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History of Tocobaga Indians

The Tocobaga Indians were a native American tribe of people who lived in the vicinity of Tampa Bay in Florida, with archeological remains found in St Petersberg, Tampa, Safety Harbor, and surrounding districts. The tribe were a maritime tribe who subsisted on fish and whatever they could forage in the locality, or trade with distant tribes. The Tocobaga had a highly developed social structure based around chiefdoms, with institutionalized social inequality between the various classes, similar to the caste system found in other cultures such as medieval Europe and Hindu India.

Around 12,000 to 14,000 years ago Indian people in North America moved into the Florida peninsula, these people were nomadic and rarely established a permanent presence being hunter gatherers. By 4,000 years ago native American Indian tribes started to build settlements along the coastal areas, particularly in the south. Around 550 BC Manasota culture was becoming established and developing religious customs that continued until their last known settlements disappeared sometime in the 8^th or 9^th centuries.

Nobody knows what happened to the Manasota culture, were they absorbed by Mississippian tribes who moved into the area, or did they die out leaving their former homes abandoned? The Tampa Bay area had previously been the northern limits of the Manasota culture but around the same time as Manasota culture disappeared the Tocobaga Indians started building cities and settlements around the Tampa Bay area and establishing a culture the survived thru to Spanish colonial times.

Centered on the area now known as Safety Harbor City, the city lends its name to the Indian culture that developed there from 800 AD, the Safety Harbor culture. Tocobaga Indians and the Safety Harbor culture are therefore considered by many to be the same, although it is incorrect to use the two names interchangeably since outlying tribes that weren’t members of the Tocobaga Indians were also part of the Safety Harbor culture, characterized by the building of truncated pyramidal mounds on which were built the chief’s house and often the chiefdom’s temple.

The Tocobagan Indians are believed to have been mostly peaceful although their society did practice slavery and a person generally remained in their caste with little chance of improvement to higher status. Slaves were obtained thru raids on other tribes and the taking of prisoners, and evidence suggests that each chiefdom would only allow outsiders to live amongst them if a marriage had been arranged between a nobleman and a woman from another chiefdom.

Tocobagan villages were highly structured, always being built around a central plaza which in larger settlements would feature the pyramidal mound upon which would be built the chief’s house and the village temple. Below the mound, and around the edges of the plaza were the homes of the village nobility. The homes of other villagers would be on the outskirts of the village. Chiefs in Tocobagan tribes were considered holy, akin to gods who demanded absolute respect of their subjects, and it is believed the building of mounds was designed to reinforce their position by forcing the other villagers to look upwards whenever the chief appeared.

By the early 1500s Tocobaga tribes people started to notice ships of the Spanish explorers on their horizon, and in 1528 the first contact between Tocobaga Indians and Spain with the arrival of Pánfilo de Narváez. Having been appointed governor of Florida de Narváez embarked on a mission to subjugate the Native Indians. History remembers that de Narvéaz sailed with five ships and 300 men landing near Tampa Bay. Battles broke out almost immediately with massive losses on both sides. Pánfilo de Narváez and about half of his men managed to get past the Tocobaga before heading inland, although fortune was not on their side, with de Narváez and almost all his men perishing whilst trying to return to their ships.

Another explorer, Hernando de Soto visited the Tampa Bay area in 1539 and made a detailed assessment of the villages and tribes of the area. His visit noted only small villages and chiefdoms which would have been no threat to an expeditionary force, although de Soto did at least give us the names of several other small ribes living on the southern boundary of the Tocobaga domain, the Guacozo, Vicela, Tocaste, Luca, Uzita, Mocoso, and Pohoy.

In subsequent years the Tocabaga and the previously mentioned villages suffered terrible diseases brought in by the Europeans and which their immune systems were ill equipped to deal with, and drastically reducing their population. So weakened were the Tocobaga that in 1567 when Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, 20 of his men and a war party from the much more powerful Calusa descended on the Tocobaga who were at war with the Calusa, the Tocobaga were only able to call on 1500 men to defend their main settlement.

The Tocobaga were the dominant Indian tribe in the Tampa Bay area, yet 1500 men would have been no match against battle seasoned conquistadors, but fortunately for the Tocobaga Spain was in no mood to fight having expanded rapidly thru the Americas and facing native rebellions in almost every colony. Despite disease and illness, or perhaps because of it, the Tocobaga and Pohoy nations regularly raided Spanish settlements on their borders leading to moves by Spain to crush them once and for all in 1612, an event that lives on in infamy for its abject failure to achieve its goal.

A little over a hundred years later (1718), Spanish missionaries had managed to convert most Indian people from St Augustine to the Tampa Bay, although tribal prejudices were hard to completely eradicate, the Pohoy and Tocobaga being at war after the Pohoy had allied themselves with the Calusa several years before. War with England to the north, and France to the west had plagued the Spanish colony in Florida and massacres of Indians allied with Spain or who had been converted to Christianity had effectively destroyed most Indian tribes, and by the 1760s the Tocobaga were amongst the very small number of Indians remaining.

It is a sad indictment on the European colonization of Florida that in 1763 when Spain finally agreed to give up its claim and evacuate all Spaniards to Cuba, the last of the Tocobaga went with them and effectively ceased to exist as a people. Native Americans currently living in Florida for the most part migrated to the state after the Spanish and their Native Indian subjects had left.

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The History of the Eiffel Tower

One of the most prominent landmarks in France is of course the Eiffel Tower. In fact, it is one of the most recognizable structures in the world. While the Eiffel Tower is an iconic image and recognized as purely French, many don’t quite know the entire history of this landmark. Here is the fascinating story behind the Eiffel Tower.

The Eiffel Tower was originally built during the years of 1887 to 1889 for the Exposition Universalle, which is known as the World’s Fair. The World’s Fare specifically took place in Paris to commemorate the centennial of the French Revolution which brought democracy to France. The Eiffel Tower which was designed by architect Gustav Eiffel was positioned as the arch gateway for the World’s Fair and continues to be located at the Champ de Mars which is next to the Seine River.

The Eiffel Tower was inaugurated on March 31, 1889; however it was opened to the public on May 6^th of that year. Just an interesting fact regarding this infamous tower is that at first, Gustav Eiffel wanted to build his tower in the city of Barcelona, Spain for the Universal Exposition in 1888. However the city of Barcelona thought at the time, the tower was too expensive and did not fit the style of the city. The city hall of Barcelona voted against the proposal, ultimately sending Gustav Eiffel to submit his plans to the city of Paris.

Today, the Eiffel Tower is one of the many aesthetic beauties in Paris, however from the original outset of planning and construction to several years after the Exposition Universalle, the Eiffel Tower was panned and viewed by many as an eye sore- which would be seen as sacrilegious today.

The Eiffel Tower was constructed over a 3 year period- 1887-1889. With the help of about 300 men, the tower was constructed and today stands at a total height of 1,063 feet high (324 meters). This includes a 79 foot (24 m) antenna added years later. It is about 81 stories of a conventional skyscraper. In fact, from its initial construction till 1930, when the Chrysler Building was constructed, the Eiffel Tower was the tallest man made structure in the world. The Chrysler Building was a total of 1,047 ft (319 meters), but the Eiffel Tower did not have the addition of the radio antenna.

Materials Used to Construct the Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower is constructed out of a pure iron metal named puddled iron. A total of over 18,000 pieces of iron was used in the construction. These pieces of iron were held together with over 2.5 million rivets. The iron used in the construction weighs about 7,300 tonnes. However, this is not the entire weight of the Eiffel Tower, the gross weight including the platforms- there are three totals over 10,000 tonnes. During the construction it should be noted that only one person died. Constructing the tower is much more different than a normal building, as the tower is an open air structure with only 3 platforms available. However Gustav Eiffel employed a variety of safety features which helped to keep deaths and injuries to a minimum. Some of the safety features he employed included: movable staging, screens and guard rails.

It should be noted that Gustav Eiffel created the design of the tower using mathematics to determine the least resistance to wind. This is why the bottom four points of the tower are bulky and strong, while the tower itself is thin and open. The Eiffel Tower is painted mostly a mix of grey and brown paint. About every 7 years or so, about 50 to 60 tonnes of paint are used to protect the structure from rust.

The Three Levels of the Tower

There are a total of three levels of the Eiffel Tower. The first and second levels can easily be accessed by stairs or an elevator. On the first floor of the tower, one can take in the many sights, find shopping available and even food and beverage choices. On the second level, you will find souvenir shops, an observation deck and a private entrance to fine dining. The third level is only accessible by elevator. On the top level, you will find two different observation decks- one inside and one outside. In addition, you will find the engineers office and a representation of Gustav Eiffel’s original office.

