images/pong.png
http://blog.muchmusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/holidaywrap-best-games.png

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode_ray_tube_amusement_device
http://classicgames.about.com/od/classicvideogames101/p/CathodeDevice.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OXO

The post History Tuesday: Video Games appeared first on Davison.

The origins of golf are unclear and hotly debated. Many golf historians say that golf began in Scotland.  Others say that the Dutch started golf as a game played with a stick and ball on frozen canals in the wintertime. Still others say that golf has been played in China since the Southern Tang Dynasty, 500 years before the Scots ever picked up a club. But, while ‘stick and ball’ games have been around for many centuries, the game as we know it, played over 18 holes is generally considered to be a Scottish invention. The first documented mention of golf in Scotland appears in a 1457 Act of the Scottish Parliament, an edict issued by King James II of Scotland prohibiting the playing of “gouf” as it distracted soldiers from their archery practice. The word golf—or as they say in Scotland: “gouf”—derives from the Dutch word “kolf”, which means, quite simply, club.

But modern golf really began in 1744, when the oldest surviving rules of golf were written for The Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers and formed the basis for all subsequent codes. But it took another one hundred years before the game spread outside of Scotland. In the 1850s, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert built Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands. Their frequent visits and royal enthusiasm for Scotland and golf caused a boom in tourism, and a wider interest in Scottish culture and golf. By the late 1800s, golf had spread throughout Britain and Europe;,and then landed firmly in America. In 1894, several American golf clubs met in New York City to form what was to become the United States Golf Association (USGA).

Since then, the biggest evolution in the game has been in equipment. Some of the biggest advancements have been in the development of the golf ball. Wooden balls, hand-carved from hardwood, were the first golf balls, and were used between the 14th and 17th centuries. These balls were replaced by the feathery ball, a hand-sewn round leather pouch stuffed with chicken or goose feathers and coated with paint. Despite these leather pouches’ obvious drawbacks, the feathery was still a dramatic improvement over the wooden ball, and remained the standard golf ball well into the 19th century.

The post History Tuesday: Golf appeared first on Davison.

Swimming as an activity goes back as far as 3500 B.C. in ancient Egypt and later in ancient Greece, Rome, and Assyria.  The first swimming pool is credited by historians as the ‘Great Bath’ at the site of Mohenjo-Daro in modern-day Pakistan. Created during the 3rd millennium BC, it was a pool that measured 12 by 7 meters and was lined with bricks and covered with a tar-based sealant. There is also evidence that the first heated swimming pool was built by Gaius Maecenas of Rome in the first century BC. It turns out that Gaius was a close friend to the Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus, so we can imagine that Rome may have been the birth place of the wild ‘pool party’ as well.

But it’s really in the last couple of hundred years that swimming pools began to evolve. Swimming clubs started to become popular in Britain in the early 1800s. The oldest surviving Swimming Club in Britain, the Maidstone Swimming Club, was said to have built its first swimming pool in response to club member drowning in the River Medway. By 1837, six indoor pools with diving boards could be found in London.

In the US, municipal pools really took hold around 1862 as part of an effort to combat disease. Cholera was thought to be associated with poor human hygiene, so cities opened ‘river baths’ in hopes of preventing cholera outbreaks. The baths were enclosed structures housing large wooden tank-like pools that were submerged into the local river. The pool design allowed river water to be circulated naturally between the wooden boards. Soon in-ground concrete or tile swimming pools were being built all over the country.

After the modern Olympic Games which began in 1896, with swimming races, among the original events, the popularity of swimming pools began to spread as newspapers wrote stories and showed photographs of the events. This led to acceleration of municipal pool construction and the introduction of swimming pool chlorination as public officials aggressively publicized pool sanitation measures to alleviate long-standing fears of waterborne illnesses. Hollywood helped the swimming pool boom by glamorizing swimming with movie stars like Esther Williams and Olympic swimming star Johnny Weissmuller (a.k.a. Tarzan).

After World War II, when returning GIs got their GI loans and moved to the suburbs, a backyard swimming pool became a status symbol for all to see.  But since a traditional in-ground pool was very expensive, cheaper above-ground pools became an attractive option. They didn’t require the expensive earthworks required for an in-ground pool, they were much easier to maintain and could be taken apart in the winter.

