Be wise in the use of time. The question in life is not “how much time do we have?” The question is “what shall we do with it? ~Anna Robertson Brown
1846 – Anna Kingsford, English activist, is born.
Anna Kingsford, née Bonus, was an English anti-vivisection, vegetarian and women’s rights campaigner.
She was one of the first English women to obtain a degree in medicine, after Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, and the only medical student at the time to graduate without having experimented on a single animal. She pursued her degree in Paris, graduating in 1880 after six years of study, so that she could continue her animal advocacy from a position of authority. Her final thesis, L’Alimentation Végétale de l’Homme, was on the benefits of vegetarianism, published in English as The Perfect Way in Diet (1881). She founded the Food Reform Society that year, travelling within the UK to talk about vegetarianism, and to Paris, Geneva, and Lausanne to speak out against animal experimentation.
Kingsford was interested in Buddhism and Gnosticism, and became active in the theosophical movement in England, becoming president of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society in 1883. She said she received insights in trance-like states and in her sleep; these were collected from her manuscripts and pamphlets by her lifelong collaborator Edward Maitland, and published posthumously in the book, Clothed with the Sun (1889). Subject to ill-health all her life, she died of lung disease at the age of 41, brought on by a bout of pneumonia. Her writing was virtually unknown for over 100 years after Maitland published her biography, The Life of Anna Kingsford (1896), though Helen Rappaport wrote in 2001 that her life and work are once again being studied.
1908 – The General Motors Corporation is founded.
General Motors Company, commonly known as GM, is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, that designs, manufactures, markets and distributes vehicles and vehicle parts and sells financial services. General Motors produces vehicles in 37 countries under ten brands: Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Holden, Opel, Vauxhall, Wuling, Baojun, Jie Fang, UzDaewoo. General Motors holds a 20% stake in IMM, and a 96% stake in GM Korea. It also has a number of joint-ventures, including Shanghai GM, SAIC-GM-Wuling and FAW-GM in China, GM-AvtoVAZ in Russia, Ghandhara Industries in Pakistan, GM Uzbekistan, General Motors India, General Motors Egypt, and Isuzu Truck South Africa. General Motors employs 212,000 people and does business in 157 countries. General Motors is divided into five business segments: GM North America (GMNA), Opel Group, GM International Operations (GMIO), GM South America (GMSA), and GM Financial.
General Motors led global vehicle sales for 77 consecutive years from 1931 through 2007, longer than any other automaker, and is currently among the world’s largest automakers by vehicle unit sales.
1959 – The first successful photocopier, the Xerox 914, is introduced in a demonstration on live television from New York City.
The Xerox 914 was the first successful commercial plain paper copier which in 1959 revolutionized the document-copying industry. The culmination of inventor Chester Carlson’s work on the xerographic process, the 914 was fast and economical. The copier was introduced to the public on September 16, 1959, in a demonstration at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel in New York, shown on live television.
One of the most successful Xerox products ever, a 914 model could make 100,000 copies per month (one copy every 26.4 seconds, or ~136 copies/hour). In 1985, the Smithsonian received a Xerox 914, number 517 off the assembly line. It weighs 648 pounds (294 kg) and measures 42″ (107 cm) high × 46″ (117 cm) wide × 45″ (114 cm) deep.
2010 – Collin’s Lab: Wire Rack Attack
Once the growing sprawl of electronic parts starts showing up in your dreams, you know you’ve got some tidying up to do. It can be a challenge to spend quality hacking time on humdrum sorting & parts organization, but of course, in the long run it’s a no-brainer.
2011 – littleBits: Ayah Bdeir (video)
littleBits is a system of electronic parts for play and prototyping. Designed for children, artists, or anyone shy about soldering, littleBits make electronics easy, fun, fast and accessible. Ayah Bdeir talks about her simple and intriguing system of magnetically connected, expandable electronics.
