The door stands open, you've nothing to lose.
Enter it now or whenever you choose.
Through this portal you'll find creativity
To use when you have the liberty.
Time has no limits when your mind sets the pace.
Just let your thoughts flow anywhere, anyplace!
Go ahead, take a small vacation.
Walk through the door to imagination.
Door to Imagination
By James H. Cavanaugh, KD1FW
The Hallicrafters Company manufactured, marketed, and sold radio equipment, and to a lesser extent televisions and phonographs, beginning in 1932. The company was based in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
William J. Halligan founded his own radio manufacturing company in Chicago in late 1932. Prior to this, he had been involved in radio parts sales for some years but decided the time was right for a handcrafted amateur radio receiver - the company name being a combination of Halli(gan) and (hand)crafters.
The new company was located at 417 State Street and immediately ran into patent difficulties when RCA decided to sue them for building radio sets without an RCA patent license. An opportunity came to purchase the concern of Silver-Marshall Inc. in 1933 and, with it, an RCA patent license as the most valuable asset.
By 1938, Hallicrafters was doing business in eighty-nine countries and manufactured the most popular sets in the USA. That year, the company began to produce radio transmitters. With the outbreak of World War II, the company prepared for wartime production, and was responsible for new designs and innovations for use by the U.S. troops; probably the best-known were the HT-4/BC-610 and related equipment used in the military SCR-299 communications package. Hallicrafters received Army-Navy ‘E’ Awards for its wartime contributions
Production of Ham radio gear and other items was suspended until 1945. After the war, focus was again on consumer electronics, including radio phonographs, AM/FM receivers, clock radios and televisions.[1]
The boom years for Hallicrafters were from 1945 to 1963, during which the company produced equipment considered by many to be superbly designed, including the famous S-38 receiver, which received a cosmetic "makeover" by industrial designer Raymond Loewy. Source: Wiki
The history of radar (where radar stands for RAdio Detection And Ranging) started with experiments by Heinrich Hertz in the late 19th century that showed that radio waves were reflected by metallic objects. This possibility was suggested in James Clerk Maxwell's seminal work on electromagnetism. However, it was not until the early 20th century that systems able to use these principles were becoming widely available, and it was German inventor Christian Hülsmeyer who first used them to build a simple ship detection device intended to help avoid collisions in fog. Numerous similar systems, which provided directional information to objects over short ranges, were developed over the next two decades.
The development of systems able to produce short pulses of radio energy was the key advance that allowed modern radar systems to come into existence. By timing the pulses on an oscilloscope, the range could be determined and the direction of the antenna revealed the angular location of the targets. The two, combined, produced a "fix", locating the target relative to the antenna. In the 1934–1939 period, eight nations developed independently, and in great secrecy, systems of this type.
Progress during the war was rapid and of great importance, probably one of the decisive factors for the victory of the Allies. By the end of hostilities, Britain, Germany, the United States, the USSR, and Japan had a wide variety of land- and sea-based radars as well as small airborne systems.
After the war, radar use was widened to numerous fields including: civil aviation, marine navigation, radar guns for police, meteorology and even medicine.Source: Wiki
The Mars helicopter Ingenuity on the Perseverance rover has phoned home to report it is healthy in the belly of the rover, according to NASA engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NASA received a signal late on Friday (Feb. 19) at 6:30 p.m. EST (2130 GMT) from Ingenuity stating that the helicopter and its charging station are operating as planned.
"There are two big-ticket items we are looking for in the data: the state of charge of Ingenuity’s batteries as well as confirmation the base station is operating as designed, commanding heaters to turn off and on to keep the helicopter’s electronics within an expected range," Tim Canham, Ingenuity Mars Helicopter operations lead at JPL, said in a statement. “Both appear to be working great. With this positive report, we will move forward with tomorrow’s charge of the helicopter’s batteries.”
The first helicopter ever sent to another world is doing just fine on Mars after surviving a "seven minutes of terror" landing aboard NASA's Perseverance.
