Today in history – July 12, 1872 -  Elijah McCoy created an invention that has made him arguably the most notable African American inventor ever. His birth date is still unknown although the date is speculated by many sources ranging from March 27, 1843 to May 2, 1844. His story would not have been possible if not for his parents. They were former slaves who fled from Kentucky to Canada by way of the Underground Railroad. Elijah one of 12 children would then be born in Colchester, Canada (interesting fact most the slaves that escaped via the Underground Railroad escaped to Canada). His father, George McCoy, enrolled in the British forces to help stop the Canadian leader Louis Riel’s launched rebellion in 1837. In appreciation of his military services, George McCoy was given 160 acres of land by the British. As a result of his father’s ties to Britain, at the age of 16 Elijah McCoy he was offered and accepted an apprenticeship in Mechanical Engineering in Edinburgh, Scotland. At the time he was awarded the apprenticeship, slavery in America had not yet been abolished. Thus, this opportunity wouldn’t have been possible if his family hadn’t escaped slavery in America. One can’t help but wonder how many other McCoy’s were unable to mature intellectually because of slavery?

In the story of Elijah McCoy it is important to remember the opportunities given to him were basically unheard of as far as African American’s had been concerned; he took full advantage of them. He earned credentials in Scotland being recognized as a master mechanic and engineer. Despite the accolades he received in Scotland, when he returned to the U.S post Civil War (slavery abolished) he was not able to receive a job in his field. Instead he became a locomotive fireman and oiler for the Michigan Central Railroad”. Although this was not in his field, this was seen as a responsible job and one of the highest an African American could receive at the time. The position required that he be responsible for “fueling the steam engine and [as] the oiler [he] lubricated the engine’s moving parts as well as the train’s axles and bearings.” . What his employers did not plan on was the fact that his credentials would help him see and solve problems that neither his co-workers nor superiors could. At that time trains needed to be periodically stopped in order to be lubricated. McCoy developed a lubricator for steam engines that allowed the train to be lubricated without stopping. This lubricator was duplicated by many but never matched the proficiency of McCoy’s invention. This is why he is referred to as the originator for his invention deemed the “The Real McCoy” a phrase that is still used today. He patented the invention on July 12, 1872 the “Locomotive Lubricator”. When we think about the importance of his invention we have to remember that there was no successful plane flight until 20 years later. So, the train was the only means for extensive travel within the Unites States and his lubricating system increased the distance trains could run without requiring stops.

McCoy didn’t stop at the “Locomotive Lubricator”; he obtained 58 patents in his life time, the most of any African American at that time. His hard work made substantial advancements in mechanical engineering and that is why he is being acknowledged today in history.

Interested readers are encouraged to visit the Engineering Pathway’s resources on African American scientists, engineers & inventors and our engineering diversity or our computing diversity websites.

Readers interested in inventions by African Americans may want to view the following blogs: Ice cream scoop invented (February 2), Birth of first self-made millionairess (December 23), John Hopkins hospital performs first open heart surgery (November 29), and Howard University founded in 1866 (November 20).

Today in History – June 8, 1940 – The discovery of element 93, neptunium (symbol Np), a decay product of uranium-239, was announced by Edwin M. McMillan and Philip H. Abelson working at the University of California at Berkeley. Neptunium was named after the planet Neptune and, at the time, was the first element heavier than uranium. Such elements with stable isotopes are called transuranium elements. McMillan was awarded a share of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1951 for the discovery of Neptunium. McMillan was a member of the Radiation Laboratory under Professor E.O. Lawrence with research on nuclear reactions and their products, and the design and construction of cyclotrons and other equipment. He succeeded Lawrence as director of what is now the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1958. McMillan was also a member of the Faculty in the Department of Physics at Berkely from 1935 till his retirement in 1974. Today, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), named after Ernest Lawrence, has taken the lead in a diverse range of projects in particle physics and energy, such as environmental energy technologies.

See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on radiactive elements, particle physics and the cyclotron or visit the Nuclear Engineering Education or the Chemical Engineering Education community sites for more information.

Today in History – May 22, 1906 – Wright brothers patent improvements to “flying machine”. From the patent: Our invention relates to that class of fly ing machines in which the weight is sustained by the reactions resulting when one or more aeroplanes are moved through the air edge-wise at a small angle of incidence, either by the application of mechanical power or by the utilization of the force of gravity. The objects of our invention are to provide means for maintaining or restoring the equilibrium or lateral balance of the apparatus, to provide means for guiding the machine both vertically and horizontally, and to provide a structure combining lightness, strength, convenience of construction, and certain other advantages which will hereinafter appear.