Today we have many options for pools and their dramatic price reduction has enabled many more families to own their own pool. Today, many in-ground pools are constructed of fiberglass pre-formed shells that are a lot less expensive than the traditional poured concrete in-ground pool.  Above-ground pools are cheaper and stronger than ever before.

Many pools are switching from chlorine to common table salt to sanitize the water. Chlorine generators produce natural chlorine from salt by separating salt molecules into their component parts: chloride and sodium. These salt pools account for nearly 75% of new pool installations.  And state-of-the-art water purification technology is eliminating the need for chlorinated pool water altogether because it is able to filter the water so perfectly that it’s actually drinkable.

Will Ferrell’s Ron Burgundy: Stay cool and “stay classy.”

So there you have it, a brief history of the swimming pool. With an estimated 10,000,000 swimming pools in the US alone, they have clearly become a part of our communities and our own homes; and for many of us, a dip in a cool pool on a hot day is what summer is all about.

Images:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2wFXD5YOElA/TJ1ZhHa9ydI/AAAAAAAAelE/4bmxbjx-kgs/s1600/caveman3.jpg

http://www.ci.arcadia.ca.us/images/swimming_pool-county_park.jpg

http://dlt.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Spanish_Fly_Cannonball.jpg

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_pool

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blswimmingpools.htm

http://visual.ly/history-swimming-pools

http://lissie.hubpages.com/hub/Swimming-Pools

The post History Tuesday: The Swimming Pool appeared first on Davison.

With summer on the horizon and long hot sunny days ahead, we all want to enjoy our time in the sun and to avoid a nasty sunburn. Of course, you can simply cover your entire body in a sheet or hide under an umbrella to avoid the harmful rays of the sun; but if you have any desire to move, play or swim, that’s probably not practical. So sunscreen was invented as a way to give us protection from the burning rays of the sun in a way that lets us enjoy the great outdoors.

From ancient times, humans have made the connection between overexposure to sunlight and painful, blistering red skin. In fact, the ancient Egyptians made potions of rice bran extracts and jasmine to ward off sun damage and heal burned skin. But until the 19^th century, most scientists believed that sunburn was caused by heat damage. Then in 1801, a scientist named Johann Wilhelm Ritter was able to measure light below the visible spectrum and discovered ultraviolet (UV) rays. He postulated, correctly, that the UV radiation was causing skin cells to become inflamed, and that it was this radiation, not heat, that caused sunburn.

Further experiments throughout the 1800s clearly demonstrated the causal link between UV rays and sunburn, but it took another century before a practical lotion was invented to protect skin (this explains why large hats and parasols were in fashion). Then in 1928, Karl Hausser and Wilhelm Vahle reported that sunburn in human skin is caused by specific wavelengths of the UV spectrum, and realized that the skin could be protected by filtering out those wavelengths using an emulsion of para-aminobenzoic acid (PABA) and benzyl salicylate. This led to the first commercially available sunscreen produced in the United States.

Around the same time in Europe, Eugene Schueller invented another type of sunscreen and went on to start the company L’Oreal, now a billion dollar conglomerate for skin and hair products. Another European, Franz Greiter, created a product called Gletscher Crème (Glacier Cream) after getting a bad sunburn while mountain climbing in the Alps. He developed a way to measure a product’s ability to block ultraviolet rays, which became known as the Sun Protection Factor, or SPF.

Back in the United States, Benjamin Green, an airman and pharmacist, used a greasy substance called ‘red vet pet’ (red veterinary petrolatum) to protect himself and other soldiers stationed in the Pacific from ultraviolet rays during World War II.  It worked primarily as a sun ‘block’—a physical barrier between the skin and the sun.  While it did the job, the petroleum-based compound was sticky, uncomfortable, and stained fabrics; making it impractical as a commercial venture. After the war, Greene later developed a more consumer-friendly formula and founded the company Coppertone.

Today scientists have positively confirmed that spending time in the sun increases the risk of skin cancer and early skin aging. Medical organizations such as the American Cancer Society and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommend the use of sunscreen because it aids in the prevention of developing skin cancer. In fact, the FDA has just this month released new labeling rules for sunscreens and offered more guidance for consumers trying to avoid sunburns. So go outside and enjoy your summer, but remember to use at least an SPF 15 before you do.

