Category: looking back

Thomas Edison Demonstrates the Phonograph

6th December 1877

On this day the inventor Thomas Edison went into the offices of the magazine Scientific American and placed a little machine, his prototype phonograph, on one of the office desks. Then, as one of the witnesses later recalled, “The visitor, without any ceremony, turned the crank, and to everybody’s astonishment the machine said: ‘Good morning. How do you do? How do you like the phonograph?’ It was Edison’s first major invention and the one that earned him the nickname “the wizard of Menlo Park” because it was so unexpected that it seemed magical to the general public.

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Pirate Blackbeard Ransacks the Margaret

5th December 1717

On this day the English pirate, Blackbeard, ransacked the merchant ship “Margaret” and imprisoned her captain, Henry Bostock, for 8 hours before releasing him. Bostock was later able to provide the first record of Blackbeard’s appearance, and was also the source for Blackbeard’s real name: Edward Teach. Blackbeard was a shrewd and calculating leader who spurned the use of violence, relying instead on his fearsome image to obtain the response that he desired from those whom he robbed. He was romanticised after his death and became the inspiration for an archetypal pirate in works of fiction across many genres. He was eventually killed in battle on 22nd November 1718.

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Observer Newspaper First Published

4th December 1791

On this day the Observer newspaper was published for the first time. It is the oldest Sunday newspaper in the world still being published. In the first issue, the founder W.S. Bourne, said that the newspaper would share “the spirit of enlightened Freedom, decent Toleration and universal Benevolence.” Bourne was convinced that the newspaper would make him rich, but he soon found himself facing serious debts. After some haggling, the government agreed to subsidise the newspaper in exchange for a certain influence over its editorial content. As a result, the newspaper took a strong stance against some of the more radical freethinkers of the period.

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First Heart Transplant

3rd December 1967

On this day Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful heart transplant on patient Louis Washkansky, using the heart of Denise Darvall, a young woman who had died in an accident. Although Washkansky died of pneumonia 18 days after the operation, the procedure was a medical triumph and put Barnard on the global stage. His subsequent transplant on Philip Blaiberg, who survived for 19 months, demonstrated the further potential of this new surgical method. Christiaan Barnard also set up the ‘Christiaan Barnard Foundation’ for disadvantaged children.

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Napoleon: Emperor of the French

2nd December 1804

On this day Napoleon was crowned as Emperor of the French at a lavish ceremony in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Various dignitaries, including Pope Pius VII attended the ceremony which was described as a “masterminded piece of modern propaganda.” Napoleon had already declared the French Republic as an Empire and wanted to strengthen his new monarchy, nobility and future dynasty. His reign as Emperor lasted for ten years before his army was finally defeated by the Sixth Coalition of European nations and he was forced to abdicate.

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Channel Tunnel: Midway Meeting

1st December 1990

On this day the Englishman Graham Fagg and the Frenchman Phillippe Cozette met in the middle of the Channel Tunnel under the English Channel. Work on the tunnel had begun in 1988 but it did not become operative until 1994. At the peak of construction 15,000 people were employed with a daily expenditure of over £3 million. Ten workers, eight of them British, were killed during the construction. Plans to build a cross-Channel tunnel had been proposed as early as 1802, but fears of compromising national security had disrupted attempts to build one. Many people felt that the sea had protected for centuries what Shakespeare described as “this precious stone set in the silver sea.”

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