Years earlier, on December 17, 1903, the Wright Flyer stayed aloft for 12 seconds and covered 120 feet. Over the next few years, the Wright brothers developed more capable airplanes and grabbed the world’s attention in their European and American flights in 1908.

December 17, 2003 marked 100 years of flight, starting with the first successful Kitty Hawk flight. The Wright brothers were in the spotlight, while their sister, Katharine Wright, remained in shadow. Katharine, a teacher who graduated from Oberlin College, was the only one of the three to graduate from college and is reported to have scored very high in algebra exams in high school. She is credited with being the Wright brothers’ business manager and publicist. Perhaps she was one of the first teachers to bring aviation ideas into the classroom?

Aviation, and more recently space travel, continues to inspire awe and inspire. The National Academy of Engineering places the invention of the airplane as one of the top modern mileposts: Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century. Women were there from the beginning; discover the 100 most influential women in aviation and aerospace on this timeline.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on “100 Years of Flight“, as well as on aviation and aeronautic engineering. For related curricula, visit the Aeronautical Engineering Education community.

Today in History – May 17, 1954 – Official groundbreaking of the CERN laboratory occurred in Geneva. A small number of scientists first envisioned CERN vision as an opportunity to bring nations together through science and build a world-class laboratory for nuclear and particle physics in Europe. CERN’s founding convention emphasized that that it should foster international collaboration, promote contacts between and interchange of scientists and make its results freely available through  advanced training and publications. “When the 12 founding Member States ratified the CERN convention on 29 September 1954,” explains CERN’s Director General Robert Aymar, “they gave the new organization a mission to provide first class facilities, to coordinate fundamental research in particle physics, and to help reunite the countries of Europe after two world wars.“

Today, CERN has achieved its mission and more, hosting around half the world’s particle physicists, with  membership that includes 60 countries and 8,000 scientists; it boasts a large number of Nobel Laureates as well.  CERN supports the world’s largest set of complex scientific instruments so study the basic particles of matter and related energy releases when they collide.  “It is no accident,” says Aymar, “that many of the countries about to join the European Union are already members of CERN. Scientific collaboration has proved to be a valuable step on the way to collaboration at the political level.“

The 50th anniversary of CERN officially  began on 8 March 2004 with the launch of a Swiss postage stamp dedicated to CERN (see upper left figure).

More recently, CERN launched the Large Hadron Collider as the center for world-wide research on particle physics for the next decade.

CERN has also stimulated a number of other developments beyond fundamental particle physics. It was here that the World Wide Web was launched when CERN’s Tim Berners-Lee submitted a proposal titled: Information Management : a Proposal” in 1990.  His idea, later refined by collaborator Robert Cailiau, was to “merge the technologies of personal computer, computer networking and hpertext into a powerful and easy to use global information system“. The first web server in the U.S. came on-line in December 1991 at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in Menlo Park, California.  The first browsers in the X-window system. The version called Mosaic published in 1993 by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois became the version that was most widely used with its easy to use user interface and ability to run on a wide range of  computer platforms. The world’ first WWW conference was held at CERN in May 1994, attended by 400 users and developers. By the end of  1994, the Web had 10,000 servers and exponentially increasing traffic. The rest is history. In March 2009, CERN celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Web.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on the CERN and particle physics, including their educational site.  For related educational resources, visit the Engineering Science Education Community site. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines.

Today in History – April 30, 2008 – Toyota Prius worldwide sales top 1 million mark. Although the Toyota Prius started as a niche green car when Toyota unveiled the first generation in 1997 it has become the highest selling hybrid on the market. Toyota announced that its cumulative sales passed the 1 million mark, with approximately 1,028,000 units sold as of the end of April, 2008.

The name “Prius” comes from the Latin “to go before” and, based on their pioneering leadership in hybrid vehicles, they certainly can claim this title.

The Prius was first launched in Japan in December, 1997 and began selling in Europe, North America and other markets in 2000. In 2005, Toyota began first overseas production of the Prius in Changchun, China, and sales of Prius vehicles in South Korea are expected to begin in the latter half of 2009. In 2003, the second-generation Prius, equipped with the Toyota Hybrid System II, was introduced with improved environmental performance and power. In August 2007, Prius G, S and S “Standard Package” Japan models achieved a fuel efficiency of 29.6km/l in the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s newly introduced JC08 test cycle. (The Prius S and S “Standard Package” models achieved 35.5km/l in the older 10-15 test cycle.) The Prius is also one of the first vehicles to meet the new 2015 Japanese fuel efficiency standards set out under the Law Concerning the Rational Use of Energy (http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/news/08/0515.html).