Images:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/commercial/2011/12/9/1323427982983/Girl-having-sun-block-app-007.jpg

http://img.trendencias.com/2010/06/090801_vintage_coppertone_a.jpg

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunscreen

http://inventors.about.com/od/sstartinventions/a/sunscreen.htm

http://www.randomhistory.com/2009/04/28_sunscreen.html

http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2013/05/avoiding-sunburn-look-for-new-labeling-on-sunscreen-this-year.html/

The post History Tuesday: Sunscreen appeared first on Davison.

Critical precursors to the plane were kites and hot air balloons.  Kites, invented by the Chinese around 400 BC, enabled inventors to study aerodynamics and gave them a sense of how wind flowed over and under a fixed wing for lift. But of course kites were too flimsy to carry a man, so everything learned was theoretical.  Balloons, on the other hand, allowed people to leave the ground and float in the air, like a bird, giving the traveler the exhilarated feeling of flight. The first passenger balloon is credited to another pair of brothers, Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier who— in 1783—used smoke from a fire to blow hot air into a silk bag, which allowed the balloon to be lighter-than-air.  The silk bag was attached to a basket, and the first passengers in this balloon were a sheep, a duck and a rooster.

In 1799, a man named George Cayley built the world’s first glider. Many consider him to be the first true scientific aerial investigator and the first person to understand the underlying principles and physics of flight.  Over the next 50 years, he made many improvements to the gliders; including changing the shape of the wings so that the air would flow over the wings correctly, and designing a tail for the gliders to help with stability. He also tried a biplane design to add strength to the glider. In 1849, Cayley built a large gliding machine and tested the device with a 10-year old boy aboard. According to Cayley, the glider “flew” with the boy on-board for a short flight.

By 1891, a German engineer named Otto Lilienthal became the first person to create a real glider that would fly a person long distances.  He was fascinated by the idea of flight, and wrote a book on aerodynamics based on his studies of the flight of birds which was published in 1889.  After more than 2,500 flights, Lilienthal was killed when he lost control of his glider during a sudden strong gust of wind that caused him to crash to the ground. The story of his death and the gliders he flew later inspired Wilbur Wright to begin his studies of aerodynamics, and Lilienthal’s text was used by the Wright Brothers as the basis for their designs.

Of course, in 1903, the Wright Brothers had their momentous event, and humans were now able to fly.  Many improvements followed this event and things began to happen quickly.  In 1905, Wilbur piloted a new plane design in a flight that lasted 39 minutes and covered about 24 miles. By 1906, Alberto Santos-Dumont made his first successful powered flight in Europe; and in 1909, a French aviator named Louis Bleriot made the first airplane crossing of English Channel. Then, in 1927, Charles Lindbergh completed the first solo, nonstop, trans-Atlantic flight, and international air travel quickly followed.  A few years later, in 1930, a British inventor named Frank Whittle invented the jet engine that allowed people to go faster and farther than ever before, but that’s a story for another time.

Photos:

http://cache2.allpostersimages.com/p/LRG/14/1459/T5DQ000Z/posters/leonardo-da-vinci-flying-machine.jpg
http://media-1.web.britannica.com/eb-media/27/114727-004-424C89B4.jpg
http://www.madscientistblog.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/lilienthal-biplane.jpg

Sources:

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/UEET/StudentSite/historyofflight.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgolfier_brothers
http://www.flyingmachines.org/cayl.html
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/wb-timeline.html

The post History Tuesday: The Airplane appeared first on Davison.

By the 1870’s, the High Wheel Bicycle became popular because the solid rubber tires and long spokes of the large front wheel provided a much smoother ride than its predecessor. But because the rider sat so high above the center of gravity, if the front wheel hit a rock or crack in the road, the entire machine rotated forward on its front axle, and the rider was dropped unceremoniously on his head. In fact, the term “taking a header” comes from bike riders. As head injuries began to climb, it became apparent that something had to be done.

By the 1880’s, riding clubs were becoming more and more popular and, as their members saw that head injuries were a problem, they began to advocate the use of helmets. At first, they used pith helmets. Pith is a plant material that is easily crushable, but was likely the best material available at the time. Although it would probably break up on impact, riders only needed protection against a single impact to know the helmet saved them, and know it was worth buying another helmet.