The Tower Was Originally Built to Stand for 20 Years

Originally, the city of Paris signed a lease that the Eiffel Tower can be constructed and stand for 20 years. In fact, the tower was built so that it can be disassembled rather easily. However, over the next couple of decades, Parisians fell in love with the tower, as well as more practical uses of the tower- beaming radio waves. From the early 1900’s to 1950, the tower was utilized for beaming radio stations and telegraphy. There was even wires that ran from the tower’s radio antenna to anchor of the tower where there were a bunker which housed radio equipment. This radio equipment was utilized by both the military and commercial entities and it proved to be highly useful during World War I, when the tower’s radio antenna played an important role in capturing the famous spy Mata Hari. In later years, it was used to beam television signals and today it is one of the most visited landmarks in all of France. In fact, since its construction, more than 200 million have visited the tower (recent visitor counts are about 6.5 million each year).

Through the Years

Throughout the years, the Eiffel Tower has played a huge role in the culture and history of France. During the years of 1925 to 1934, the tower was used as an electric light billboard to advertise Citroen. During World War II, the Germans used the tower as propaganda. In 1940, before Hitler could visit the Eiffel Tower, French nationalists cut the elevator lift cables, so Hitler would have to walk up the stairs to the observation deck. At the time, the parts to fix the cables were unavailable due to the war. In fact, Hitler never climbed the tower, staying on the ground. Many state that Hitler was able to conquer France, but never the Eiffel Tower. In addition, when the Germans, tried to hoist giant swastika flags on the top level of the tower, the wind blew the flags off the tower in just a few hours.

Finally the Eiffel Tower averted disaster when in the final days of the war, Hitler ordered General Dietrich von Choltitz, which at that time was the military governor of Paris to demolish the tower along with the rest of the city. However, General Dietrich von Choltitz did not follow the order and within just a few hours of the liberation of Paris by the Allied forces, the elevator lift cables were working again and the tower soon reopened.

Today, the Eiffel Tower continues to be a cultural icon and one of France’s most beloved landmarks. While the Eiffel Tower continues to be updated with new restaurants and shops, it has retained it’s essence from its earliest days.

Related Histories:

• History of the Eiffel Tower

• History of the Leaning Tower of Pisa

• History of the Statue of Liberty

• History of Radio

• History of Things

History of the iPod

Today, one of the most popular devices to listen to music is the ubiquitous iPod. Apple’s iPod not only revolutionized the way many listen to their music, but also how they buy their music and other types of media. While there are plenty of other personal music players, none has had such an impact on culture, the music business and technology. Here is the history of the iPod.

Tony Fadell and his Digital Music Player

In the late 1990’s and early part of the century, digital music players were slowly being created. The industry was new and the technology wasn’t exactly perfected. For instance, while millions of people each year were now discovering the joy of mp3’s on their computers, many realized that carrying around a hard drive of music wasn’t exactly technically feasible. The first mp3 players that were created by company’s such as Rio and Creative were just starting to realize the true potential of a personal digital music player, however storage was an issue. The first mp3 players had storage space of 32 MB and 64 MB, only enough some times to play a handful of songs. In addition, the user interface made the device more like a Sony Walkman and not a next generation digital music player. However, one man did see the true potential of personal digital music players and his name was Tony Fadell.

Tony Fadell in 2000 realized that the personal digital music player had incredible potential just waiting to be tapped. While pretty much all the existing mp3 players of the time relied on costly compact flash style storage, Tony Fadell realized that new quarter-sized hard drives which offered 5 GB of storage space could be utilized to offer the consumer an entire library’s worth of music.

In addition, with the advent of Napster and its legal woes affecting the entire music industry, Tony Fadell envisioned that his new player could easily link on the internet with a media service where consumers can easily purchase new music that was legally downloaded directly to the player. With this idea in hand he started to meet with electronics and media companies in 2000 to sell it. His first stop was at RealNetworks. At the time, RealNetworks was one of the leaders of online media. They had millions of visitors and a wide range of media products being sold on their site- one of their more notable products was their premium radio and television channels. Unfortunately, at the time, RealNetworks balked at the idea finding it difficult to justify the creation of a separate personal music device when the media they were selling was successful as it is. Tony Fadell also pitched his new idea to other company including Phillips, but ultimately was turned down.

Tony Fadell Approaches Apple

In his quest to get his idea realized, Tony Fadell went to Apple. At the time, Apple was focused on their iMac line of computers. While they did make consumer electronics in the past (remember Newton), success was not guaranteed. However, Apple was very excited about Tony Fadell’s idea regarding a personal digital music player, especially since only a few months ago, Apple invested and bought a company called Soundjam MP which could deliver digital tunes directly to a computer or music player.

Apple gave Tony Fadell the green light to start on his project in early 2001. Apple also gave him a development team of about 30 people and a deadline of one year to create the player.

It should be noted that while Apple gave Tony Fadell a green light on the project, he still didn’t have confidence in Apple that they would want to create and develop a player from scratch, so instead he decided to look around for companies that already developed a player and work off their creation. He found a company called PortalPlayer. This company had already developed a player, but it was not yet released to the market. In fact, PortalPlayer had developed over the years several players, but all of them lacked Fadell’s vision- they had poor features and the battery life was horrendous, lasting at most 3 hours.

Steve Jobs and the Development of the iPod

It should be noted that Steve Jobs did take an interest to the iPod from the very beginning and he was present at many of the meetings throughout the year during development. He also tested the product and would express his likes and dislikes about the interface, etc.

In about 8 month’s time, Fadell and PortalPlayer put together the working hardware of the new iPod. On the other end, Apple developed the interface and the scroll wheel that would become infamous. The product was ready to be launched in October of 2001.

The First Generation iPod

The original iPod was release for sale on October 23, 2001. The First generation iPod included a 5 GB Toshiba hard drive, ARM processors, an operating system from Pixo, a lithium polymer battery for added battery life, a high resolution display and of course the scroll wheel- however the first generation scroll wheel was mechanical. While many in the industry didn’t at first notice the importance of this player, the scroll wheel, large storage and extremely intuitive interface made it very easy to hold a library of music and find songs that you would like to play.

Compared to other players at the time that included large storage, the Apple iPod was much easier to navigate giving it an edge. At the time, no one realized just how important the iPod would be to Apple, the music industry and consumers around the world. In fact, when it was first released, many commented on the negatives of the device. It was expensive at $400, the scroll wheel seemed foreign and iPod was not compatible with Microsoft PC’s. However, in a few months time, sales were very brisk and the iPod was rolled out to an excited market in Europe. Later on in the first generation, a more robust 10 GB Toshiba hard drive was available as well.

The Second Generation iPod Arrives in July 2002

The second generation iPod saw a couple of major changes, but nothing revolutionary to the already successful first generation iPod. First off, the storage capacity doubled and was now available in both 10 GB and 20 GB models. In addition, Apple taking note of who was purchasing their players, were utilizing special software to make their iPod compatible with Windows. Apple now included PIM software making iPod’s compatible with Window’s through MusicMatch. Apple had a business agreement with Music Match to offer legal downloads of music for iPod owners. The second generation iPod definitely was a solid product and was extremely successful for the time period, however with newer iPods on the horizon, Apple and the music industry would realize just how iconic the iPod would become.

The Third Generation Apple iPod

The third generation iPod was a complete redesign of the product. It helped propel sales of the iPod into the stratosphere. Earlier iPods utilized mechanical parts, however the 3G iPod was completely solid state. All the controls and the scroll wheel were now solid state. In addition the casing was slimmer. The original iPods were bulkier. With Apple realizing the many PC users buying iPods, it added a new dock connector that was compatible with USB 2.0 and Firewire. Other additions included beefed up storage including: 10 GB, 15 GB, 20 GB and 40 GB. And with the redesign came also a new battery, Sony’s lithium-ion battery.

iTunes Goes Online

While Apple did have an agreement with MusicMatch to offer downloadable digital music to iPod owners during the first formative years, Apple and Tony Fadell always envisioned creating and running their own store to make available legal downloads of music to iPod consumers. This became a reality in June 2003. While originally it started only for those running the OSX platform, a few months later, iTunes was compatible with Windows users as well.

iTunes was a cosmic shift for iPod owners. Now they can easily shop and directly download legal digital music onto their iPod music player. With millions of songs available, purchasing a wide range of music from major labels was now a reality and its success grabbed the attention of the music industry, computer industry and media industries all over the world.

Fourth Generation iPod

With the success of the iPod in full swing, the fourth generation iPod was released in July 2004. It added additional features and revamped the styling with a slimmer case. Some of the new features available on the fourth generation iPod included a new color screen, the ability to view photos and additional storage capacity including 60 GB and 80 GB models. There were also some minor changes to the hold switch. It should also be noted that new iPod products were released most importantly the iPod Mini.

iPod 5^th and 6th Generations

Later Classic iPods including the 5^th generation and 6^th generation mainly stayed the same with some minor changes in hardware and firmware. While the casing was much slimmer than previous models the Classic iPod did increase storage capacity to 120 GB and 160 GB, however 160 GB has been discontinued. Also, features such as the ability to play video were added. It should also be noted that the Classic white iPod which at times was available in black as well was now silver.

