DARIO FO, THE ITALIAN ILLEGITIMATE FORMS OF THEATRE

Today, The Grandma has been reading some works written by Dario Fo, the Italian playwright and actor, who died on a day like today in 2016.

Dario Luigi Angelo Fo (24 March 1926-13 October 2016) was an Italian playwright, actor, theatre director, stage designer, songwriter, political campaigner for the Italian left wing and the recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature.

In his time he was arguably the most widely performed contemporary playwright in world theatre. Much of his dramatic work depends on improvisation and comprises the recovery of illegitimate forms of theatre, such as those performed by giullari (medieval strolling players) and, more famously, the ancient Italian style of commedia dell'arte.

His plays have been translated into 30 languages and performed across the world, including in Argentina, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, India, Iran, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Yugoslavia. His work of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s is peppered with criticisms of assassinations, corruption, organised crime, racism, Roman Catholic theology, and war.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, he took to lampooning Forza Italia and its leader Silvio Berlusconi, while his targets of the 2010s included the banks amid the European sovereign-debt crisis. Also in the 2010s, he became the main ideologue of the Five Star Movement, the anti-establishment party led by Beppe Grillo, often referred to by its members as the Master.

Fo's solo pièce célèbre, titled Mistero Buffo and performed across Europe, Asia, Canada and Latin America over a 30-year period, is recognised as one of the most controversial and popular spectacles in postwar European theatre and has been denounced by Cardinal Ugo Poletti, Cardinal Vicar for the Diocese of Rome, as the most blasphemous show in the history of television. The title of the original English translation of Non Si Paga! Non Si Paga! has passed into the English language, and the play is described as capturing something universal in actions and reactions of the working class.

His receipt of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature marked the international acknowledgment of Fo as a major figure in twentieth-century world theatre. The Swedish Academy praised Fo as a writer who emulates the jesters of the Middle Ages in scourging authority and upholding the dignity of the downtrodden. He owned and operated a theatre company. Fo was an atheist.

An eldest child, Fo was born at Leggiuno, Sangiano, in Lombardy's Province of Varese, near the eastern shore of Lake Maggiore.

He considered his artistic influences to include Beolco, Brecht, Chekhov, De Filippo, Gramsci, Mayakovsky, Molière, Shaw and Strehler.

On 13 October 2016 Fo died at the age of 90 due to a serious respiratory disease which had previously forced him to recover for 12 days in the Luigi Sacco hospital in Milan.

More information: Bomb Magazine

I am the jongleur.
I leap and pirouette, and make you laugh.
I make fun of those in power,
and I show you how puffed up
and conceited are the big shots
who go around making wars
in which we are the ones who get slaughtered.
I reveal them for what they are.
I pull out the plug, and... pssss... they deflate.

Dario Fo

AMERICA'S FIRST INSANE ASYLUM IS OPENED IN 1773

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Eastern State Hospital, the psychiatric hospital in Williamsburg, Virginia, that was the America's first insane asylum opened, on a day like today in 1773.

Eastern State Hospital is a psychiatric hospital in Williamsburg, Virginia. Built in 1773, it was the first public facility in the present-day United States constructed solely for the care and treatment of the mentally ill. The original building had burned but was reconstructed in 1985.

Eastern State Hospital traces its foundation to a speech by Francis Fauquier, Royal Governor of the colony of Virginia, on November 6, 1766. At the House of Burgesses' first meeting since the Stamp Act and Virginia Resolves, Fauquier primarily discussed the relationship between the Mother Country and these colonists, and expressed optimism for their future. His speech also unexpectedly addressed the mentally ill, as follows:

It is expedient I should also recommend to your Consideration and Humanity a poor unhappy set of People who are deprived of their senses and wander about the Country, terrifying the Rest of their fellow creatures. A legal Confinement, and proper Provision, ought to be appointed for these miserable Objects, who cannot help themselves. Every civilized Country has a Hospital for these People, where they are confined, maintained and attended by able Physicians, to endeavor to restore to them their lost reason.