Source: Space.com
The Picture behind the Statue
The tiny island of Iwo Jima lies 660 miles south of Tokyo. Mount Suribachi, an extinct volcano that forms the narrow southern tip of the island, rises 550 feet to dominate the ocean around it. US troops had recaptured most of the other islands in the Pacific Ocean that the Japanese had taken in 1941 and 1942. In 1945 Iwo Jima became a primary objective in American plans to bring the Pacific campaign to a successful conclusion.
On the morning of February 19, 1945, the 4th and 5th Marine Divisions invaded Iwo Jima after an ineffective 72-hour bombardment. The 28th Regiment of the 5th Division, was ordered to capture Mount Suribachi. They reached the base of the mountain on the afternoon of February 21 and, by nightfall the next day, had almost completely surrounded it. On the morning of February 23, Marines of Company E, 2nd Battalion, started the tortuous climb up the rough terrain to the top. At about 10:30 am men all over the island were thrilled by the sight of a small American flag flying from atop Mount Suribachi. That afternoon, when the slopes were clear of enemy resistance, a second, larger flag was raised in the same location.
Source: History.com
Bonus Topic
February 24, 1955 - Great Britain Big Freeze
With over 70 roads now not passable the big freeze continues in the UK with many essential supplies including food and medical supplies now in jeopardy. The RAF is dropping food and medical supplies in the worst affected areas and are also dropping tons of hay over the Scottish Highlands as sheep are now starving due to the massive snowdrifts that have built up.
The Tube Is Dead. Long Live The Tube
IT’S 1960 OR SO, AND YOU’RE A 12-YEAR -old living in a suburb somewhere on the East Coast. It’s late on a school night and you’re in bed, but you’re not sleeping; you’re listening to a big old Atwater Kent radio that you inherited when your mother got one of those new transistor radios for the kitchen. Tonight you’re tuned to WOR in New York at 710 AM, and you’re listening to this guy named Jean Shepherd who’s telling a funny story about when he was a kid and blew up his ham radio one day, scaring his mother and almost burning down the house. Then he starts talking about radio and vacuum tubes, and he says that those new things called transistors may be good for some stuff, but they’ll never replace tubes altogether: “When you get down to putting out 50,000 watts of radio frequency, no sir. You gotta call in the big boys with the fans blowing on ‘em. With the water running through ‘em to keep ‘em cool.”
Then you look over at the nightstand, and see the orange glow behind the Atwater Kent giving the only light in the room, and even under the sheets you can feel the reassuring warmth of the radio’s tubes, and you know Shepherd is right. Your mom’s new transistor set doesn’t sound nearly as good as the Atwater Kent, or a real hi-fi with tubes. How could some dinky little gadget that doesn’t even light up replace all that?
Edward Payson Weston (1839–1929) Notable Pedestrian
Weston was born on March 15, 1839 in Providence, Rhode Island to Silas Weston, a teacher and publisher, and Maria Gaines, a writer. As a teenager, Weston published books about his father's trips to the California Gold Rush and to the Azores, and he also published a novel written by his mother in 1859.[1] During childhood Weston moved frequently, and by his own account, spent some time travelling with the popular Hutchinson Family Singers.[2]
He first received attention as a notable pedestrian in 1861, when he walked 478 miles (769 km) from Boston, Massachusetts to Washington, D.C. in 10 days and 10 hours, from February 22 to March 4. During the walk, he faced snow, rain, and mud, and he fell several times. His longest period of uninterrupted sleep was 6 hours, and he usually ate while walking. He arrived in Washington at 5:00 pm, and was strong enough to attend Abraham Lincoln's inaugural ball that evening.
Title page of Weston's account of his Boston-DC walk in 1861
The walk was part of the terms of a bet on the 1860 presidential election. The bettor whose candidate lost was to walk to Washington to see the inauguration of the new president. Weston lost when he bet against Lincoln, and received only a bag of peanuts for his trouble. However, he also received newspaper coverage and a congratulatory handshake from the new president, which inspired him to further pedestrian feats.