The iPod Mini

The iPod Mini was released in 2004 to wide acclaim. The Mini was a smaller version of the Classic iPod and it took advantage of a smaller size hard drive that was developed by Hitachi. The hard drive was about half the size of the Classic’s hard drive. However, the storage capacity was significantly smaller. The first iPod Mini had a storage size of 4 GB, which was perfect for the many that used iPods for working out and other activities where a lighter weight and form was necessary. It included a click wheel and a smaller size screen with pretty much the same interface. It also came in five attractive colors including blue, green, pink, silver and gold. It originally listed for $249. There was a second generation iPod mini which bumped up the storage size to 6 GB, on the 2G iPod mini, the gold color was discontinued. The 2G model also had an extended battery life, going from 8 hours of audio to 18.

The iPod Nano

The iPod Mini was the beginning of the smaller size iPods. Storage was getting not only smaller, but offering higher capacities. This meant that the forms of new digital music players could be much smaller than ever before. Apple seized the opportunity to create a fully functional iPod in an extremely small form. The result was the iPod Nano.

The iPod Nano was released in September of 2005 to rave reviews. The iPod Nano was the mid level digital music player that while touted a smaller version form of the Classic iPod had a different kind of memory- flash memory. While Classic iPods had hard drives with all moving parts, the Nano was all solid state. This means that there are no moving parts which make it more reliable, especially if you shake it or drop it. The first generation iPod Nano came in either black or white, had a two inch color screen and had a storage capacity of 1 GB, 2GB and 4 GB. It should be noted that it also had the ability to view photos. The Nano was considerably smaller than the Classic, the weight of the Nano was only 1.5 oz and the measurements of the case were: 3.5 inches, by 1.6 inches by .27 inches thick. Currently there have been 4 generations of the iPod Nano.

The 2G iPod Nano

Released a year later in September of 2006, the 2G Nano came in several colors including silver, blue, green, pink, red and black. It also had larger storage capacities going all the way up to 8 GB.

The 3G iPod Nano

The third generation Nano was redesigned to give it a more bulky look. While still quite small, many found the form lacking. However, additional features were added including the ability to play video and a new interface. Storage topped out at 8 GB.

The 4G iPod Nano

The fourth generation Nano saw a return to it’s original form more or less with some slight changes and some added colors. It also includes some nifty features such as an accelerometer which allows you to shake to shuffle and added storage space going all the way up to 16 GB.

The iPod Shuffle

Besides the iPod Nano, another product that Apple introduced to compliment its line of personal digital music players was the Shuffle. The Shuffle was released in early 2005. While it is known as the budget model of the Apple line up, it does offer a product for those consumers that are looking for a basic music player in a very small form. The Shuffle utilized flash memory just like the Nano, but it didn’t have all the bells and whistles like the Nano. The first generation Shuffle had no screen and a simple click wheel. It also had a form like many USB drives which allowed it to be directly inserted into a USB port to download music. Storage was small for the Shuffle. The first generation came with either 512 MB or 1 GB of storage capacity.

The second generation of the Shuffle was known as the clip. It was released in September of 2006 and it came in a multitude of colors. The clip was even smaller than the original shuffle at half the size. It literally clipped onto your clothing or hid in a pocket, perfect for people with active lifestyles. It also didn’t have a screen, but the interface was easy to use. However, it now required an included dock to connect to a computer.

The third generation of the Shuffle which was announced in March of 2009 is the smallest Shuffle to date. This Shuffle utilizes text to speech to alert the wearer which song is playing- since there is no display. The unit is so small that the controls are located on the right ear bud cable. The storage capacity of this device is 4 GB.

The iPod Touch

While not an iPod, the iPhone which has become widely popular included a fully featured player with a large screen, flash memory and a wide variety of bells and whistles. The form of the iPhone was so popular that Apple decided it could also sell an iPod based upon the iPhone. The iPod Touch is this creation. The Touch offers those that like the touch screen of the iPhone as the user interface for this music player. In fact, the Touch looks pretty much identical to the iPhone and while it doesn’t have many of the iPhone features it is less costly and does not require a phone contract. The Touch also offers video playback and wifi including the Safari browser which makes it easy to connect to iTunes and download music directly wirelessly to your Touch. Storage for the Touch comes in either 8 GB, 16 GB or 32 GB flash memory making it solid state.

There is a second generation of the iPod Touch, however the styling for the most part has stayed the same (a slight tapering of the back). The 2G Touch offers additional features such as Nike+ functionality, a built in speaker and buttons to control volume.

Related Histories:

• History of Things

• History of Mcdonald’s

• History of Sesame Street

• History of Kokopelli

• History of Ice Skating

History of Computers

Obviously one of the great inventions of our time has been the computer. Today, billions use computers in their daily life. While the first computers were extremely large and took up entire rooms, today, computers are extremely small and can not only fit on your desktop, but in your phone and on chips the size of grains of rice. Throughout the years, the computer has evolved from an extremely expensive, cumbersome and slow device to today’s extremely smart and quick machines with incredible processing power.

Here is the history of computers.

The First Computer

While there was no single person that is widely credited with inventing the computer, many view Konrad Zuse and his Z1 machine as the first in a long line of innovations that have given us the computer of today. Konrad Zuse was a German whose claim to fame is the creation of the first freely programmable mechanical computing device in 1936. Many would see Zuse’s Z1 as the first of a long line of calculators. Zuse found that one of the most difficult aspects of completing large calculations on the calculation devices of the day (a slide rule or mechanical adding machine) was the ability to keep track of the many results that would then have to be recomputed to give a final answer. Zuse’s Z1 was created with a focus on 3 basic elements that are still necessary in today’s calculators- it is necessary to have a control, it is necessary to have a memory to store results of each step and it is necessary to perform calculations.

In later additions of his Zuse computer, Konrad Zuse created the Z2 and Z3. The innovations to his computers were quite important. The Z2 was the first fully functioning electro- magnetic computer and the Z3 was the first fully electronic and digital computer that included the ability to be programmed. The Z3 was programmed with a binary floating point number and switching system. It even included storage which used tape in the form of old movie reels. In those days most business machines used punched paper, however in Germany at the time, paper was extremely expensive.

The Harvard Mark I Computer

With World War II blazing on, the US government realized that it needed to be more innovative than ever in order to gain the upper hand. At major universities across America, many scientists and mathematicians worked hard on innovating new ways to keep up with the technology that was quickly advancing. Much of the focus was on making rockets and ballistics more precise- which required complex calculations. At Harvard, the first of the MARK series computers were being built. The MARK I began in 1944. This computer was absolutely huge and filled a room that was 55 feet long by 8 feet high. It contained an amazing array of components. In fact, in all it had over 760,000 parts. It was loud and clicked and clanged like a huge factory. However, the MARK 1 turned out to be a success. It was utilized by the US Navy for calculations of ballistics. It performed well for the next 15 years, being in service till 1959.

The MARK I used pre punched paper tape, it could perform a wide variety of calculations including addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and it was able to hold and reference a previous result used in its calculations. It even had the capability to compute numbers with up to 23 decimal places. As for the vastness of this machine, it was not only loud and had hundreds of thousands of parts, but included 500 miles of wire. While the computer itself was high tech for its time, the output was not digital, the MARK 1 used a simple electric typewriter to display results. Speed was also lacking with a typical multiplication computation taking from 3 to 5 seconds.

The ENIAC Computer

The ENIAC computer is known as being one of the most important achievements in computing. The computer was commissioned during WWII and it was originally commissioned and used by the US military for ballistics research for computing tables. The ENIAC stands for Electrical Numerical Integrator and Calculator. It was developed by John Mauchly and J Presper Eckert. While John Mauchly created several previous calculating machines, this machine would be different. The ENIAC would use vacuum tubes instead of electric motors and levers to speed up calculations. ENIAC was originally designed starting in 1943, however it wasn’t built and ready for operation until 1946. The total cost of the ENIAC was $500,000. While it was originally built for ballistics it was used for a whole host of issues including weather, random number studies and even wind tunnel design. The ENIAC had an enormous amount of vacuum tubes- over 14,000 and included 70,000 resistors and over 5 million soldered joints. It covered a space of 187 square meters and weighed over 30 tons. This computer was enormous.

Regarding speed, the ENIAC was blazing fast for the technology in those times. It one second, the ENIAC could perform 5,000 additions, 357 multiplications or 38 divisions. The speed of the ENIAC was about 1,000 times faster than any other calculating device during that era. The ENIAC stayed in operation until 1955.

The First Random Access Memory (RAM)

In 1946, RAM was first introduced and started to be utilized as an effective data storage device. While the ability to use a cathode ray tube were being studied for several years, the Williams tube was the first RAM to be utilized in computers. RAM or Random Access Memory is an easy way to store computer instructions that can be used over and over by the computer without unnecessary programming. The first RAM was actually a metal detector plate that was in position close to a vacuum tube which detected the difference in electrical charges. On a CRT screen, one can see the difference between these charges as either a dot or pixel of green or black- this in essence was binary code either 0 or 1. With the advent of RAM, rewiring each time a new program was installed was no longer necessary and programming itself became more convenient and quicker. This type of memory was used until core memory took over in 1955.