About a year later, on April 11, 1767, Governor Fauquier addressed the same issue before the next House of Burgesses, thus:

There is a subject which gives me concern, on which I shall particularly address myself to you, as it is your peculiar province to provide means for the subsistence of the poor of any kind. The subject I mean is the case of the poor lunatics. I find on your journals that it was Resolved, That a hospital be erected for the reception of persons who are so unhappy as to be deprived of their reason; And that it was Ordered, that the Committee of Propositions and Grievances do prepare and bring in a bill pursuant to the above resolution. But I do not find that any thing more was done in it. It was a measure which I think could offend no party, and which I was in hopes humanity would have dictated to every man, as soon as he was made acquainted with the call for it. It also concerns me much on another account; for as the case now stands, I am as it were compelled to the daily commission of an illegal act, by confining without my authority, a poor lunatic, who, if set at liberty, would be mischievous to society; and I would choose to be bound by, and observant of, the laws of the country. As I think this is a point of some importance to the ease and comfort of the whole community, as well as a point of charity to the unhappy objects, I shall again recommend it to you at your next meeting; when I hope, after mature reflection, it will be found to be more worth your attention than it has been in this.

Governor Fauquier's benevolent and bold expressions did eventually lead to the establishment of the Eastern State Hospital, although he died March 3, 1768, before it was built. His compassion and humanitarian care for those who needed it the most, made it easier for his ideas to be developed and a facility built.

Fauquier's concern probably rested in Enlightenment principles, which were so widespread throughout the time. The 18th century was a time for rejecting superstitions and religions, and substituting science and logical reasoning. The philosophers David Hume and Voltaire were studying and investigating the worth of human life, which would ultimately alter perceptions of the mentally ill. 

During this time in London, insane people were viewed and used for as entertainment and comical relief. The Bethlehem Royal Hospital, sometimes called Bedlam, attracted many tourists and even held frequent parades of inmates. Enlightenment attitudes encouraged more sensitivity towards the mentally ill, rather than treating them as outcasts and fools. Some started to believe that being mentally ill was, in fact, an illness of the mind, much like a physical disease or sickness, and that these mental illnesses were also treatable.

Before Governor Fauquier's speeches, a person who was mentally ill was not diagnosed by a doctor, but rather judged by 12 citizens, much like a jury, to be either a criminal, lunatic or idiot. Most classified as lunatic were placed in the Public Gaol in Williamsburg. Taxpayers probably appreciated the hospital idea only if they had a family member or close friend who was mentally ill. The only hospital where mentally ill patients were sometimes taken before Eastern State Hospital was built, was the Pennsylvania Hospital, a Quaker institution in Philadelphia. Until a campaign by Benjamin Rush in 1792 to establish a separate treatment wing, mentally ill patients were kept in the basement and out of the way of regular patients who needed medical assistance.

Percival Goodhouse was thought to be one of the first patients admitted to the Eastern State Hospital after its opening on October 12, 1773.

In the following decades, the increasingly crowded hospital saw a regression in methodology as science was increasingly viewed as an ineffective means of dealing with mental illness. During this era of custodial care, the goal became not to cure patients, but to provide a comfortable environment for them, separate from society.

On June 7, 1885, the original 1773 hospital burned to the ground due to a fire that had started in the building's newly added electrical wiring, a consequence of the great expansion of facilities at this time.

By 1935 Eastern State Hospital housed some 2,000 patients with no more land for expansion. The restoration of Colonial Williamsburg and development of the Williamsburg Inn resulted in the facility being at the center of a thriving tourist trade. The hospital's location and space issues made a move necessary. Between 1937 and 1968, all of Eastern State's patients were moved to a new facility on the outskirts of Williamsburg, Virginia, where it continues to operate today.

In 1985, the original hospital was reconstructed on its excavated foundations by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

More information: Colonial Williamsburg

Mental health can be just as important
as physical health -and major depression
is one of the most commonly
diagnosed mental illnesses.

Michael Greger

ANNA ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, DIPLOMACY & ACTIVISM

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Eleanor Roosevelt, the American political figure, diplomat, and activist, who was born on a day like today in 1884.

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (October 11, 1884-November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms as president, making her the longest-serving first lady of the United States.

Through her travels, public engagement, and advocacy, she largely redefined the role of first lady. Roosevelt then served as a United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952, and took a leading role in designing the text and gaining international support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In 1948, she was given a standing ovation by the assembly upon their adoption of the declaration. President Harry S. Truman later called her the First Lady of the World in tribute to her human rights achievements.