Source: Wiki
In 1885, Thomas Edison wrote, "I have not heard a bird sing since I was twelve." No one is really sure just how Edison lost most of his hearing. Yet this man invented the first machine that could capture sound and play it back. In fact, the phonograph was his favorite invention.
The first phonograph was invented in 1877 at the Menlo Park lab. A piece of tin-foil was wrapped around the cylinder in the middle. You shouted a short message into the piece on one side of the cylinder while you turned the handle. Inside this piece was a needle. Your voice would make the needle shake, or vibrate. The sound vibrations would go through the needle and make a line, or groove, into the tin-foil.
A needle on the other side could play back what you had just recorded. After just a few plays, the tin-foil would tear up and the message could no longer be played. That is why the tin-foil recordings cannot be played anymore. Later phonographs played records. The first ones were in the shape of a cylinder, with the music on the outside. Later records were shaped like discs, or large CDs.
Edison loved the phonograph so much that he called it his "baby". He improved it over and over for the next fifty years. Source: Nat'l Park Service
The company was started as Radio Shack in 1921 by two brothers, Theodore and Milton Deutschmann, who wanted to provide equipment for the then-nascent field of amateur, or ham radio. The brothers opened a one-store retail and mail-order operation in the heart of downtown Boston at 46 Brattle Street. They chose the name "Radio Shack", which was the term for a small, wooden structure that housed a ship's radio equipment. The Deutschmanns thought the name was appropriate for a store that would supply the needs of radio officers aboard ships, as well as hams (amateur radio operators). The idea for the name came from an employee, Bill Halligan, who went on to form the Hallicrafters company. The term was already in use — and is to this day — by hams when referring to the location of their stations.
The company issued its first catalog in 1939 as it entered the high fidelity music market. In 1954, Radio Shack began selling its own private-label products under the brand name Realist, changing the brand name to Realistic after being sued by Stereo Realist.
During the period the chain was based in Boston, it was commonly referred to by its customers as "Nagasaki Hardware", disparagingly, as much of the merchandise was sourced from Japan, then perceived as a source of low-quality, inexpensive parts.
After expanding to nine stores plus an extensive mail-order business, the company fell on hard times in the 1960s. Radio Shack was essentially bankrupt, but Charles D. Tandy saw the potential of Radio Shack and retail consumer electronics, purchasing the company for US$300,000.
Battery of the Month
From the 1960s until the early 1990s, Radio Shack promoted a "battery of the month" club; a free wallet-sized cardboard card offered one free Enercell a month in-store. Like the free tube testing offered in-store in the early 1970s, this small loss leader drew foot traffic. The cards also served as generic business cards for the salespeople.
Allied Radio
In 1970, Tandy Corporation bought Allied Radio Corporation (both retail and industrial divisions), merging the brands into Allied Radio Shack and closing duplicate locations. After a 1973 federal government review, the company sold off the few remaining Allied retail stores and resumed using the Radio Shack name. Allied Electronics, the firm's industrial component operation, continued as a Tandy division until it was sold to Spartan Manufacturing in 1981.
CB radioThe chain profited from the mass popularity of citizens band radio in the mid-1970s which, at its peak, represented nearly 30% of the chain's revenue.
Flavoradio
The longest-running product for Radio Shack was the AM-only Realistic Flavoradio, sold from 1972 to 1986, 15 years in the same design.
SWLing (Shortwave Radio Listening) is one of the most popular radio activities in the world. Even with the advent of the world wide web, SWLing stands apart because it provides some of the best "unfiltered" news and content to be found. The joy of SWLing is that you don't need expensive equipment, a connection to the internet, an elaborate antenna, or even AC mains power. To pick up most broadcasts, a few batteries and an inexpensive pocket-sized shortwave radio are all you need. This is simplicity at its best, and the reason there are so many people SWLing today. Of course, once you've mastered the basics of SWLing, you may also be interested in DXing (searching for more distant stations) which will require an upgrade from your pocket-sized radio; however, even then, you may be amazed at how little it takes to put together a good DX-chasing set-up.