The Manchester Baby and Manchester MARK I

With plenty of innovations taking place in the 1940’s after the war, faster and more complex computers were being built on both sides of the Atlantic. England had its own successes with early computers specifically the Manchester Baby and the Manchester MARK I. The Manchester Baby was developed by Telecommunications Research Establishment and it decided to build a computer based on the Williams tube. One of the designers Tom Kilburn devised an even more impressive way to storing data than the current Williams tube was able to handle. Kilburn’s new innovation allowed the storage capacity to include 2048 bits of information. The Manchester Baby was the first computer to use a stored program, it went live in 1948.

The Manchester MARK I

Besides the Manchester Baby, the Manchester MARK I was commissioned to be built and in 1951 the Manchester went live. The Manchester built upon the successes of the day’s computers and while it showed tremendous progress against computers built just a few years ago, it also showed researchers that there was also enormous potential for the computer.

The UNIVAC

Besides the ENIAC, one of the most popular computers of the past is the UNIVAC. The UNIVAC stands for Universal Automatic Computer. It was built and developed by those that created the ENIAC computer. Instead of working for the US military, the UNIVAC was first sold to the US Census Bureau that required a computer for complex computations dealing with the explosion in the US population. In 1946, the US Census Bureau gave a $300,000 deposit for the development and creation of the UNIVAC. It was stated in the contract that it would pay no more than $400,000 for the computer, however falling into financial difficulties and cost over runs, the UNIVAC was delivered at the cost of 1,000,000 dollars. In fact, the UNIVAC was now owned by the Remington Rand Corporation which sold the first UNIVAC at a loss in the hopes that later sales of the computer would pay back their initial investment.

The UNIVAC computer was extremely cutting edge for its day. It was fast and able to handle many computations. In fact, it can add in 120 microseconds, multiply in 1,800 micro seconds and divide in 3,600 microseconds. It was also able to read characters that were fed via magnetic tap at a speed of 12,800 characters per second. All in all it was one of the fastest and most innovative computers of its day. In fact, the UNIVAC received public praise and notoriety when it was used to predict the next president of the United States.

IBM and the Computer

IBM today is known for bringing the first widely affordable and available personal computer (PC) to the masses, however earlier in the 20^th century they were widely known for their punch card business machines such as calculators. The first IBM general purpose computer was the IBM 701. In 1953, the 701 was developed in part due to the Korean War. The goal was that a computer was needed in helping to compute and keep track of the effort of policing Korea. The IBM 701 not only delivered one computer for the Korean War cause, but built 19. Some went to atomic research, others went to aircraft companies and research facilities including the US Weather Bureau. At the time, a company or large organization could rent the 701 for $15,000 per month. It was built with storage tubes for memory and used magnetic tape to store information. It also should be noted that the new computer language FORTRAN was utilized in the new 701.

Besides the IBM 701, there were other IBM computers to follow including the 704, the first super computer to utilize floating point hardware and a magnetic core memory that was much faster than magnetic drum stored memory. The IBM 7090 also was a big success being IBM’s first commercial transistorized computer. It was built in 1960 and was the fastest computer of its day. IBM capitalized on the 7090 and it dominated business computers for the next 20 years.

The Integrated Circuit – The Chip

One of the biggest innovations to the computer was the integrated circuit (IC) or the chip as it is now known. In fact, the chip has made the computer extremely powerful and affordable so that practically everyone in the world today can own a computer. The chip has had an enormous influence on reducing the cost of the computer, literally cutting it by a factor of a million to one.

The chip was actually invented by two different entities at about the same time without either entity knowing about the other. However, both companies were extremely smart and combined their licensing agreements to take advantage of the huge market for the technology. In the first few decades of computer creation, in order to make a computer more powerful or add innovation, it usually required more and more parts, however with a chip, everything can be placed on an extremely small piece of silicon.

The first commercial integrated circuits or chips were sold in 1961. While first bought up by the military they later were used in the first mobile calculators. While the first chip had one transistor, three resisters and one capacitor which fit on a space less than a square inch, today’s chips are much smaller and can hold more than 125 million transistors.

The First Microprocessor- A Computer on a Chip by Intel Corp.

While the IC chip (integrated circuit) was already developed, Intel was the first to put a complete microprocessor or computer on a single chip. The first Intel chip to do so was the 4004.

The 4004 was able to put a central processing unit, memory, input and output controls on one super small chip. This chip had huge implications to almost anything digital and as the years went on, Intel was able to create smaller, more powerful chips that actually cost less. The personal computer of today has the Intel 4004 chip to thank for its ability to be incredibly powerful and affordable for the consumer.

The First Consumer Computers

If you wanted to use a computer in the 1960’s or 1970’s, these huge devise were not only very rare- only available to students and researchers at major universities, but extremely costly to run. However, for those that were interested and fascinated by computers, most were looking for ways to own their very own affordable computer. One of the first consumer computers to hit the market was the MITS Altair 8800. It was developed in 1973 and 1974 and was first sold in 1975 as the “World’s First Minicomputer Kit to Rival Commercial Models”. The computer included an 8080 CPU, 256 byte RAM card and a new bus that had 100 pins. It was a kit, so it needed to be put together by the customer and sold for $400.

The First Apple Computers

During the mid 1970’s, there were plenty of hobby computers for sale however many were difficult to put together, had plenty of indistinguishable switches and must be programmed using difficult languages. Steve Wozniak was a computer hobbyist and started Apple Computers with his friend Steve Jobs. At first they showed off the Apple I computer. The Apple I came equipped with a single circuit board, video interface, 8K of RAM, a keyboard and was made with affordable components including the 6502 processor that cost only $20.

While about 200 Apple I computers were sold in 1976, in 1977, at the first West Coast Computer Faire, the Apple II was released with many of the same components, an increase of RAM and a floppy disk drive. While the first Apple computer sold for $666.66, the second was a little more polished and more expensive selling for $1,298.

1977 Was a Banner Year for the Home Computer

During 1977, Apple II, Commodore Pet and the Radio Shack TRS80 all became available for the home. With both Apple II and TRS80 computers using floppy disk drives, it now made it easier for software developers to create and sell programs to the masses. One company that started to grow and even trademarked their name in 1977 was Microsoft.

The IBM PC

IBM has had an enormous influence on the computers that we use today. While many computers that IBM first created were for defense or for large government organizations and corporations, IBM started to notice that there was a tremendous amount of demand building up for home computers in the 1970’s. In the late 1970’s and into 1980 IBM developed a personal computer known as the PC. It went on to be released to the public in August of 1981. The IBM PC grabbed the attention of the public and many businesses that realized that since IBM was selling PC’s to the public, there must be real demand.

Out of the PC came numerous companies that innovated the PC. And since the IBM PC was based on off the shelf parts and had an open architecture, many businesses would be able to support and even start to build computers of their own. The first IBM PC had a 4.77 MHZ Intel 8088 microprocessors, 16 KB of RAM, two 160K floppy drives and even an optional color monitor. While the price was still on the expensive end- $1,565, many hailed this as the beginning of the home computing market.

The Apple Macintosh

While the IBM PC definitely took off, not only for consumers, but small and medium businesses, Apple computers still continued to be dominant in the market. In 1984, the Apple Macintosh was released. The Apple Macintosh while not an immediate success in sales as the company hoped for, did have one of the first GUI (graphical user interfaces) that made computing much more attractive and easy to use. In addition, the Apple Macintosh also had an 8 MHZ processor, 128K of RAM, a floppy disk drive and a monitor, it went into production from January of 1984 to October of 1985 and cost around $2,500. However, it lacked in memory and was difficult to use with its one single floppy disk drive.

Microsoft Windows- Software Sells Computers

With the personal computer market starting to build up steam in the early and mid 80’s many companies realized that a graphical user interface was the best way to operate and perform tasks on a computer easily. While several companies created operating systems for PC’s, none stuck, because there was no support. However, Microsoft had the backing of the computer makers specifically IBM which helped them legitimize their product and sell their OS Windows. It should be noted that Apple did not license out either its hardware or software to third parties reducing the growth of their computer market share. Windows was originally announced late in 1983, but didn’t come to market until two years later with Windows 1.0.

With the later editions of Windows, 2.0 and 3.0 Microsoft included desktop icons and many of the features that are now a staple of home computing today. During the late 80’s WISYWIG programs (what you see is what you get) were introduced including updates of word processing software and updated spreadsheet programs to make these computer programs for home and small businesses easier and more powerful to use.

The Computers of Today

A lot has changed since IBM introduced its first PC. Today, computers have infiltrated into practically every aspect of our lives. Today, computers are extremely powerful, extremely small and more affordable than ever. With the advent of the internet in the late 60’s and the growth of the world wide web decades later, the computer is used as a powerful tool to communicate and conduct commerce.