Roosevelt was a member of the prominent and wealthy American Roosevelt and Livingston families and a niece of President Theodore Roosevelt. She had an unhappy childhood, having suffered the deaths of both parents and one of her brothers at a young age. At 15, she attended Allenswood Boarding Academy in London and was deeply influenced by its founder and director Marie Souvestre. Returning to the U.S., she married her fifth cousin once removed, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in 1905.

Between 1906 and 1916 she gave birth to six children, one of whom died in infancy. The Roosevelts' marriage became complicated after Eleanor discovered her husband's affair with her social secretary, Lucy Mercer, in 1918. Due to mediation by her mother-in-law, Sara, who was a strong financial supporter of the family, the liaison was ended officially. After that, both partners started to keep independent agendas, and Eleanor joined the Women's Trade Union League and became active in the New York state Democratic Party.

Roosevelt helped persuade her husband to stay in politics after he was stricken with a paralytic illness in 1921, which cost him the normal use of his legs, and she began giving speeches and appearing at campaign events in his place. Following Franklin's election as governor of New York in 1928, and throughout the remainder of Franklin's public career in government, Roosevelt regularly made public appearances on his behalf; and as first lady, while her husband served as president, she significantly reshaped and redefined the role.

Roosevelt was, in her time, one of the world's most widely admired and powerful women. Nevertheless, in her early years in the White House she was a controversial first lady for her outspokenness, particularly with respect to her promotion of civil rights for African Americans. She was the first presidential spouse to hold regular press conferences, write a daily newspaper column, write a monthly magazine column, host a weekly radio show, and speak at a national party convention.

On a few occasions, she publicly disagreed with her husband's policies. She launched an experimental community at Arthurdale, West Virginia, for the families of unemployed miners, later widely regarded as a failure. She advocated for expanded roles for women in the workplace, the civil rights of African Americans and Asian Americans, and the rights of World War II refugees. Following her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt remained active in politics for the remaining 17 years of her life.

She pressed the United States to join and support the United Nations and became its first delegate to the committee on Human Rights. 

She served as the first chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights and oversaw the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Later, she chaired the John F. Kennedy administration's Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. By the time of her death, Roosevelt was regarded as one of the most esteemed women in the world; The New York Times called her the object of almost universal respect in her obituary.

In 1999, Roosevelt was ranked ninth in the top ten of Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century, and was found to rank as the most admired woman in thirteen different years between 1948 and 1961 in Gallup's annual most admired woman poll. Periodic surveys conducted by the Siena College Research Institute have consistently seen historians assess Roosevelt as the greatest American first lady.

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884, in Manhattan, New York City, to socialites Anna Rebecca Hall and Elliott Roosevelt.

In April 1960, Roosevelt was diagnosed with aplastic anemia soon after being struck by a car in New York City.

In 1962, she was given steroids, which activated a dormant case of tuberculosis in her bone marrow, and she died, aged 78, of resulting cardiac failure at her Manhattan home at 55 East 74th Street on the Upper East Side on November 7, 1962, cared for by her daughter, Anna.

More information: Women & The American Story

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being.
With freedom comes responsibility.
For the person who is unwilling to grow up,
the person who does not want to carry his own weight,
this is a frightening prospect.

Eleanor Roosevelt

WINDSCALE FIRE, THE UK WORST NUCLEAR ACCIDENT

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Windscale fire, he worst nuclear accident in the United Kingdom's history, that occurred on a day like today in 1957.

The Windscale fire of 10 October 1957 was the worst nuclear accident in the United Kingdom's history, and one of the worst in the world, ranked in severity at level 5 out of 7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The fire was in Unit 1 of the two-pile Windscale site on the north-west coast of England in Cumberland, now Sellafield, Cumbria. The two graphite-moderated reactors, referred to at the time as piles, had been built as part of the British post-war atomic bomb project. Windscale Pile No. 1 was operational in October 1950, followed by Pile No. 2 in June 1951.

The fire burned for three days and released radioactive fallout which spread across the UK and the rest of Europe. The radioactive isotope iodine-131, which may lead to cancer of the thyroid, was of particular concern at the time. It has since come to light that small but significant amounts of the highly dangerous radioactive isotope polonium-210 were also released. It is estimated that the radiation leak may have caused 240 additional cancer cases, with 100 to 240 of these being fatal.

