July 11, 1975: Unearthing Qin Shi Huang’s Terra-Cotta Army

A terra-cotta soldier kneels.

1975: Archeologists complete excavation of the necropolis of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China, and discover 8,000 terra-cotta warriors and their horses guarding his tomb.

Qin is a paradoxical figure in Chinese history. On the one hand, he consolidated many of the far-flung provinces to unify the country under the Qin Dynasty in 221 B.C. He also began connecting the defensive perimeters to form what would become the Great Wall, and carried out reforms in the legal, economic and cultural spheres, including the standardization of currency and the development of a common Chinese language.

On the other hand, Qin used his superior military strength to crush all political resistance, killed many of the Confucian scholars who opposed him and employed conscript laborers to work on the Great Wall.

You can also add to the negative side of the ledger the fact that the craftsmen who constructed his vast tomb and produced his terra-cotta army were sealed alive inside the necropolis to help keep the location a secret. Despite those ghastly precautions, there is evidence that the tomb was raided over the years and a number of the figures were destroyed or damaged.

The figures themselves, meant to serve as Qin’s army in the afterlife, are life-size and detailed. They were fashioned during the construction of Qin’s tomb (which reportedly took 38 years to complete) by local craftsmen and by laborers supplied by the government. The artisans appear to have used an assembly-line production technique to construct this army, firing individual pieces and then putting them together at the end of the process.

The so-called Terracotta Army is one of China’s most popular tourist attractions.

(Source: Wikipedia, China.org)

This article first appeared on Wired.com July 11, 2007.

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July 10, 1962: Swedes Set to Belt Us All … Safely

Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin set out to design a new automobile safety belt that would restrain the upper body. Courtesy Volvo

1962: Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin receives a U.S. patent for the three-point, lap-and-shoulder, vehicle safety belt. It’s considered one of the most important and widespread safety innovations of all time.

Bohlin designed pilot-ejection systems for Saab Aircraft before Volvo hired him as its first safety engineer in 1958. The automobile seat belts of the time were two-point lap belts that didn’t restrain the upper body. In high-speed crashes, the buckle position often caused internal injuries of its own.

Bohlin took just a year to devise, engineer and test a double-strap, triple-anchor design that does restrain the upper body, that buckles securely with one hand, and that places that buckle away from the passenger’s soft abdomen. It was simple and efficient.

Volvo introduced the new belt design in August 1959. It started saving lives almost immediately. Volvo made the design “freely available” to other car manufacturers and sent Bohlin abroad to promote seat-belt adoption and legislation.

Bohlin received letters from all over the world from thankful car-crash survivors. He delighted in hearing of lives saved by his invention, and there have been plenty of them. Volvo estimated in 2002 that seat belts had already saved more than 1 million lives. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that they prevent 100,000 injuries a year just in the United States.

The West German patent office in 1985 cited the three-point safety belt as one of the eight most important patents it had issued in its first 100 years. Bohlin received the Gold Medal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in 1995. He was enshrined in the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1999 and in the National Inventors Hall of Fame on the very day of his death in 2002.

Bohlin knew he’d been selected and sent two stepsons to the ceremony. He was 82 and died from the complications of a stroke and heart attack. The family assured the world that Bohlin buckled up every time.

Source: Various

This article first appeared on Wired.com July 10, 2008.

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July 4, 1054: Crab Nebula Makes a Spectacular Debut in the Heavens

Image: NASA

1054: A supernova noted by Chinese observers heralds the creation of the Crab Nebula. The exact date has been disputed, but most accounts accept the Chinese date of July 4.

Supernova 1054, as it is now known, was spotted in the constellation Taurus by Chinese astronomers, who recorded no fewer than 75 supernovas (or “guest stars,” as they called them) between 532 B.C. and A.D. 1064. In this case, however, the magnitude was unusually large: The star shone roughly four times brighter than Venus and was visible in daylight for 23 days.

It remained visible in the night sky for 653 days.

The remnant of that exploding star is what we now know as the Crab Nebula. The nebula itself wasn’t officially recorded until 1731 by English astronomer John Bevis.

The Chinese weren’t the only ones to make an early sighting: Astronomers in the Arab world provided their own accounts, and archeological evidence found in North America suggests that Indian sky watchers also recorded the supernova.

(Source: Various)

This article first appeared on Wired.com July 4, 2007.

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July 2, 1928: America’s First TV Station Goes on the Air

A 1928 television from General Electric initially received alternating sound and picture. Photo: tvhistory.tv

1928: W3XK, the first American TV station, begins broadcasting from suburban Washington, D.C.

The station was an outgrowth of the work done by Charles Francis Jenkins in devising a way to transmit pictures over the airwaves, a process he called “radiovision.” He sold several thousand receiving sets, mostly to hobbyists, and, after receiving permission to start an experimental TV transmitting station, aired programming five nights a week until shutting down in 1932.

Jenkins essentially brought the wrong technology to the field: His receiving sets relied on a 48-line image projected onto a 6-inch-square mirror to create the picture, rather than using electronics, the technology that determined the future of television.

An interesting aside: Jenkins was also the first to air a television commercial. He was fined by the government for doing so, a practice that was discontinued, unfortunately, as the medium matured.

(Source: The Center for the Study of Technology and Society, tvhistory.tv)

This article first appeared on Wired.com July 2, 2007.

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June 27, 1954: World’s First Nuclear Power Plant Opens

Obninsk APS-1 was the first nuclear power plant in the world. Courtesy: ictj.org

1954: The first nuclear power plant to be connected to an external grid goes operational in Obninsk, outside of Moscow.

The nuclear reactor, used to generate electricity, heralded Obninsk’s new role as a major Soviet scientific city, a status it retains in the Russian Federation where it carries the sobriquet of First Russian Science City.

Obninsk, population 108,000, currently houses no fewer than 12 scientific research institutions and a technical university. Research is focused on nuclear-power engineering, nuclear physics, radiation technology, the technology of non-metallic materials, medical radiology, meteorology and environmental protection.

Since the plant opened in 1954, most of the industrialized West, along with countries like India and China, have embraced nuclear power. But the backlash against this energy source continues in the wake of accidents such as those that occurred at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, in addition to the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Obninsk claims Oak Ridge, Tennessee, as a sister city — another town that has more than a passing relationship with nuclear power.

(Source: Various)

This article first appeared on Wired.com July 4, 2008.

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