According to Toyota, Prius vehicles worldwide have contributed to a reduction in CO2 emissions (considered a cause of global warming) by producing approximately 4.5 million tons less CO2 when compared with gasoline-powered vehicles in the same class and of similar size and driving performance.

However, Toyota’s U.S. sales have been battered by the ongoing economic slowdown, tumbling 39.8 percent from February 2009. Gasoline prices, which surged during the first half of last year, have come down drastically, and it is unclear whether gasoline-electric hybrids will continue to sell as briskly as they have in recent years (http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2009/03/12/453117.html)

Toyota is introducing the third-generation Prius later this year, but that is expected to meet intense competition from the Insight hybrid from Japanese rival Honda Motor Co. Honda recently introduced a new Honda as the cheapest hybrid ($19,800) in the U.S. market.

However, Prius is still the world’s top-selling hybrid. Toyota is dedicated to eventually offering a 100% hybrid line-up, boasting that hybrids will be the standard drivetrain by 2020.

See the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on the Prius and hybrid automobiles and automotive engineering and design or visit the Mechanical Engineering Education Community site.

Today in History – April 24, 1877 – Brush patents first dynamo or electric generator. The dynamo was a concept that had been built earlier by Faraday, Henry and Pacinotti and Gramme and concurrently by Edison, but Brush’s more efficient dynamo got the U.S. patent. Brush’s dynamo eventually became the workhorse of the electric power generating industry. Charles Brush developed his first dynamo in the summer of 1876 while “vacationing” at his old home, Walnut Hills Farm. He used a horse-drawn treadmill to power the dynamo and generate electricity. On April 24, 1877 he was awarded U.S. Patent No. 189 997, “Improvement in Magneto-Electric Machines”.

In addition to its importance in electric power generation, the dynamo made commercial lighting viable by providing an economic and efficient source of electricity. Brush designed and developed the electric arc lighting system that was used extensively throughout the United States and abroad during the 1880′s for commercial and street lighting. The arc light preceded Edison’s incandescent light bulb. The Brush Electric company, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, was sold in 1889 and merged with Edison General Electric in 1892 to form the General Electric Company.

The dynamo also enabled the development of electric motors that are used today in everything from air conditioners to consumer electronics. The average new automobile in the U.S. has over 30 electric motors in it, to operate everything from the electric starter to the power windows. The energy consumed by electric motors represents the single largest use of power in the United States.

For more information see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on Charles Brush and on electric motors. For related curricular resources, visit the Electrical Engineering Education or the Mechanical Engineering Education disciplinary communities.

Also on this day in history, the first U.S. test of the oral polio vaccine was performed in 1960 and in 2009 Apple’s application store reached 1 billion downloads.

Today in History – April 22, 1970 – First Earth Day. Senator Gaylord Nelson, founder of Earth Day, says that the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. He wanted President Kennedy to give visibility to pollution and the environmental degradation that was appearing throughout the country, but was going unnoticed by the political establishment. The anti-Vietnam War demonstrations called “teach-ins” were popular on college campuses and he decided to organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment, tapping into both the energy of the student anti-war movement and the environmental cause. A Sunday, November 30, 1969, New York Times article by Gladwin Hill forecast that this was going to be a massive event:

“Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation’s campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam…a national day of observance of environmental problems…is being planned for next spring…when a nationwide environmental ‘teach-in’ …

Senator Gaylord Nelson explains that Earth Day worked “because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated.”

Today with global warming and another energy crises, sustainability is a top international concern and an estimated 1 billion people will do something to observe the anniversary of the first Earth Day. People will participate in marches and protests, family and community activities, clean-up days, tree-planting events, saving water, saving energy, nature walks, and sustainability events.  A coalition of U.S. government agencies provides more on the history of Earth Day, environmental progress and Earth Day activities.

I am pleased to see a dramatic change in government action to aggressively workon climate and environmental issues. EPA administrator Lisa Jackson challenges all Americans to “begin building the green economy“, Department of Energy’s Steven Chu tackling global warming, and .

Expressions like “Green is the new black”, “Green is the new red, white and blue” and “green commerce”, such as that highlighted in ABC’s “Green Gadgets for Earth Day” news, demonstrate that green design is big business today. Alas some of these efforts are really “green washing” and are more effective at ringing up sales than in helping the environment. We should encourage life cycle analysis thinking with our students to seriously look at the long term environmental impact of new products, energy options and strategies.