At the beginning of the 20th century, it was apparent to racing and club bicyclists that the worst injuries and the most fatalities came from head injuries. Racers began to use helmets formed of a ring of leather around the head and a wool ring above that. Then the style evolved and the ring of leather was supplemented by strips of leather arranged longitudinally on the head. These offered a little better protection than the pith helmets, but still more was needed. Over the coming decades, helmets were developed with hard exteriors and foam liners, but they tended to be either heavy or ineffective in a crash, and sometimes both.

By the 1970’s, a group called the Snell Foundation began comprehensive testing of bicycle helmets and found that none of the helmets on the market were really effective, so they established some basic criteria for head protection, which coincided with the bike boom of the 1970’s, when many American adults took up cycling as an exercise and a sport. Then in 1975, Bell Auto parts invented the first real helmet for cyclists. It consisted of a hard plastic shell padded with a foam-like material. This was the beginning of the modern helmet.

In 1984, The American National Standards Institute introduced standards for helmets that were widely accepted. This helped to remove ineffective helmets from the market and raise the quality of all helmets. Soon a foam liner made of expanded polystyrene was invented, and by the 1990’s a thin hard shell was added to the polystyrene foam helmet for durability.

Today’s helmets are even lighter, more streamline, and have multiple vents for comfort and adjustable straps to make them more secure and easier to wear. As statistics reinforced the drop in head injuries with the increasing use of helmets, many states in the U.S. have made it mandatory to wear helmets while riding a bicycle—a move supported by medical and road safety organizations. Most parents today teach their children to never ride their bikes without a helmet, putting on a helmet should become as natural as wearing a seat belt and as easy as, well, riding a bicycle.

Photos:
http://www.feministe.us/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/old-bike.jpg
http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/items/269408/helmet-bicycle-brown-leather-circa-1930-1939

Sources:
http://www.helmets.org/history.htm
http://www.pedalinghistory.com/PHhistory.html
http://www.livestrong.com/article/351378-the-history-of-the-bicycle-helmet/
http://www.trails.com/facts_36413_history-bicycle-helmets.html

The post History Tuesday: The Bicycle Helmet appeared first on Davison.

BBQ, on the other hand, is a little closer to home, chronologically.  First, the term “barbecue” appears to be a derivative of the West Indian term “barbacoa,” which means a method of slow-cooking meat over hot coals.  Then there are reports that the early American settlers were BBQing their meats during big celebrations, and even George Washington is rumored to have been a huge BBQ fan, though we’re not sure how with those wooden teeth of his.

Many say that BBQ really started in the 1800s during cattle drives out West, when the cowboys wanted steaks but their mean bosses didn’t want to feed them the good meat. So, the bosses gave the cowboys tough, stringy pieces of meat (like brisket).  Through some trial and error, the cowboys figured out that if you left this brisket cook for a long period of time with indirect heat, it tasted pretty darn good.

Others say that true BBQ started in the South prior to the American Civil War, and it was the pig that was a staple of the slow cooking, not beef. In fact, it’s said that plantation owners would release pigs into the woods to graze for months knowing that they could be easily hunted when food supplies were low.  But the months of foraging made the meat tough, so the Southerners learned to slow cook the pork so that the meat fell off of the bone.

And in the 1950s, with the construction of the interstate highway and the explosion of the suburbs, people had the backyards perfectly set for a life filled with BBQ, and it really began to thrive.  So no matter what your preference, grilling or barbequing, beef or pork; American’s eat it, love it, cook it millions of times a year, and have contests to see whose BBQ is the best.  All we can say is, “Ladies and Gentlemen, start your grills.”
Photos:
http://grillingaddiction.com/wp-content/uploads/cave-grilling.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3243/3006923221_859600b313_m.jpg

Sources:
http://thehistorykitchen.com/2012/07/03/the-history-of-barbecue-and-grilling/
http://beetitsquashitspinacharound.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/human-evolution-and-the-history-of-barbecue/
http://www.brownielocks.com/bbq.html
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~class/ma95/dove/history.html
http://www.bbq-my-way.com/history-of-bbq.html

The post History Tuesday: The Grill appeared first on Davison.