At the time of the incident, no one was evacuated from the surrounding area, but milk from about 500 km2 of the nearby countryside was diluted and destroyed for about a month due to concerns about its radiation exposure. The UK government played down the events at the time, and reports on the fire were subject to heavy censorship, as Prime Minister Harold Macmillan feared the incident would harm British-American nuclear relations.

The event was not an isolated incident; there had been a series of radioactive discharges from the piles in the years leading up to the accident.

In early 1957, there had been a leak of radioactive material in which strontium-90 was released into the environment. Like the later fire, this incident was covered up by the British government. Later studies on the release of radioactive material due to the Windscale fire revealed that much of the contamination had resulted from such radiation leaks before the fire.

A 2010 study of workers involved in the cleanup of the accident found no significant long-term health effects from their involvement.

The December 1938 discovery of nuclear fission by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann following its prediction by Ida Noddack in 1934 -and its explanation and naming by Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch- raised the possibility that an extremely powerful atomic bomb could be created.

During the Second World War, Frisch and Rudolf Peierls at the University of Birmingham calculated the critical mass of a metallic sphere of pure uranium-235, and found that as little as 1 to 10 kilograms might explode with the power of thousands of tons of dynamite.

In response, the British government initiated an atomic-bomb project, codenamed Tube Alloys. The August 1943 Quebec Agreement merged Tube Alloys with the American Manhattan Project. As overall head of the British contribution to the Manhattan Project, James Chadwick forged a close and successful partnership with the Americans, and ensured that British participation was complete and wholehearted.

After the war ended, the Special Relationship between Britain and the United States became very much less special. The British government had assumed that America would continue to share nuclear technology, which it considered a joint discovery, but little information was exchanged immediately after the war. The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act) officially ended technical cooperation. Its control of restricted data prevented the United States' allies from receiving any information.

The British government saw this as a resurgence of United States isolationism akin to that which had occurred after the First World War. This raised the possibility that Britain might have to fight an aggressor alone. It also feared that Britain might lose its great power status, and therefore its influence in world affairs. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Clement Attlee, set up a cabinet sub-committee, the Gen 75 Committee (known informally as the Atomic Bomb Committee), on 10 August 1945 to examine the feasibility of a renewed nuclear weapons programme.

The Tube Alloys Directorate was transferred from the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research to the Ministry of Supply on 1 November 1945, and Lord Portal was appointed Controller of Production, Atomic Energy (CPAE), with direct access to the Prime Minister. An Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) was established at RAF Harwell, south of Oxford, under the directorship of John Cockcroft. Christopher Hinton agreed to oversee the design, construction and operation of the new nuclear weapons facilities, which included a uranium metal plant at Springfields in Lancashire, and nuclear reactors and plutonium processing facilities at Windscale in Cumbria. He established his headquarters in a former Royal Ordnance Factory at Risley in Lancashire on 4 February 1946.

In July 1946, the Chiefs of Staff Committee recommended that Britain acquire nuclear weapons. They estimated that 200 bombs would be required by 1957. The 8 January 1947 meeting of the Gen 163 Committee, a subcommittee of the Gen 75 Committee, agreed to proceed with the development of atomic bombs, and endorsed Portal's proposal to place Penney, now the Chief Superintendent Armament Research (CSAR) at Fort Halstead in Kent, in charge of the development effort, which was codenamed High Explosive Research. Penney contended that the discriminative test for a first-class power is whether it has made an atomic bomb and we have either got to pass the test or suffer a serious loss of prestige both inside this country and internationally.

Through their participation in the wartime Tube Alloys and Manhattan Project, British scientists had considerable knowledge of the production of fissile materials. The Americans had created two kinds, uranium-235 and plutonium, and had pursued three different methods of uranium enrichment. An early decision had to be made as to whether High Explosive Research should concentrate on uranium-235 or plutonium. While everyone would have liked to pursue every avenue, like the Americans had, it was doubtful whether the cash-strapped post-war British economy could afford the money or the skilled manpower that this would require.