The Engineering Pathway has a number of resources on green design, manufacturing and sustainability as well as on environmental ethics. For more educational resources, see our agricultural engineering education, environmental engineering education and chemical engineering education community pages. The Engineering Pathway also hosts Engineering Education communities in all ABET-accredited disciplines, including interdisciplinary communities such as the Green Design and Sustainable Engineering education community.

Today in History – April 20, 1940 – RCA Demonstrates Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The history of the SEM begins in 1928 and RCA’s demonstration in 1940. In 1965 the first SEM was marketed by the Cambridge Instrument Company. The provided link includes an article that details the history of the SEM from 1928 to 1965. The author (McMullan), himself an important contributor to this field, traces developments such as the first attempts to image solids (Ruska 1933 and the more successful Von Borries 1940).He discusses von Ardenne’s 1938 highly magnified probe and Mahl’s 1941 transmission electron microscope (TEM).

The author speaks at some length about the Cambridge microscopes since this is where he worked with Oatley and added significant contributions to the field. Other contributors from around the world are detailed. Since this is an excellent article on the history of the SEM until 1965, added here will be a few contributions since that year.

An environmental scanning electron microscope, since it doesn’t need to operate in a vacuum like a standard SEM. Allows for the examination of almost any sample under any gaseous condition. Danilatos in the 1980s first used the term environmental SEM and the first commercial environmental SEM was produced by Electroscan.

In the 1990s Chumbley at Iowa State University, working with R.J. Lee Group, successfully created a remote, web-based control for a SEM. He calls this Project ExCel. This microscope allows pre-collegiate teachers to use the SEM in their classroom by remotely logging in to the SEM at Iowa State and controlling it over the internet. For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’seducational resources on SEMs and microscropy or view our Materials Engineering Education and our Ceramic Engineering Education community sites.

Also on this date in 1902 the Curies isolate radium and in 1964 the first picture phone is demonstrated. For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s nuclear engineering, information technology and picture phones.

Today in History -  April 17, 1986-  first publication of High T-C Superconductivity in Ceramic. A breakthrough discovery was made in the field of superconductivity. Alex Muller and Georg Bednorz, researchers at the IBM Research Laboratory in Ruschlikon, Switzerland, created a brittle ceramic compound that superconducted at the highest temperature then known: 30 K. What made this discovery so remarkable was that ceramics are normally insulators. They don’t conduct electricity well at all. So, researchers had not considered them as possible high-temperature superconductor candidates. The Lanthanum, Barium, Copper and Oxygen compound that Muller and Bednorz synthesized, behaved in a not-as-yet-understood way. The discovery of this first of the superconducting copper-oxides (cuprates) won the 2 men the Nobel Prize in Physics the following year in 1987.

For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s educational resources on superconductivity or view our Ceramics Engineering Education and Materials Engineering Education community sites.

Also on this date in 1976, Helios B makes closest approach to the sun.

Today in History – April 16, 1813- Interchangeable parts for firearms invented Simeon North, who is also generally credited with the invention of the milling machine that made interchangeable parts practical

Imagine a world where a child is playing with Legos, and in order to connect two of the blocks, the child has to pick up a file and file one (or both) blocks to get them to fit together. Up until the late 1700′s, and into the 1800′s, this is what industrial production was like – custom-fitting of components in a product. To assemble a product (such as a rifle), craftsman would take roughly-shaped parts and then piece them together by hand-filing and grinding.

The advent of “interchangeable parts”, however, allowed the assembly of products to be done much more quickly and by someone without the extensive training of a craftsman. The ability to create these parts came about as a result of steadily improving technology in machine & measurement tools, manufacturing processes, and standards.

These parts in turn led to the world of mass production, where products such as cars, appliances, electronics, etc. can be produced at a cost attainable by a much larger number of people than if each product needed to be hand-crafted. So you can thank the innovators of interchangeable parts for making the widespread availability of all sorts of products – including those little toy blocks which you can use to create your own Lego world.

Building on the concept of standardization and exchangeable parts, Ford introduced the continuous moving assembly line in his Highland Park, Detroit, Michigan, factory. Using a continuous moving chassis line the method was so successful that the Ford Motor Company became the world’s largest car manufacturer in the world. For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on automotive engineering and manufacturing processes. Additional curricular materials on modern manufacturing practices can be found on the Manufacturing Engineering Education or the Industrial Engineering Education community sites.