New Florence. New Renaissance.

Evolution of the US Flag

Happy Fourth!

You may enjoy this Popular Mechanics gallery of how the US flag evolved since its first iteration in 1777.

Cycloramas in an age of augmented reality

I found myself at Gettysburg National Military Park this past weekend. Among other things I went to the Cyclorama which displays French Artist Paul Philippoteaux's painting "Battle of Gettysburg". It is a mind-boggling canvas that measures 377 feet in circumference and is 42 feet tall and brings to life the fury of the third day (July 3, 1863) of the Battle of Gettysburg. Philippoteaux was commissioned to paint it in 1879.

I could have spent hours with the ranger who explained the logistics of shipping the canvas from France to Chicago where it was first exhibited, then displayed around the country, the assembly in the circular wall at its permanent home in Gettysburg and subsequent maintenance and periodic restoration. 

From the National Park Service

"Cycloramas were a very popular form of entertainment in the late 1800's, both in America and Europe. These massive, oil-on-canvas paintings were displayed in special auditoriums and enhanced with landscaped foregrounds sometimes featuring trees, grasses, fences and even life-sized figures. The result was a three-dimensional effect that surrounded viewers who stood on a central platform, literally placing them in the center of the great historic scene."

The painting has been digitized in the 360 degree video below by the American Battlefield Trust - it's worth a watch, but I was thinking with today's AR/VR we will likely see a next generation depiction. 

Of course, nothing beats a visit to the Park, and a walk around many of the sites of the battle. It is so solemn.

And to me even more gratifying was seeing many artifacts of President Abraham Lincoln's famous "Four Score and Seven Years ago" address at the location a few months after the battle. 

"Memorials are our specialty"

I would love to be in Washington, DC today. So many Memorial Day activities like Rolling Thunder, the large parade, the always solemn Arlington National Cemetery and so much more as this page shows

I am not, but no matter where you are it is a good day to remember the sacrifices of so many.   

Photo Credit

Leonardo as Archaeology

In an interview at the Met, Bambach described what she calls the “archaeological method” she used to excavate details about Leonardo (over 23 years): she studied the intricacies of his handwriting; transcribed and translated the artist’s words herself instead of relying on previously published translations; and read the same books Leonardo read in their original form. Rather than focus on a single theme (anatomy or engineering) or on a single aspect of Leonardo’s artistic legacy (drawing or painting), Bambach resolved to present the artist in his entirety through the lens of both art historian and biographer.

National Geographic

 

 

 

Moonshot of the 19th Century

Promotory Point, UT was the site of the dramatic completion, 150 years ago today, of the first transcontinental railroad, which linked the Union Pacific on the east and the Central Pacific on the west. A giant crowd gathered to witness the final ceremonies. Following prayers and brief but grandiloquent speeches, the president of the Central Pacific, Leland Stanford, using a silver sledgehammer, nervously drove the last spike, made of gold, into a polished California laurel tie. A Western Union telegraph apparatus was connected along with the spike, so that Stanford's final strokes were instantly heralded in all cities of the United States. Two locomotives, Jupiter and 119, crept forward until their noses touched, and a cheering crowd confirmed a single-word telegram: "Done."

Encycolpedia.com

The 1912 mile railroad constructed between 1863 and 1869 was an amazing achievement. This site has a lot of history about the bravery and ingenuity during the construction. 

Before its completion "a journey across the continent to the western states meant a dangerous six month trek over rivers, deserts, and mountains.  Alternatively, a traveler could hazard a six week sea voyage around Cape Horn, or sail to Central America and cross the Isthmus of Panama by rail, risking exposure to any number of deadly diseases in the crossing.

Image Credit - Wikipedia

 

 

Happy 150th, Periodic Table

The History of the Periodical Table

 

Lavoisier’s list of elements, published in 1789, five years before his execution, had 33 entries. Of those, 23—a fifth of the total now recognised—have stood the test of time. Some, like gold, iron and sulphur, had been known since ancient days. Others, like manganese, molybdenum and tungsten, were recent discoveries. What the list did not have was a structure. It was, avant la lettre, a stamp collection. But the album was missing.

 

Creating that album, filling it and understanding why it is the way it is took a century and a half. It is now, though, a familiar feature of every high-school science laboratory. Its rows and columns of rectangles, each containing a one- or two-letter abbreviation of the name of an element, together with its sequential atomic number, represent an order and underlying structure to the universe that would have astonished Lavoisier. It is little exaggeration to say that almost everything in modern science is connected, usually at only one or two removes, to the periodic table.