In fact, the computer has been a tremendous engine in world wide growth and has helped raise the quality of life for potentially billions of people. As the computer becomes more and more sophisticated and morphs with a wide variety of other aspects of our lives, where and how the computer will continue to evolve is still unimaginable.

Learn how to buy a computer.

As a final shot, let me leave you with a cool video of the First Google Server.

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History of Television

Television (TV) is a technology that enables the transmission of full motion broadcasts to remote receivers. A television is the device that is used to watch the broadcasts, and is also the name used for the entire process from filming to broadcast and receiving. These days TVs are ubiquitous in the western world and increasingly popular in less developed nations with estimates that by the middle of the 21^st century every home will have at least one television.

The idea of using television to entertain occurred quite late in the development of the technology, in fact the first uses for TV were thought to be more useful for telephones, Alexander Graham Bell the inventor of the telephone actually created a working photo phone in 1880. The late 1800s saw a number of technologies being tested and developed, personal photography, the use of electricity, radio broadcasts, the invention of telephones, and of course television, and whilst TV took longer to fully develop it certainly wasn’t a 20^th century invention.

The cathode ray tube, one of the most significant enabling technologies for television was actually invented in 1876 and used electricity forced thru a vacuum tube to produce light on the glass front. At the time electricity was still in its early stages of development so mechanical means of transmitting an image by using a metal disk perforated with viewing holes were developed in parallel.

The very first broadcast of a picture over remote distances occurred in 1926 in London when John Logie Baird, a Scotsman, and Charles Jenkins, an American, broadcast a series of small moving black and white images using mechanical means. Their signal was only 30 lines, much less than modern TVs at 525 lines, but is significant in that for the first time motion was broadcast wirelessly to a remote location.

The first television broadcasts were by todays standards basic, not much more than a moving slideshow of stick figures or photographs, but they proved the technology and were an important step in the development of ful motion. In 1927 Philo Farnsworth demonstrated the first electronic system with motion camera and broadcast abilities by transmitting a Hollywood film that had been projected in front of the TV camera.

His techniques, using fully electronic scanning of images was also used in April of 1927 by Bell Laborotories and the Department of Commerce to film a broadcast of Herbert Hoover, then Secretary of Commerce, in the first live broadcast of a person. Picture and sound was simultaneously broadcast using radio waves, in the same way that television is still broadcast today.

Television technology continued to develop over the next decade but at a slower pace after the initial demonstration broadcasts. Bell Laboratories, and RCA were actively investing in developing the entire broadcasting and receiving system for commercial gain and the race was on to be first to market. RCA’s first major broadcasting breakthru came at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, when RCA successfully broadcast the President’s speech in black and white.

The second world war prevented the full development of TV although news was broadcast to the few who had a television, but the end of the war saw enormous interest in television from a public that was desperate for new consumer goods. Commercial broadcasting began in 1947 with NBC, ABC and then CBS competing for viewer loyalty using shows that had been successful on network radio as their first foray into television.

The first shows purposely written for television were the highly popular children’s show Howdy Doody, the Texaco Star Theater, and then the Ed Sullivan Show all of which managed to capture huge audiences and helped spur the growth of television as an entertainment medium. Ba the middle of the 1950s over half of all American homes had a television, so much so that the bigger networks started noticing a substantial decline in radio listeners.

Network television in the US was not alone in experiencing huge growth over radio, in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and other developed nations similar growth in the demand for television was starting to be seen. At the time technology standards in the US had been settled since after the war based on older technology, a system known as NTSC which was in use in the US, Canada and Japan. Europe which was several years behind the US decided to implement a different more modern system they called PAL leading to compatibility issues.

The 1960s were a pivotal year for television. John F Kennedy was elected president primarily on his spectacular television performance. Television had finally reached maturity as a platform for bother entertainment and news, and now also as a platform for political coverage and debate. This despite the uncertainty of the McCarthy years of the 1950s when many of TV land’s most prominent commentators and hosts had been forced off air.

The second major development of television in the 1960s was the introduction of color in 1964, a revolution that transformed the world. For the first time, audiences could see shows, musicals, documentaries, and news broadcasts as if they were right there. Wildlife documentaries and current affairs progams benefited most with the audience finally able to appreciate the beauty and horror of the world from the comfort of their living rooms.

With color television available and quickly overtaking black and white as the medium of choice, the impact of watching TV started to be felt. In some instances it became a force for good, with notable successes such as Sesame Street, a children’s show with special educational value being launched. At other times TV has been considered a force of evil by fringe groups determined to protect their traditional family values.

Of course television’s most important contribution to humankind has been the relative ease of bringing distant people together using satellite uplinks, the very first of which saw the Home Box Office screen Mohammed Ali’s Thrilla from Manila live to US audiences in 1975. Cable and satellite television quickly enabled networks to increase their reach, across national boundaries as well.

In the 1980s the high definition television standard with over double the number of lines at 1125 was ratified but has yet to gain any real market share and as Internet TV increases in popularity many within the industry are suggesting HDTV may end up being restricted to camera equipment with viewers opting to use computer monitors and projectors. The future of TV could be very different from the first 90 years of the history of television.

Learn more about the History of Satellite Television.

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History of Photography

Photography is a relatively new discipline that involves capturing a scene using a lens to focus light onto film or the CCD of a digital camera. Since it’s invention in the 19^th century, photography has become one of the world’s most popular hobbies, and cameras are as ubiquitous as jewelry when phones and laptop computers with built-in cameras are added.

As long ago as the 5^th century BC Chinese philosophers were experimenting with pinhole lenses and creating cameras obscura, a technique that enabled a dark room to display a color reverse image of the scene outside the room using light entering a pinhole lens. A hundred years later in Greece Aristotle also described a pinhole camera.

Historians believe the very first camera obscura ever built was created by an Arab scientist in Cairo by the name of Ibn al-Haitham who lived between 965 – 1039. His research allowed him to observe that light travels in a straight line and that the speed of light was far beyond his ability to measure. the principles described by al-Haitham were instrumental in helping later generations grapple with the theory of light.

By the time of Europe’s renaissance cameras obscura were being created in boxes about the size of a television and the image displayed on a panel above using diffraction and mirrors. Artists of the era would carefully trace the scene they saw and then transfer the sketch to canvas, a technique that enabled the commercialization of art and sped up the process of painting, something that was particularly important in portraiture.

Historically, the art and science of photography dates to 1825 when Joseph Niépce, an inventor in France took the very first known photograph of the view outside his bedroom window. His image wasn’t clear and sharp, and is barely recognizable other than for the shapes of buildings and a tree.

Niépce used a camera obscura and a polished metal plate that had been treated with bitumen which hardens when exposed to light. The bitumen was dissolved using lavender oil and then coated onto the metal plate before being placed inside the dark camera obscura. Unfortunately bitumen takes a considerable amount of time to dry and Niépce’s first image took 8 hours to develop, with more complex images taking considerably longer.

Shortly after Niépce partnered with Louis Daguerre who had discovered that silver and chalk also darkened on exposure to light, but was a cleaner method producing better quality images. By 1839 Daguerre patented a system of fixing an image onto a metal plate using iodine vapor on the plate before taking the photo, and then using mercury fumes afterwards to fix the image.

During the 1830s a number of inventors came up with different methods of exposing images onto plates yet it wasn’t until 1840 and the invention of the calotype process that things really started to get interesting. Fox Talbot, improved the silver plating method using paper and silver oxide allowing him to create the first negatives that could be used multiple times to create positives, images that are oriented correctly to the viewers perspective.

Cameras began to be produced in reasonable volume using Talbot’s techniques that whilst improved were substantially similar. Demand from the public was enormous and almost every major town soon found itself with at least one photographic studio for family portraits. Most were simple affairs, a white wall and some basic props, but amongst the emerging middle classes there was also demand for themed photographs with drawing room or palatial backgrounds.

Since all photographs taken in these times were black and white or grayscale, photographers and painters would use colored ink to color in parts of the photo and create the illusion of a colored portrait. Skin tones rarely matched the person being photographed yet the popularity of this technique wasn’t eclipsed until the development on color photography in the early 20^th century.

The greatest development in photography came about when George Eastman created a dry gel that could be applied to paper or film and more importantly, didn’t require the photographer to carry bulky plates and chemicals, in fact the greatest advantage was that a photograph could be developed later in specially built laboratories. Eastman named his first camera the Kodak in 1888, but in 1901 revolutionized the industry with the development of the Kodak Brownie, the world’s first mass market camera.

Color photography wasn’t available until the late 19^th century although the methods of capturing color involved a lot more effort and preparation than black and white and was generally restricted to inventors who advanced the technology but weren’t able to commercialize their inventions. In the early 20^th century this had changed and several photographers including amateurs were using a method known as Autochrome to take color photographs.

The true breakthru in color photography happened in the mid 1930s when Kodak and Agfa both made available their new color films, Kodachrome and Agfacolor using multi-layered film and the subtractive process. These same brands remained popular until the advent of digital photography in the 1990s.

