The 7.0 Magnitude Earthquake in Haiti struck a highly populated region of this impoverished Caribbean island approximately 17 km from the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Hundreds of thousands died,  many more injured, many buildings were  destroyed or seriously damaged, infrastructures collapsed and millions became homeless and without food and water.
The Haiti earthquake created a [...]

[Read more →]

Today in History – January 17, 1871 - U.S. patent issued for an “endless wire rope way” cable car (No.110,971). The inventor of the cable car was Andrew S. Hallidie (center image above) and contracted by the Clay Street Hill Railroad Company in San Francisco. Hallidie’s system used a continuous looped wire rope that was [...]

[Read more →]

Today in History- January 15, 1955 – first solar-heated and radiation-cooled house in the United States. Respect for the powers of the sun has been a critical part of building design since humans first built shelters for protection from the environment. I grew up in the American Southwest and recall that adobe buildings were designed [...]

[Read more →]

Today in History – January 12, 2010 – 7.0 Magnitude Earthquake in Haiti. The earthquake struck a highly populated region of this impoverished Caribbean island approximately 17 km from the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Hundreds of thousands died,  many more injured, many buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged, infrastructures collapsed and millions became homeless [...]

[Read more →]

Today in History – January 5, 1892 – Construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge. After years of gathering support and funding for the bridge, Joseph Strauss oversaw its construction. The project was so massive that a Golden Gate District was formed to build the bridge. All in all the bridge ended up costing about [...]

[Read more →]