International broadcasting, in a limited extent, began during World War I, when German and British stations broadcast press communiqués using Morse code. With the severing of Germany's undersea cables, the wireless telegraph station in Nauen was the country's sole means of long-distance communication.
The US Navy Radio Service radio station in New Brunswick, Canada, transmitted the 'Fourteen Points' by wireless to Nauen in 1917. In turn, Nauen station broadcast the news of the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II on November 10, 1918. Source: swling.com
In 2003, revenue from online streaming music radio was US$49 million. By 2006, that figure rose to US$500 million. A February 21, 2007 "survey of 3,000 Americans released by consultancy Bridge Ratings & Research" found that "[a]s much as 19% of U.S. consumers 12 and older listen to Web-based radio stations." In other words, there were "some 57 million weekly listeners of Internet radio programs. More people listen to online radio than to satellite radio, high-definition radio, podcasts, or cell-phone-based radio combined." An April 2008 Arbitron survey showed that, in the US, more than one in seven persons aged 25–54 years old listen to online radio each week. In 2008, 13 percent of the American population listened to the radio online, compared to 11 percent in 2007. Internet radio functionality is also built into many dedicated Internet radio devices, which give an FM like receiver user experience.
As of 2017, 47% of all Americans ages 12 and older—an estimated 124 million people—said they have listened to online radio in the last month, while 36% (94 million people) have listened in the last week.
In the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2012, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, iHeart Radio, and other subscription-based and free Internet radio services accounted for nearly one quarter (23 percent) of the average weekly music listening time among consumers between the ages of 13 and 35, an increase from a share of 17 percent the previous year. Source: Wiki
George Washington was a humble man who did not enjoy flashy celebrations. During his lifetime, Washington paid little attention to his own birthday, and often “celebrated” it by responding to letters or attending to matters at Mount Vernon.
However, national celebration of his birthday began while he was alive and continued after his death. While his birthday is still recognized to this day, the parameters around it changed in the late 20th century, when it unofficially became known as “Presidents’ Day”.
The road to what the majority of the public in the United States now recognizes as Presidents’ Day is a long and confusing one. After Washington died in 1799, his birthday was informally celebrated across the country. It wasn’t until January 31, 1879, that Washington’s birthday became a federally recognized holiday.
Washington's birthday is also recognized in another unique fashion. Starting in 1896, it has become a tradition to read Washington's Farewell Address on February 22 (the actual day of his birth) in the US Senate by a current member. This tradition reminds us of a man whose patriotic spirit still inspires us to this day, particularly federal workers who uphold what he helped create.
Moving to a Monday
Until 1968, Washington’s Birthday had always been celebrated on February 22. It was tradition and a powerful reminder of the man who helped create what we have today in the United States.
On June 28, 1968, Congress passed the “Uniform Monday Holiday Act”. This law was to provide uniform annual observances of certain legal public holidays on Mondays. The act was also created to provide federal employees with more three-day weekends. Under this new law, Washington’s birthday would be celebrated on the third Monday of February, partially losing the value and identity of the importance of his birthday. Washington’s birthday has not been celebrated on the actual day of his birth since the law took effect in 1971.
Today the nation typically combines Washington’s Birthday with Presidents’ Day, celebrating both days on the third Monday in February. However, Presidents’ Day is not the official name of the holiday.
While the name “Presidents’ Day” was proposed for this Monday holiday in 1951, the U.S. government never officially changed the name. In the 1980s, thanks to advertising campaigns for holiday sales, the term became popularized and largely accepted.
The idea behind the name was to create a holiday that did not recognize a specific president, but rather celebrated the office of the presidency. This joint recognition would also celebrate President Lincoln's February 12 birthday within the same period, but arguably, George Washington (the Father of our country) deserves his own day.