Digital photography has now replaced film as the medium of choice for most consumers and professional photographers, and the first digital cameras capable of reasonable resolution first hit the market in 1991 from Kodak but were priced at levels that only professionals with a definite need for digital could afford.

Consumer point and shoot digital cameras with megapixel CCDs didn’t become available until 2003-2004, not too long ago at all, yet their introduction effectively spelled the end for film based cameras, the majority of manufacturers having now switched production to digital formats.

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History of Radio

Radio is the science of wirelessly transmitting data to a remote point where a receiver detects the signal. In common lexicon we think of radio in the context of FM or AM stations that broadcast a radio announcer speaking and playing music, but in fact radio waves are also used for sending and receiving data such as wifi networks, satellite broadcasts and Bluetooth devices.

The history of radio begins in the mid 1800s with theoretical discussions that electricity and magnetism were related. The telegraph system was the first direct commercially viable technology to be developed from this discovery, although telegraph required fixed wire cables and could only be transmitted from point to point, and needed human operators to retransmit a signal over long distances.

The first true wireless experiments weren’t carried out until after James Maxwell had developed his own theories and incorporated the experiments of Michael Faraday into the unified theory of electromagnetism in 1865. Over the next decade several amateurs and physicists such as William Henry Ward, Mahlon Loomis, and Thomas Edison patented methods of sending and receiving a wireless telegraph system but none of these people ever demonstrated a working system.

This all changed in 1884 when Temistocle Calzecchi-Onesti invented a device which was subsequently refined and then named a coherer by Edouard Branly in 1886. The coherer became the enabling technology that allowed early radio signals to be received. The coherer is a glass tube filled with metal filings and connected to an electrical current which produced an audible click in a sounder whilst the signal was being received.

By 1887 Heinrich Hertz had refined a system that allowed him to experiment with sending wireless signals to a wireless receiver and is credited with being the first person to intentionally transmit and also receive a wireless signal. Strangely Hertz had no interest in the technology and was simply experimenting with practical electromagnetic waves to advance his theories, but his research paved the way for other, and more commercially attuned inventors. In 1933 Hertz was honored when the unit of measure of radio and electrical frequencies was named in his honor as part of the new International Metric System.

A Serbian-Croatian immigrant to the US Nikola Tesla in 1892 demonstrated the first complete radio transmitter and receiver system, and in so doing was the very first person to successfully invent radio. Sadly, Tesla suffered a fire in his laboratory in 1895 just as he was about to demonstrate radio over a distance of 50 miles in New York. That experiment never happened but by 1898 Tesla demonstrated the first radio controlled boat and filed a series of patents for radio in the early 1900s.

Guglielmo Marconi, a young man from Bologna in Italy had been fascinated by the idea of wirelessly transmitting a telegraph signal and in 1894 succeeded in inventing a spark transmitter with an antenna that he used to broadcast a signal across his parents garden and then across a distance of a mile in the countryside. The Italian Postal Service which controlled telegraph services weren’t interested in Marconi’s experiment so in 1896 he made his way to England and successfully demonstrated his technology to the English Post Office who immediately secured his services.

The following year Marconi established the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company and was selling his patented invention to shipping companies. So successful was Marconi’s invention that Queen Victoria herself had one installed on a ship that her son the Prince of Wales was using whilst he recovered from illness. In 1898 Marconi also established the American Marconi Co recognizing that the US was quickly becoming one of the world’s most important merchant navy operators.

Whilst Marconi’s inventions were outstanding his real genius lay in commercializing his technology, an act that started with demonstrating a successful broadcast across the Atlantic in 1901, an event which progressed the development of radio broadcasting far more than any other single act. Marconi was related to British nobility who were powerful investors in his companies and in the emerging markets in the US.

So powerful were his backers that Marconi managed to have a patent for the invention of radio registered even though Tesla had a pre-existing patent. A legal dispute between the two started in 1915 and wasn’t finally settled until 1943 when the US Supreme Court finally upheld Tesla’s patent number 609,154 and confirming his role as the inventor of radio.

Another American Reginald Fessenden had heard of Marconi’s success but was convinced the enabling technology could be redesigned and be both more efficient, but also allow audio broadcasts, and in 1900 demonstrated his new technology which would afterwards be used by the weather department for sending time and weather information to ships at see. In 1906 or 1909, nobody knows for sure since Fessenden only wrote his notes 25 years later, the very first audio transmission was carried out by Fessenden playing a violin and reading a few passages from the Bible.

Fessendon invented the Barretter detector which allowed him to also develop amplitude modulation (AM), a radio transmitting technique that allowed multiple transmitters to operate at different frequencies and effectively share the airwaves. So revolutionary was the development of radio by Fessenden and his peers that in 1910 a test transmission was held at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York where Enrico Caruso was performing. This broadcast was heard over 20 miles away by a merchant cargo ship sailing into New York from Europe and reported by the New York Times on January 14^th 1910.

The science of radio broadcasting continued at breakneck pace during these early years although consumer uptake remained elusive. A number of audio broadcasts had been transmitted including the ultimatum demand from President Wilson to Germany in 1918 and a highly publicized broadcast from the Naval radio station at Arlington to the Eiffel Tower in France. The end of WWI saw the US government relax control of radio patents and in 1920 KDKA, a Westinghouse owned station in Pittsburgh broadcast coverage of the Harding Cox election. Between commentary they also broadcast other short programs.

Commercial broadcasting took off after this with stations opening in every major city of the US and in major capitals around Europe. The 1920s truly were the birth years of modern radio as we know it. The development of stable mass produced vacuum valves made it possible for almost every home to own a radio. These weren’t small, each radio was fitted into a cabinet that would take pride of place in the family living room and around which the entire family would gather every evening.

Edwin Armstrong, a radio pioneer with the Navy during WWI continued to develop his experiments, and being unhappy with the quality of sound from the AM system which was always known for being a bit flat and prone to white noise and static, he set about reinventing radio broadcasting which resulted in frequency modulation (FM) being made available in 1933. Stations broadcasting in FM were slow to develop given the expense of the new system until the invention of the transistor.

Scientists from Bell Labs invented the transistor in 1947, a technology that transformed modern electronics, although with the huge investments in tubes that already existed it was several years until a commercial transistor radio hit the market. Masaru Ibuka, a young radio repair technician in Japan managed to convince Bell Labs to license the use of the transistor to him for a new radio he wanted to develop. In the US Texas Instruments and Regency were also developing heir own transistor powered radios but it wasn’t until 1957, and the release of Sony’s TR-63 AM portable battery powered radio, which at the time was the world’s smallest radio, that radio really became the dominant medium for new and entertainment.

During the 1960s television started to catch up as the preferred medium of entertainment for Americans although radio firmly held on in the car, and by the late 1990s most Americans only listened to the radio in the car or at work, a position radio is set to enjoy for years to come. Despite the advent of satellite and Internet radio, wirelessly broadcasting traffic reports, news, and music to radio receivers is still dominant.

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History of Medicine

According to the Oxford English Dictionary medicine is the science and practice of diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. The American Heritage Dictionary goes further and says the art or science of restoring or preserving health or due physical condition, as by means of drugs, surgical operations or appliances, or manipulations. Few medical professionals would disagree with these definitions although they might suggest medicine more often involves treating ailments rather than preserving health.

In human society it is rare for people with illness or injuries to be abandoned to their fate, it happens, often during war or major pestilence, but on the whole humans are a caring species who look after and comfort the less capable within their family or tribe. Evidence that this trait was valued even in hunter gatherer societies is strong, archaeological digs have unearthed carefully arranged burial sites containing human remains that had been injured or passed away from illness.

Lascaux cave paintings of herbal plants suggest that ancient nomadic people knew of the recuperative effects of certain herbs, there have even been suggestions that morphine and digitalis may have been discovered in pre-historic times. Certainly we know that indigenous peoples, even those who have been remote from the rest of the human race for hundreds or thousands of years have all practiced a rudimentary form of medicine mixed with faith.

Surgery, even brain surgery, was not unknown. Archaeologists have uncovered evidence that stone age people would sometimes drill holes into the skulls of people they believed to be under the influence of evil spirits. Called trepanning, the technique involved cutting and folding back the scalp then using a sharpened stone to drill a hole into the skull which in some instances was as big as two inches in diameter. We have no idea how the wound was treated so that it would heal but we do know that the patients often survived the procedure and the bone would grow back.

Recent discoveries in present day Pakistan at Mehrgarh prove that the earliest rudimentary medicine developed around 9000 years ago, with people in the area been practicing dentistry and surgery since 7000 BC. Sadly the Mehrgarh civilization disappeared around 2600BC and not much is yet known about their civilization since archeological digs are continuing. Coincidentally around the same time the Mehrgarh civilization disappeared (2600BC). ancient Egyptian and Chinese civilization were beginning, both of which then developed (supposedly independently) their own medical practices including dentistry and surgery such as amputations.