More information: BBC

The scientists who had remained in Britain favoured uranium-235, but those who had been working in America were strongly in favour of plutonium. They estimated that a uranium-235 bomb would require ten times the fissile material as one using plutonium to produce half the TNT equivalent. Estimates of the cost of nuclear reactors varied, but it was reckoned that a uranium enrichment plant would cost ten times as much to produce the same number of atomic bombs as a reactor. The decision was therefore taken in favour of plutonium.

The reactors were built in a short time near the village of Seascale, Cumberland. They were known as Windscale Pile 1 and Pile 2, housed in large concrete buildings a few hundred feet apart.

On 7 October 1957, Pile 1 reached the 40,000 MWh mark, and it was time for the 9th Wigner release. This had been carried out eight times in the past, and it was known that the cycle would cause the entire reactor core to heat up evenly. During this attempt the temperatures anomalously began falling across the reactor core, except in channel 20/53, whose temperature was rising. Concluding that 20/53 was releasing energy but none of the others were, on the morning of 8 October the decision was made to try a second Wigner release. This attempt caused the temperature of the entire reactor to rise, indicating a successful release.

Early in the morning of 10 October it was suspected that something unusual was going on. The temperature in the core was supposed to gradually fall as Wigner energy release ended, but the monitoring equipment showed something more ambiguous, and one thermocouple indicated that core temperature was instead rising. As this process continued, the temperature continued to rise and eventually reached 400 °C.

In an effort to cool the pile, the cooling fans were sped up and airflow was increased. Radiation detectors in the chimney then indicated a release, and it was assumed that a cartridge had burst. This was not a fatal problem, and had happened in the past. However, unknown to the operators, the cartridge had not just burst, but caught fire, and this was the source of the anomalous heating in channel 20/53, not a Wigner release.

Speeding up the fans increased the airflow in the channel, fanning the flames. The fire spread to surrounding fuel channels, and soon the radioactivity in the chimney was rapidly increasing.

A foreman, arriving for work, noticed smoke coming out of the chimney. The core temperature continued to rise, and the operators began to suspect the core was on fire.

Operators were unsure what to do about the fire. First, they tried to blow the flames out by running the fans at maximum speed, but this fed the flames.

Next, the operators tried to extinguish the fire using carbon dioxide.

At 01:30 hours on Friday 11 October, when the fire was at its worst, eleven tons of uranium were ablaze. The magnesium in the cartridges was now ablaze, with one thermocouple registering 3,100 °C, and the biological shield around the stricken reactor was now in severe danger of collapse.

Water was kept flowing through the pile for a further 24 hours until it was completely cold. After the water hoses were turned off, the now contaminated water spilled out onto the forecourt.

There was a release into the atmosphere of radioactive material that spread across the UK and Europe. The fire released an estimated 740 terabecquerels of iodine-131, as well as 22 TBq of caesium-137 and 12,000 TBq of xenon-133, among other radionuclides. The UK government under Harold Macmillan ordered original reports into the fire to be heavily censored and information about the incident to be kept largely secret, and it later came to light that small but significant amounts of the highly dangerous radioactive isotope polonium-210 were released during the fire.

The original report into the incident, the Penney Report, was ordered to be heavily censored by prime minister Harold Macmillan. Macmillan feared that the news of the incident would shake public confidence in nuclear power and damage British-American nuclear relations. As a result, information about the release of radioactive fallout was kept hidden by the government. It was not until 1988 that Penney's report was released in full.

More information: International Atomic Energy Agency

We must not let ourselves be swept off
our feet in horror at the danger of nuclear power.
Nuclear power is not infinitely dangerous.
It's just dangerous, much as coal mines,
petrol repositories, fossil-fuel burning a
nd wind turbines are dangerous.

David J. C. MacKay

JOHANNES KEPLER'S SUPERNOVA IN THE MILKY WAY

Today, The Grandma has received the wonderful visit of one of her best friends, Joseph de Ca'th Lon. 

Joseph loves astroomy and they have been talking about Kepler's Supernova, the most recent supernova to be observed within the Milky Way, on a day like today in 1604. SN 1604, also known as Kepler's Supernova, Kepler's Nova or Kepler's Star, was a Type Ia supernova that occurred in the Milky Way, in the constellation Ophiuchus. 