George Washington Day
While it may seem like the entire nation observes “Presidents’ Day,” Virginia, Illinois, Iowa, and New York specifically recognize the third Monday in February as “Washington’s Birthday” or “George Washington Day." Some states, such as Virginia, celebrate Washington’s birthday the entire month of February. In the city of Laredo, Texas, an annual Washington Birthday Celebration that began in 1898 lasts the entire month! Source: George Washington's Mount Vernon
Topics for Friday, February 12
Heathkit is the brand name of kits and other electronic products produced and marketed by the Heath Company. The products over the decades have included electronic test equipment, high fidelity home audio equipment, television receivers, amateur radio equipment, robots, electronic ignition conversion modules for early model cars with point style ignitions, and the influential Heath H-8, H-89, and H-11 hobbyist computers, which were sold in kit form for assembly by the purchaser.
Heathkit manufactured electronic kits from 1947 until 1992. After closing that business, the Heath Company continued with its products for education, and motion-sensor lighting controls. The lighting control business was sold around 2000. The company announced in 2011 that they were reentering the kit business after a 20-year hiatus but then filed for bankruptcy in 2012, and under new ownership began restructuring in 2013. As of 2019, the company has a live website with newly-designed products, services, vintage kits, and replacement parts for sale.
Heathkit made amateur radio kits almost from the beginning. In addition to their low prices compared with commercially manufactured equipment, Heathkits appealed to amateurs who had an interest in building their own equipment, but did not necessarily have the expertise or desire to design it and obtain all the parts themselves. They expanded and enhanced their line of amateur radio gear through nearly four decades. By the late 1960s, Heathkit had as large a selection of ham equipment as any company in the field.
In the late 1970s Heathkit redesigned the line again, bringing out a series of transceivers and separates with more advanced digital features and new styling (abandoning the green motif, a distinguishing feature of Heathkits for more than two decades).
During the 1980s, with increasing competition primarily from Japanese equipment makers, wide use of automated manufacturing techniques, and increasingly complex designs, it became much more difficult to produce kits that were both easy to construct and feature-rich at a competitive price. Heathkit began to introduce models that were unavailable in kit form such as the SS-9000. The SS-9000 is an all solid-state, synthesized transceiver covering 160 through 10 meters (including the WARC bands) with 100 watts output. A total of 375 were produced according to the Yahoo Heath user group. This continued until they left the electronic kit business in 1992. As of 2019, the Heathkit company has been revived, and is offering both newly-designed and vintage products for the amateur radio market. Source: Wiki
Duck Tape Invented
February 10, 1943
While working at an ordnance plant during World War II, Vesta Stoudt noticed that the way ammunition boxes were sealed made them difficult to open quickly and this could cost them precious time in battle. So, she developed a waterproof, tearable cloth tape to solve the problem. Her bosses at the plant were unimpressed, so on February 10, 1943 she wrote a letter to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt:
"I suggested we use a strong cloth tape to close seams, and make tab of same. It worked fine, I showed it to different government inspectors they said it was all right, but I could never get them to change tape."
Roosevelt liked the idea and sent it to the War Production Board who implemented her tape idea. They made a tape using woven fabric, known as "duck cloth", coated in waterproof plastic with a layer of rubber-based adhesive and could be torn by hand without the need for scissors. The tape worked great on ammo boxes and soon GIs found it was also useful for fixing leaks, repairing equipment, and even closing up wounds on the battlefield.
Stoudt received Chicago Tribune's War Worker Award for her idea.
So yes, it was originally called "Duck Tape". It wasn't used for duct work until many years later.
NetLogger is a logging program that can use the internet to transmit check-in information to other users of NetLogger. Net participants that are ‘monitoring’ the net with NetLogger receive updated information every twenty seconds.
NetLogger also has features designed to make logging check-ins easier. For instance, if you use a callbook program like QRZ!, HamCall, Sam Database, or Radio Amateur Callbook, information like name, city, and state can be filled in for you automatically.
There is also a “Club Profile” feature that enables you to store and automatically display station information not found in a callbook database.
Other features of NetLogger include support for importing/exporting data in ADIF and CSV format, a built-in contact database that supports complex searching, automatic entry of UTC, date and time when logging contacts, viewing of upcoming net schedules on-line, ability to post your own net schedule, ability to send a list of check-ins to an email reflector, ability to print QSL labels, mailing labels and contacts, plus many other features.