By the time of the first civilizations the practice of medicine had evolved into a craft that required many years of study, often as both priest and healer since curing the ailments of a patient would mostly be done along with prayer of the recitation of magic spells. Archeologists don’t know much about earlier medical practices except what has been found written down by the ancient Egyptians who left a wealth of information in their tombs that dates from as early as 3000 BC. One remedy for the common cold found on papyrus suggests drinking milk from a mother who had given birth to a boy whilst the healer recited a spell; ” May you flow out, catarrh, son of catarrh, who breaks the bones, who destroys the skull, who hacks in the marrow, who causes the seven openings in the head to ache.”

Egyptian medicine was heavily reliant on the intervention of the Gods and no illness would ever be treated with consulting a priest-healer who had been purified and was known to be a reliable conduit between the living world and the world of the gods and spirits. Each god was known to have certain powers so it was important that the correct healer was approached who would guide the sick person thru the spells and prayers that were needed ensuring mistakes weren’t made. Herbal remedies and other cures that in today’s world seem quite primitive were in Egyptian times considered to be very appropriate and nobody would dream of not doing as they were instructed.

The ancient Egyptians also left a wealth of surgical tools and prosthetics for modern medical professionals to marvel over. Hooks, surgical knives, and casts were every bit as sophisticated as 19^th century medical instruments yet were in use as long ago as the 27^th century BC including the surgical suture and creams to assist healing after surgery. Egyptian society was also quite used to the idea of seeking potions from people we would recognize as pharmacists.

However advanced Egyptian medicine was, many of the treatments were very primitive and would have meant enduring a lot of pain, whilst some illnesses could not be treated and papyrus writing suggests death would be inevitable. Tetanus or a serious tooth abscess, both of which are trivial to treat today were causes of certain death in Egyptian times. Neighboring civilizations in the Near East also developed medicine taking all the best ideas from Egyptian medicine, with Greek and Babylonian priests at the forefront of medical thinking.

Babylonian medicine which developed from around 1500 BC reached its peak a few hundred years later and gave the world a book entitled the “Diagnostic Handbook” which describes the process a practitioner needed to follow to diagnose illness. Questions were to be asked and physical examinations undertaken before a prognosis could be arrived at, and definitely before any treatment commenced. Babylonian medicine isn’t much known but the Diagnostic Handbook survived thru the ages first to Greek, and then Roman medicine.

Greek medicine, in some ways the successor to Egyptian medicine but with a slightly greater emphasis on the physical rather than the metaphysical and is the true ancestor of modern medicine. The Hippocratic Oath required of all medical professionals before being licensed is named after a Greek philosopher and man of medicine Hippocrates who developed his own rules of ethics for medical practitioners. Hippocrates has been described as the first chest surgeon and wrote copiously on the anatomy of the lungs, his findings are still considered relevant today.

Greek medical practitioners were unique amongst the ancient world in that many weren’t first and foremost priests, instead they were philosophers and learned men who were also knowledgeable about the various gods and their powers. It was during the Greek era that many of the medical terms in use today were first coined to describe types of diseases and illnesses, and the types of remedy required, and it was in this time that anatomy was most progressed thru dissection of human bodies.

Rome had discovered the link between health and hygiene and were the first civilization to fully develop a system of clean water aquaducts and waste sewage systems. Galen, a prominent Greek surgeon whose writings remained the mainstay of anatomy knowledge until renaissance times traveled to Rome and advanced Roman knowledge of surgical procedures and is believed to have discovered that boiling surgical instruments in hot water would reduce infection. Galen is considered the greatest surgeon of the ancient world having performed many surgeries that even 19^th century surgeons were not willing to attempt.

An earlier surgeon who is these days considered a rival to Galen for the title of greatest surgeon of the ancient world was unknown to western medical thought until the colonial age. Sushruta, from the ancient Indian city of Kashi who lived in the 7^th century BC, developed his surgical skills and powers of diagnosis and was the first person in the ancient world to fully describe many illnesses unknown to his Greek and Roman peers. Cosmetic surgery was pioneered by Sushruta, and in his seminal work Sushruta Samhita he described Angina, the human circulatory system, diabetes, hypertension, leprosy, obesity, and stones in the organs.

Post Roman medieval society all but forgot the teachings of the ancients and reverted to superstition and mysticism in many parts of society, medical science reverting to a standard little better than an advanced form of first aid. The only major exception was the craft of midwifery the survival of which is claimed to have been the perception that midwifery wasn’t true medicine anyway being women’s business. Many midwives retained ancient herbal remedial knowledge despite the advent of the dark ages yet throughout medieval times needed to be discreet about their undoubted medical knowledge or potentially face accusations of being witches, a fate that was never pleasant for the accused.

In contrast, the Muslim world had no qualms about adopting science knowledge from the highs of Greek and Roman civilization. The turn of the first millennium was a golden age within the Islamic world, even seeing scholars develop new science and coming close to inventing technologies such as flight, electricity, or optics that western scientists didn’t develop until after the renaissance period.

In many ways Muslim period medical knowledge far outpaced anything known to the ancients, with most of the most influential Greek and Roman medical books being translated into Arabic by the late 900s. Arab surgeons and philosophers were also the first to adequately describe the complete circulation system and disprove many of the mystical ideas inherited from Greek writings.

By the end of the 13^th century Arab scholars had added mathematics to medicine allowing for accurate pharmacology in the creation and prescription of medications as well as giving surgeons and doctors a means of predicting the course of an illness using observation, empirical evidence and mathematics to calculate the most critical times of the illness, thus making dosage more specific to the patient.

The golden age of Islamic science and medicine also saw the invention of the syringe for medicating patients, the existence of the human immune system, the separation of pharmaceutical science from the practice of medicine, and further afield in India which had been heavily exposed to Islamic sciences, the invention of the art of inoculation. Whilst Europe was firmly in the grip of feudal ideas and the idea that a man was born to his position, the Arab world was experiencing the best medical care the world has known until the late industrial age ushered in modern medical science.

The decline of the Arab period left a vacuum in medical knowledge that wasn’t filled until the advent of the renaissance at the end of the reformation years, yet even in these times scientists and medical practitioners still needed to be careful that their findings didn’t contravene Catholic teaching too much since excommunication was still practiced, and even within the new protestant nations scientific research was still very much frowned upon by puritanical churches.

Some of the best known renaissance era medical researchers operated in complete secrecy, or as much as that was possible, an example being Leonardo Da Vinci who advanced our knowledge of human anatomy and the venal system by hiring gravediggers to bring him recently deceased human remains to experiment on. Whilst Da Vinci is not considered one of the great medical surgeons, he was in fact an artist with a wide variety of interests, he did at least make it possible for later generations of surgeons to study his anatomy drawings and reach their own conclusions.

No history of medicine would be complete without mentioning Andreas Vesalius, a Belgian doctor who more than anyone in European medical science established the truth of many myths that had been held true since Galen in the Roman era. Vesalius had been fascinated by Galen’s findings and endeavored to create a complete map of the human body, but in so doing disproved many of Galen’s most important hypotheses.

Vesalius published his findings entitled De humani corporis fabrica in 1543, a seven volume masterpiece illustrated with the assistance of professional artists and quickly becoming the authority on anatomy. With the changing political and religious landscape modern medicine since the advent of the industrial age has moved forward almost exponentially, and whilst 21^st century patients might still describe medical science into the 20^th century as quite barbaric, the truth is that the rapid advances being made now wouldn’t have been possible without the slow progress of previous generations.

Some of the major advances since Vesalius’ time include the general anaesthetic, antiseptics, the stethoscope, the hypodermic syringe, the thermometer, and the endoscope. Surgical advances of particular importance in the modern era saw the use of penicillin to fight infections, the advent of organ transplants such as heart, lung, kidney, liver, even complete transplants of hands and faces. None of these advances are yet perfected and the 21^st century promises to be a lively time in the history of medicine.

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History of Opera

Opera is a style of entertainment that involves theater combined with orchestral music and singers who perform using a distinctive classical method of projecting their voice. Performers in opera are not only trained in singing, but also in stage craft such as acting and choreography. The lead performers in most major productions are usually well known, and often as famous as their counterparts in other forms of theater such as Broadway Musicals.

As an art form opera was invented in the mid 1500s in the Italian city of Florence by a group of actors who were performing classical Greek theater and surmised that the original would have been performed with music playing in the background. Adopting the humanist approach to theater, these actors were nobel men educated in Latin and Greek and for whom the ancient dramas defined theater at its best.

The style of music played in the original Greek plays would have been quite simple, perhaps only a handful of instrumentalists playing the lyre, flutes and simple drums. By renaissance times instruments were quite different leading to richer more obvious music accompaniment, certainly by this time brass instruments like the trumpet had been invented and most string and wood instruments were significantly different.

Fuller sounding instrumentals would often drown out the voice of the performers leading to actors developing techniques for amplifying the voice, a step that quickly led to singing their parts instead of just reciting their lines. Singing is known to allow performers to project their voices further or more loudly and renaissance time were changing from religious austerity to more creative endeavors being the perfect environment for opera to develop.