Appearing in 1604, it is the most recent supernova in the Milky Way galaxy to have been unquestionably observed by the naked eye, occurring no farther than 6 kiloparsecs (20,000 light-years) from Earth. Before the adoption of the current naming system for supernovae, it was named for Johannes Kepler, the German astronomer who described it in De Stella Nova.

Visible to the naked eye, Kepler's Star was brighter at its peak than any other star in the night sky, with an apparent magnitude of -2.5. It was visible during the day for over three weeks. Records of its sighting exist in European, Chinese, Korean, and Arabic sources.

It was the second supernova to be observed in a generation (after SN 1572 seen by Tycho Brahe in Cassiopeia). No further supernovae have since been observed with certainty in the Milky Way, though many others outside the galaxy have been seen since S Andromedae in 1885. SN 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud was visible to the naked eye.

Evidence exists for two Milky Way supernovae whose signals would have reached Earth c. 1680 and 1870 -Cassiopeia A, and G1.9+0.3 respectively. There is no historical record of either having been detected in those years probably as absorption by interstellar dust made them fainter.

The remnant of Kepler's supernova is considered to be one of the prototypical objects of its kind and is still an object of much study in astronomy.

The supernova remnant of SN 1604, Kepler's Star, was discovered in 1941 at the Mount Wilson Observatory as a dim nebula with a brightness of 19 mag. Only filaments can be seen in visible light, but it is a strong radio and X-ray source. Its diameter is 4 arc min. Distance estimates place it between 3 and more than 7 kiloparsecs (10,000 to 23,000 lightyears), with the current consensus being a distance of 5±1 kpc, as of 2021.

The available evidence supports a type Ia supernova as the source of this remnant, which is the result of a carbon-oxygen white dwarf interacting with a companion star. The integrated X-ray spectrum resembles that of Tycho's supernova remnant, a type Ia supernova. The abundance of oxygen relative to iron in the remnant of SN 1604 is roughly solar, whereas a core-collapse scenario should produce a much higher abundance of oxygen. No surviving central source has been identified, which is consistent with a type Ia event. Finally, the historical records for the brightness of this event are consistent with type Ia supernovae.

There is evidence for interaction of the supernova ejecta with circumstellar matter from the progenitor star, which is unexpected for type Ia but has been observed in some cases. A bow shock located to the north of this system is believed to have been created by mass loss prior to the explosion. Observations of the remnant are consistent with the interaction of a supernova with a bipolar planetary nebula that belonged to one or both of the progenitor stars.

The remnant is not spherically symmetric, which is likely due to the progenitor being a runaway star system. The bow shock is caused by the interaction of the advancing stellar wind with the interstellar medium. A remnant rich in nitrogen and silicon indicates that the system consisted of a white dwarf with an evolved companion that had likely already passed through the asymptotic giant branch stage.

More information: NASA

 The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great,
and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich,
precisely in order that the human mind
shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment.

Johannes Kepler

1829, STEPHENSON'S ROCKET WINS THE RAINHILL TRIALS

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Rainhill trials, the competition that was won by Stephenson's Rocket on a day like today in 1829.

 

The Rainhill trials was an important competition run from the 6 to 14 October 1829, to test George Stephenson's argument that locomotives would have the best motive power for the then nearly-completed Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR). Ten locomotives were entered, of which five were able to compete, running along 1.6 km length of level track at Rainhill, in Lancashire, now Merseyside.

Stephenson's Rocket was the only locomotive to complete the trials, and was declared the winner. The directors of the L&MR accepted that locomotives should operate services on their new line, and George and Robert Stephenson were given the contract to produce locomotives for the railway.

The directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway had originally intended to use stationary steam engines to haul trains along the railway using cables. They had appointed George Stephenson as their engineer of the line in 1826, and he strongly advocated for the use of steam locomotives instead. As the railway was approaching completion, the directors decided to hold a competition to decide whether locomotives could be used to pull the trains; these became the Rainhill trials. A prize of £500, equal to £55,577 today, was offered to the winner of the trials.

Three notable engineers were selected as judges: John Urpeth Rastrick, a locomotive engineer of Stourbridge, Nicholas Wood, a mining engineer from Killingworth with considerable locomotive design experience, and John Kennedy, a Manchester cotton spinner and a major proponent of the railway.