Who uses Net Logger?
NetLogger can be used by anyone. Our net control operators use the program to track all check-ins to the net. With the built-in “almost instant messaging” window, they can send messages between other net control operators or other members using the app to monitor the net.
Within our group, members can use the program to just monitor who has checked-in, as well as communicate using the built-in “Almost Instant Messaging” window.
Download Page: http://netlogger.org/download.php
8-Track Cartridges grew from the booming automobile industry. In September 1965, the Ford Motor Company introduced factory-installed and dealer-installed eight-track tape players as an option on three of its 1966 models (the sporty Mustang, luxurious Thunderbird, and high-end Lincoln), and RCA Victor introduced 175 Stereo-8 Cartridges from its RCA Victor and RCA Camden labels of recording artists catalogs. By the 1967 model year, all of Ford's vehicles offered this tape player upgrade option. Most of the initial factory installations were separate players from the radio (such as shown in the image), but dashboard mounted 8-track units were offered in combination with an AM radio, as well as with AM/FM receivers. Muntz, and a few other manufacturers, also offered 4/8 or "12-track" players that were capable of playing cartridges of either format, 4-track or 8-track. With the backing of the U.S. automakers, the eight-track format quickly won out over the four-track format, with Muntz abandoning it completely by late 1970.
The 8-track format gained steadily in popularity because of its convenience and portability. Home players were introduced in 1966 that allowed consumers to share tapes between their homes and portable systems. By the late 1960s, the 8-track segment was the largest in the consumer electronics market and the popularity of 8-track systems for cars helped generate demand for home units. "Boombox" type portable players were also popular but eight-track player/recorders failed to gain wide popularity and few manufacturers offered them except for manufacturer Tandy Corporation (for its Radio Shack electronics stores). With the availability of cartridge systems for the home, consumers started thinking of eight-tracks as a viable alternative to 33 rpm album style vinyl records, not only as a convenience for the car. Also by the late 1960s, prerecorded releases on the 8-track tape format began to arrive within a month of the vinyl release. The 8-track format became by far the most popular and offered the largest music library of all the tape systems. Eight-track players were fitted as standard equipment in most Rolls-Royce and Bentley cars of the period for sale in Great Britain and worldwide. Optional 8-track players were available in many cars and trucks through the early 1980s. Source: Wiki
Yaesu is a Japanese brand of commercial and amateur radio equipment.
It was founded as Yaesu Musen Co., Ltd. (八重洲無線株式会社, Yaesu Musen Kabushiki-gaisha) in 1959 by a Japanese radio amateur Sako Hasegawa with call sign JA1MP[1] in the Tokyo neighborhood of Yaesu. The initial intent seemed to have been to develop and manufacture commercial and amateur radio transceivers for the Japanese market but by 1964 there were sales agreements placed in Australia and Germany.
Yaesu's line of equipment was first imported into the US by Spectronics, Inc. located in Signal Hill, CA, in 1965. Yaesu became an important presence in the U.S. amateur radio market with the introduction and improvement of its very popular FT-101 line of equipment in the 1970s. In addition, transceivers were OEM'd to Henry Radio in Los Angeles. Spectronics was founded by William Turner, father of Robert Turner who went on to found EMG, Inc. manufacturer of EMG Pickups for electric guitars.
Sako Hasegawa (JA1MP) died in 1993 and Jun Hasegawa took over his job as managing director.