By the end of the 16^th century this new style of theater was becoming popular and new productions specifically written to be sung with accompaniment began appearing. The De Medici family in Florence are believed to have paid a composer Jacopo Peri for the very first opera entitled ‘Dafne’ in 1598. It was performed in their private court for the nobility of Florence, and sadly much of the score for it has been lost yet it still has a place in the history of opera.

A few years later opera had made its mark and word of the new theater to music had spread from Florence to the rest of Italy, north to the Austrian Empire and the German Principalities, east the the Russian Empire, and as far west as England, France, and Spain. Outside of Italy the enthusiasm for opera was restricted to the nobility and landed gentry.

In Florence and the other great Italian cities such as Venice, Rome, or Milan dedicated opera houses started to be built and tickets to performances sold, with Venice taking the lead starting in 1637, but eventually building over 15 for the citizens of Venice alone and making Venice the spiritual and cultural home of opera even if Florence had been its birth city.

Claudio Monteverdi, one of the fathers of opera and whose works are still performed took the decision early in his operas to add short performances within his works that were designed to appeal to a wider audience, the emerging merchant classes who were less cultured and needed a little more entertainment than the heavy operas of the day.

Eventually these short pieces were dropped as the crowds started to appreciate a full length opera without interruption. The growing demand for opera of both a serious nature (opera seria) or the more entertaining comedic nature (opera buffa) created different schools of thought on the nature of opera, some composers preferring complex subtexts and interwoven plots, others preferring a minimalist approach.

As opera productions generally told the story of love, many of the characters appearing on stage were of course meant to be women, but renaissance society frowned on female actors, leading to all actors being men, a situation that encouraged castrati (castrated men) from all over Europe and the Arab world to make their way into theater, the best of them being able to hold a superb falsetto indistinguishable from that of a woman.

The introduction of women into opera as performers tho wasn’t always seen as a disgrace to be remedied with castratis, indeed the famed English composer Henry Purcell wrote an English language opera for the dancing professor of a girls boarding school, which received critical review in the late 1600s and featured a cast of young ladies drawn from the gentry of England.

The language of the original operas were mostly written in the Italian of the great cities such as Florence and Venice, happily this is very similar to the Italian of today. Opera however did prove popular in other languages and has been able to transcend the language barrier to become popular elsewhere, notably German and French, and in the 20^th century English operas and operatic style musicals became exceedingly popular.

The development of opera in the 18^th century, at least outside of Italy, was mostly of German origin under the patronage of the most powerful imperial family of Europe, the Habsburgs of Austria. Based in Vienna they had a natural interest in German language opera inspired by Germanic myths and folklore.

Composers such as Glück, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Strauss, Weber, and Wagner all drove German opera to the pinnacle of perfection and thus influenced every other composer since, from the Italian courts to the French grand opera. German singspiele, singing and acting, came to be dominant and transformed opera buffa from its slapstick roots into a style filled with humor and nuance.

English opera by comparison developed in wholly different directions after having been banned during Cromwell’s reign whose puritan government frowned on singing and dancing. After the return of the monarchy opera was acceptable again but opera buffa proved more popular, leading to a distinctly English style of opera humor whose greatest proponents included George Fredric Handel, Thomas Arne, John Gay, and perhaps best known of them all Gilbert and Sullivan.

European immigrants to the US brought their love of opera with them, and Americans with their passion for being entertained quickly adopted opera as their own. In New York the Metropolitan Opera company in the 20^th century took a leading role in the development of modern opera and providing a stage for contemporary opera to thrive.

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History of Coca Cola

Millions of people each day all around the world enjoy soft drinks such as Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola has been widely successful both in America and the world. While the story of Coca Cola starts in Atlanta Georgia more than 100 years ago, its origins and original recipe as an elixir are quite different than they are today. However, with plenty of advertising and a great business model, Coca-Cola has spread across the globe and still continues to be one of the most well known brands ever to be developed. Here is the history of Coca Cola.

The Beginning

Coca-Cola was first created in 1885 at Columbus, Georgia in a three legged kettle by Dr. John Pemberton. It was originally a type of cocaine which was popular in Europe at the time. The original drink was non alcoholic, carbonated and included cocaine and caffeine from the Kola nut. It was originally sold in Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia on May 8, 1886. Originally, an elixir, it was believed to actually cure many diseases which included morphine addiction, impotence, headache, dyspepsia an others.

The name Coca-Cola was the idea of Frank Robinson, the book keeper of Dr. Pemberton. In fact, the famous script Coca-Cola logo was again created by Frank Robinson, whom since was a book keeper had excellent penmanship. In its first year, Coca-Cola was not exactly a success. In fact, only about 9 servings per day were sold in the pharmacy in its first year, Coke ( a nickname for Coca-Cola) didn’t even cover the $70 of expenses that it took to create the product. However, in the coming years, business would boom.

In 1887, another pharmacist Asa Candler bought the formula from John Pemberton. This cost was $2,300, and within ten years, the soda became one of the most popular fountain drinks. To realize this goal, Asa Candler aggressively marketed the product and with Pemberton and Candler both running the Coca-Cola Company, syrup sales of the drink increased over 4,000 percent from 1890 to 1900.

It should be noted that the first few years, three versions of the soft drink were sold by three different companies. However, after some legal wrangling, in-fighting, buy outs and forgery, a second Coca-Cola company was created in 1892, this is the Coca-Cola Company that still stands today.

The Success of Coca-Cola

Two major factors that have made Coca-Cola the huge, successful company it is today is both advertising and a good business plan. In the late 1800’s and the first part of the 20^th century, Coca-Cola was mainly sold at the soda fountain. Places like pharmacies and ice cream shop would also sell soda. They would buy syrup and add carbonated water. The business plan was simple, Coca-Cola would create the syrup and then distribute it to companies- independent bottling companies that then either sold the syrup to bottled Coke across the country.

As soda fountains found in drug stores and ice cream parlors fell out of fashion to fast food restaurants and on the road convenience stores, bottling became a larger part of their business model. In fact, while the first bottled Coca-Cola was available in 1894, fountain sodas continued to be successful until the 1960’s. The first canned Coca-Cola was first sold in 1955.

Besides being able to spread Coca-Cola throughout the country quickly, conveniently and cost effective using bottling companies, another asset of the drink was its continually aggressive advertising campaigns. During the first half of the 20^th century, Coca-Cola was found easily in many newspapers on wall murals and on the many billboards that dotted the landscape near roads. In addition, Coca-Cola also utilized radio as well. Many consider Coca-Cola as having a huge influence on Americana and even promoting the now iconic image of Santa Clause as being an old man in a red suit with a white beard.

Today, Coca-Cola is still one of the largest advertisers in the world. The Coca-Cola Company not only advertises in print, radio, television, film and on the web, but also advertisers utilizing sporting events and other promotional events. During the 1970’s one of the radio spots produced even produced a hit song ” I like to teach the world to sing”.

The History of the Coca-Cola Bottle

Besides the drink itself becoming popular, the bottle has also become an iconic image of the brand. The bottle that is infamous is known as the contour design and was actually created in 1915, by glass bottle designer Earl R. Dean of the Root Glass Company. The Coca-Cola Company decided to have a competition on who can create the best bottle design. They wanted a design that could be easily recognizable, even in the dark or if broken. Since the two main ingredients were the kola nut and cocoa leaf, the Root Glass Company wanted to create a design based on these two plants, however, there was no images found in the nearby library, so instead Earl R. Dean was inspired by another image he found- one based on the cocoa pod.

Other Coca-Cola Products

While Coca-Cola has had tremendous success and now can be found in more than 200 countries, there have been several products that Coca-Cola has released, some successful and others miserable failures. Here are a couple of them.

Diet Coke

Diet Coke was introduced in 1982. While the product uses the Coca-Cola trademark, it should be noted that it is a totally new reformulation of the Coke product. Geared towards diet conscious drinkers, Diet Coke became successful and took over the once popular diet cola brand TAB- also created by Coke. Over the years, Diet Coke has been sweetened with artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, saccharine, NutraSweet and splenda. Diet coke offers those looking to cut their caloric intake and those that want a cola drink, but need to reduce their sugar intake (diabetics). Today, Diet coke has about 1.5 calories compared to about 142 calories in a typical 330 ml bottle of Coca-Cola.

New Coke

While Diet Coke was a success from the beginning, New Coke turned out to be a historic flop. New Coke was introduced in 1985 as a reformulation of the old product. While the taste was sweeter and more like Pepsi- Coca-Cola’s main competitor, market research has showed that the taste of New Coke was proffered over Coke and Pepsi. However, when New Coke was rolled out, it turned into a public relations nightmare with many loyal Coke drinkers upset that their beloved cola drink was reformulated. While sales were strong- possibly due to curiosity, after three months, the Coca-Cola Company reverted back to the old formula. New Coke continued to be sold and the old formula was renamed Coca-Cola Classic.

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