Interesting tidbits: 1721 – The Committee of Inquiry on the South Sea Bubble publishes its findings. The South Sea Company was a British joint-stock company founded in 1711, created as a public–private partnership to consolidate and reduce the cost of national debt. The company was also granted a monopoly to trade with South America, hence its name. At the time it was created, Britain was involved in the War of the Spanish Succession and Spain controlled South America. There was no realistic prospect that trade would take place and the company never realised any significant profit from its monopoly. Company stock rose greatly in value as it expanded its operations dealing in government debt, peaking in 1720 before collapsing to little above its original flotation price; this became known as the South Sea Bubble. A considerable number of persons were ruined by the share collapse, and the national economy greatly reduced as a result. The founders of the scheme engaged in insider trading, using their advance knowledge of when national debt was to be consolidated to make large profits from purchasing debt in advance. Huge bribes were given to politicians to support the Acts of Parliament necessary for the scheme. Company money was used to deal in its own shares, and selected individuals purchasing shares were given loans backed by those same shares to spend on purchasing more shares. The expectation of vast wealth from trade with South America was used to encourage the public to purchase shares, despite the limited likelihood this would ever happen. The only significant trade that did take place was in slaves, but the company failed to manage this profitably. A parliamentary enquiry was held after the crash to discover its causes. A number of politicians were disgraced and persons found to have profited unlawfully from the company had assets confiscated proportionately to their gains (most had already been rich men and remained comfortably rich). The company was restructured and continued to operate for more than a century after the Bubble. The headquarters were in Threadneedle Street at the centre of the financial district in London, in which street today can be found the Bank of England. At the time of these events this also was a private company dealing in national debt, and the crash of its rival consolidated its position as banker to the British government. The Bubble Act, which forbade the creation of joint-stock companies without royal charter, was promoted by the South Sea company itself before its collapse. This was an effort to prevent the increasing competition for investors, which it saw from companies springing up around it. 1838 – Alfred Vail demonstrates a telegraph system using dots and dashes, the forerunner of Morse code. Vail was central, with Samuel F. B. Morse, in developing and commercializing the telegraph between 1837 and 1844. Vail and Morse were the first two telegraph operators on Morses first experimental line between Washington, DC, and Baltimore, and Vail took charge of building and managing several early telegraph lines between 1845 and 1848. He was also responsible for several technical innovations of Morses system, particularly the sending key and improved recording registers and relay magnets. Vail left the telegraph industry in 1848 because he believed that the managers of Morses lines did not fully value his contributions. His last assignment, superintendent of the Washington and New Orleans Telegraph Company, paid him only $900 a year, leading Vail to write to Morse, I have made up my mind to leave the Telegraph to take care of itself, since it cannot take care of me. I shall, in a few months, leave Washington for New Jersey, and bid adieu to the subject of the Telegraph for some more profitable business. 1912 – German geophysicist Alfred Wegener first presents his theory of continental drift. 1930 – The first diesel-engined automobile trip is completed, from Indianapolis, Indiana, to New York, New York. 1931 – Thomas Edison submits his last patent application. Todays birthday crew: 1745 – Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier, French inventor, co-inventor of the hot air balloon and first person to ride in a balloon. 1799 – Jedediah Smith, American hunter, trapper, fur trader, trailblazer, author, cartographer, and explorer of the Rocky Mountains, the American West Coast and the Southwest during the 19th century. Nearly forgotten by historians almost a century after his death, Smith has been rediscovered as an American hero who was the first white man to travel overland from the Salt Lake frontier, the Colorado River, the Mojave Desert, and finally into California. Smith was the first United States citizen to explore and eastwardly cross the Sierra Nevada and the treacherous Great Basin. Smith also was the first American to travel up the California coast to reach the Oregon Country. Not only was he the first to do this, but he and Robert Stuart discovered the South Pass. This path became the main route used by pioneers to travel to the Oregon Country. Surviving three massacres and one bear mauling, Jedediah Smiths explorations and documented discoveries were highly significant in opening the American West to expansion by white settlers and cattlemen. 1822 – Heinrich Schliemann, German archaeologist and advocate of the historical reality of places mentioned in the works of Homer. Schliemann was an archaeological excavator of Hissarlik, now presumed to be the site of Troy, along with the Mycenaean sites Mycenae and Tiryns. His work lent weight to the idea that Homers Iliad and Virgils Aeneid reflect actual historical events. Schliemanns excavation of nine levels of archaeological remains with dynamite has been criticized as destructive of significant historical artifacts, including the level that is believed to be the historical Troy. Along with Arthur Evans, Schliemann was a pioneer in the study of Aegean civilization in the Bronze Age. The two men knew of each other, Evans having visited Schliemanns sites. Schliemann had planned to excavate at Knossos, but died before fulfilling that dream. Evans bought the site and stepped in to take charge of the project, which was then still in its infancy. 1832 – Gustave Doré, French painter and sculptor. In the 1860s he illustrated a French edition of Cervantess Don Quixote, and his depictions of the knight and his squire, Sancho Panza, have become so famous that they have influenced subsequent readers, artists, and stage and film directors ideas of the physical look of the two characters. Doré also illustrated an oversized edition of Edgar Allan Poes The Raven. His book, London: A Pilgrimage, with 180 engravings, was published in 1872. It enjoyed commercial and socioeconomical success, but the work was disliked by many contemporary critics. Some of these critics were concerned with the fact that Doré appeared to focus on the poverty that existed in parts of London. Doré was accused by the Art Journal of inventing rather than copying. The Westminster Review claimed that Doré gives us sketches in which the commonest, the vulgarest external features are set down. The book was a financial success, however, and Doré received commissions from other British publishers. 1880 – Tom Mix, American film actor and the star of many early Western movies. Between 1909 and 1935, Mix appeared in 291 films, all but nine of which were silent movies. He was Hollywoods first Western megastar and is noted as having helped define the genre for all cowboy actors who followed. 1954 – Yuji Horii, Japanese video game designer, created Dragon Quest Happy birthday guys!
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 13:41:29 +0000
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