Yaesu Musen acquired the STANDARD radio equipment brand from Marantz Japan in 1998, and changed the company name to Vertex Standard Co., Ltd. (株式会社バーテックススタンダード, Kabushiki-gaisha Bātekkusu Sutandādo) in 2000. In 2007 Motorola announced its intention to purchase 80% of Vertex Standard and form a joint venture with Tokogiken (a privately held Japanese company controlled by Jun Hasegawa), which would hold the other 20%. This deal was completed in January 2008. The joint venture was dissolved effective January 1, 2012. The Vertex Standard land mobile division operates as a wholly owned subsidiary headquartered in Tokyo, Japan.[The Amateur Radio, Airband and Marine Radio business was transferred to the new company "Yaesu Musen". Source: Wiki
Facing Our History: the Cape Ann Slavery Project
Sermon by Reverend Janet Parsons, Gloucester Unitarian Universalist Church
Source: https://www.gloucesteruu.org/services/facing-our-history-the-cape-ann-slavery-project/
If you stop to think about it, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Cape Ann residents would be involved in the slave trade in the 19th century. After all, people here made their living from the sea: fishing, trading, shipbuilding, and privateering, which is a more polite word for piracy. We get a kick out of having our original organ, now on display in our Historical Room, that was supposedly liberated from a British ship by privateers and then donated to this church, perhaps to lessen the guilt, or perhaps to remove the evidence. Having it is a little bit naughty – gives us a little color.
The Cape Ann slave trade was known as the ‘Surinam’ trade. Cape Ann supplied salt cod to the sugar plantations down in South America, the story went, and the ships returned with their holds full of molasses and rum. But in fact, some merchants and vessels did not limit themselves to the supply of food and beverage, but trafficked in enslaved people.
There are at least two, probably three, documented instances of slaving voyages that originated in Gloucester in the 1840’s. And in two cases, the captains or the investors had ties to this church. It turns out that our history contains more color than we realized.
In May of 1842, the schooner Illinois was preparing to take on a load of enslaved persons in Benin, in West Africa. Suspicious, the British port authorities searched the ship, but chose to believe the story that the many casks full of drinking water were in fact full of a cargo of palm oil. The ship loaded slaves during the night and set sail.
The next morning, the British spotted the vessel, sailing under a Spanish flag, and gave chase. Fearful of being caught and charged with piracy, the captain, a man named Joseph Swift, chose to run the schooner aground on the West African coast. He made it to shore and escaped. It is estimated that around 350 Africans drowned as the ship broke up on the rocks.
According to records, Captain Joseph Swift was baptized here in this church on December 2, 1810. The Schooner Illinois had other ties to this church as well. One of the major investors in the vessel was Benjamin Kent Hough, Jr., who grew up down the street in the Sargent House, and whose father is memorialized on one of our stained glass windows....
In November of 1842, another schooner out of Gloucester, the Leda, delivered a cargo of enslaved people to Brazil. B.K. Hough, Jr. was a part owner of this vessel, and it was captained by William Pearce, Jr., who was the grandson of the William Pearce who is also memorialized on the stained glass window I just mentioned.
The Leda made another voyage in June of 1843, and delivered another 270 slaves to Brazil. The ship was observed by the British, who had attempted to capture her. The ship was abandoned, according to British documentation, and the captain, William Pearce, Jr., made his way home on a Swedish vessel. *
Salem, Gloucester/Rockport , Ipswich, Newburyport Largest Slaveholding Towns
On Jan. 19, 2020, CNET posted its first guide to a mystery coronavirus discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Dozens of cases and two deaths had been recorded, but as we wrote at the time, little was known about "how destructive the new virus might be." The coronavirus -- and the disease it causes -- hadn't even been named. It hadn't officially been found in the US.
Today we call the mystery pathogen SARS-CoV-2. It's responsible for COVID-19, a respiratory illness that has infected over 100 million people. In just one year, we've gone from two deaths to 2 million, across the world.
Reading our original article, it's immediately obvious that everyone -- virologists, epidemiologists, journalists -- was flying blind in those very early days. We were oblivious, perhaps even shortsighted. No one predicted exactly what would occur over the next 365 days, though there were those who tried to sound the alarm early.
Space shuttle Columbia destroyed
On Feb. 1, 2003, space shuttle Columbia broke up as it returned to Earth, killing the seven astronauts on board. NASA suspended space shuttle flights for more than two years as it investigated the disaster.
An investigation board determined that a large piece of foam fell from the shuttle's external tank and breached the spacecraft wing. This problem with foam had been known for years, and NASA came under intense scrutiny in Congress and in the media for allowing the situation to continue.
