Today in History - November 3, 1900 - first U.S. automobile show opens at Madison Square Garden, NYC. Columbia completed 1500 electric- and gasoline-powered vehicles in Hartford, Connecticut during the year and Locomobile of Bridgeport built 750 steamers, representing the top two most successful automobile companies at the time in terms of number of sales. [...]

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In honor of National Manufacturing Week, the Engineering Pathway highlights Manufacturing Engineering Education in September. Check out our Manufacturing Engineering Education Disciplinary Community and related manufacturing engineering educational resources, such as NIST’s Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory (MEL) or the Manufacturing Video Library.

Find out How Everyday Things are Made with courseware hosted by [...]

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Today in History - September 6, 1819 - Blanchard lathe is patented by Thomas Blanchard of Middlebury, Connecticut. The advantage of this lathe was that it was capable of manufacturing irregular forms, such as gun stocks.
Actually, the lathe is more of a shaper since the cutter was a rotating wheel tool and [...]

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Today in History - August 13, 1913 - English metallurgist, Harry Brearley cast the first true stainless steel in Sheffield, England. This steel alloy was composed of 0.24% carbon and 12.8% chromium. Brearley (upper left photo) was trying to develop a more erosion-resistant steel for rifle barrels. He etched samples with acid before examining the [...]

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Today in History - June 26, 1974 - First barcode using the universal product code (UPC) was scanned by a cashier at a supermarket checkout counter. A shopper named Clyde Dawson handed a cashier at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio named Sharon Buchanan a 10-pack of chewing gum. The gum’s black [...]

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