The Economist

 

 

Mission 66 - reinventing the National Parks

Thanks to the foresight of our ancestors, our descendants should continue to enjoy our many National Parks for generations.

USA Today on Mission 66

However, the parks were in terrible shape in the years leading up to 1956, when Mission 66 was implemented. It became a national scandal of sort, with op-eds, editorials and essays being published with regularity lamenting the lack of parking space, neglected visitor amenities and outdated facilities. Bathroom lines were long, traffic jams were a necessary evil and many could not find overnight accommodations. NPS Director Newton Drury noted that “Facilities and services to the public during 1945-46 were not – and could not be – up to the usual park standards.”

How to solve these problems created a conundrum for the NPS until 1954, when three years into his tenure as NPS director, Conrad L. Wirth proposed a 10-year capital campaign to bring the national parks into the modern era by 1966, the 50th anniversary of the NPS. The name, Mission 66, evoked a sense of immediacy felt during World War II and encouraged urgent action.

The hour long video below has lot more detail on Mission 66

 

 

The history of ice cream

Thanks to Frank Scavo saw this

“Just 350 years ago, ice cream was a rare delicacy, reserved for kings and the richest of aristocrats. To enjoy it a person had to be able to afford refrigeration, which in the pre-industrial world was arduous and expensive.

Back then, to refrigerate foodstuffs, people needed the land to build an ice house (to store the ice), fresh water access, and servants to cut and hull the ice. The ice would have to be regularly restocked and was available only in some climates at some times. But thanks to technological and scientific progress, ice cream has become available to pretty much everyone.

The first recorded mention of ice cream was on the menu of a feast given in 1671 by King Charles II. The banquet was held to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Charles’ ascendency to the British throne. The flavour remains unknown, but the dessert was exclusive to the King’s table and served with “one plate of white strawberries”.

The new treat quickly took off. Eating ice cream not only demonstrated very high social status, but flavours themselves were a means to show off. From cucumber to carnation, sherry to daffodil (even though daffodil is poisonous), the more outlandish the flavour, the more it was valued by aristocrats.”

Human Progress

And if that whets your appetite you may also enjoy this video

 

America’s Best Idea

National Parks have been called America’s Best Idea and I have to agree.  I certainly did when I was younger. I swore I would collect the iconic “Unigrid” design brochures for every park and get stamps on my park Passport. Then I gradually realized the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior did not just manage the 60 major parks like Yosemite and Yellowstone, but another 354 National Monuments, Battlefields, Seashores and other designations.

Then came family and the definition of parks changed. Disney, Anheuser-Busch and other corporations provided park destinations for a couple of decades.

Now that the kids have moved out, Margaret and I are back to visiting National Parks again.   I am not sure we will get to 414 brochures and stamps but it is good to see a growing number of digital resources on each park.

Matt Holly works as a Park ranger but on his own time he’s created a massive site with over 1,700 free high-res maps on the parks. National Geographic has a series of episodes on parks.  One way to appreciate many parks even if you cannot physically make it there. And when you get to one, there are plenty of digital resources to mine on your phone.

As for us, we enjoy a few minutes with rangers like Matt when we visit these parks. Some memorable conversations have been at bottom of a cave at Carlsbad, on a cruise boat on Glacier Bay in Alaska (only two cruise boats are allowed a day and rangers come aboard and provide commentary for several hours), with a Park Policeman at the foot of the Statue of Liberty.

Teddy Roosevelt has moved up in my list of favorite US Presidents for his pioneering support of Parks. And I am very grateful to visionaries like John Muir and Henry David Thoreau for inspiring the country to preserve millions of wild acres for generations to come.

Calling for Time

We ask Alexa or Siri what time it is. Our cars use satellites to keep up with Daylight Saving Time changes. We use our phones as alarm clocks.

So how many of us even remember that we used to call our telcos for a time check?

From The Atlantic

“In the 19th century, big railroad companies had used the telegraph to transmit the time to major railway stations. By the early 20th century, people could simply pick up the telephone and ask a human operator for the time.”

Amazingly people still use a U.S. Naval Observatory time-by-phone line 202-762-1401

“We get 3 million calls per year!” said Demetrios Matsakis, the chief scientist for time services at the Naval Observatory. “And there’s an interesting sociology to it. They don’t call as much on the weekend, and the absolute minimum time they call is Christmas. On big holidays, people don’t care about the time. But we get a big flood of calls when we switch to Daylight [saving] time and back.”