Ten locomotives were officially entered for the trials, but on the day the competition began -6 October 1829- only five locomotives were available to run:

-Cycloped, a horse-powered locomotive built by Thomas Shaw Brandreth.

-Novelty, the world's first tank locomotive, built by John Ericsson and John Braithwaite.

-Perseverance, a Vertical boilered locomotive, built by Timothy Burstall.

-Rocket, designed by George and Robert Stephenson; built by Robert Stephenson and Company.

-Sans Pareil, built by Timothy Hackworth.

The length of the L&MR that ran past Rainhill village was straight and level for over 1.6 km, and was chosen as the site for the trials. The locomotives were to run at Kenrick's Cross, on the mile east from the Manchester side of Rainhill Bridge. Two or three locomotives ran each day, and several tests for each locomotive were performed over the course of six days. Between 10,000 and 15,000 people turned up to watch the trials and bands provided musical entertainment on both days.

Cycloped was the first to drop out of the competition. It used a horse walking on a drive belt for power and was withdrawn after an accident caused the horse to burst through the floor of the engine.

The next locomotive to retire was Perseverance, which was damaged in transit to the competition. Burstall spent the first five days of the trials repairing his locomotive, and though it ran on the sixth day, it failed to reach the required 16 km/h speed and was withdrawn from the trial. It was granted a £25 consolation prize, equal to £2,779 today.

Sans Pareil nearly completed the trials, though at first there was some doubt as to whether it would be allowed to compete as it was 140 kg overweight. However, it did eventually complete eight trips before cracking a cylinder. Despite the failure it was purchased by the L&MR, where it ran for two years before being leased to the Bolton and Leigh Railway.

The last locomotive to drop out was Novelty which used advanced technology for 1829 and was lighter and considerably faster than the other locomotives in the competition. It was the crowd favourite and reached a then-astonishing 45 km/h on the first day of competition. It later suffered damage to a boiler pipe which could not be fixed properly on site. Nevertheless, it ran the next day and reached 24 km/h before the repaired pipe failed and damaged the engine severely enough that it had to be withdrawn.

The Rocket was the only locomotive that completed the trials. It averaged 19 km/h and achieved a top speed of 48 km/h hauling 13 tons, and was declared the winner of the £500 prize, equal to £55,577 today. The Stephensons were given the contract to produce locomotives for the L&MR.

In a 2002 restaging of the Rainhill trials using replica engines, neither Sans Pareil (11 out of 20 runs) nor Novelty (10 out of 20 runs) completed the course. In calculating the speeds and fuel efficiencies, it was found that Rocket would still have won, as its relatively modern technology made it a much more reliable locomotive than the others.

More information: Historic UK

 When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark,
you don't throw away the ticket and jump off.
You sit still and trust the engineer.

Corrie Ten Boom

KLM, FLAG CARRIER OF THE NETHERLANDS, IS FOUNDED

Today, The Grandma has been reading about KLM, the Royal Dutch Airlines, that was founded on a day like today in 1919.

 

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, or simply KLM, an abbreviation for their official name Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij, is the flag carrier of the Netherlands.

KLM is headquartered in Amstelveen, with its hub at nearby Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. It is a subsidiary of the Air France-KLM group and a member of the SkyTeam airline alliance.

Founded in 1919, KLM is the oldest operating airline in the world, and has 35,488 employees with a fleet of 110 aircraft (excluding subsidiaries) as of 2021.

KLM operates scheduled passenger and cargo services to 145 destinations.

In 1919, a young aviator lieutenant named Albert Plesman sponsored the ELTA aviation exhibition in Amsterdam. Attendance at the exhibition was over half a million, and after it closed, several Dutch commercial interests intended to establish a Dutch airline, which Plesman was nominated to head.

In September 1919, Queen Wilhelmina awarded the yet-to-be-founded KNLM its Royal (Koninklijke) predicate.

On 7 October 1919, eight Dutch businessmen, including Frits Fentener van Vlissingen, founded KLM as one of the first commercial airline companies. Plesman became its first administrator and director.

The first KLM flight took place on 17 May 1920. KNLM's first pilot, Jerry Shaw, flew from Croydon Airport, London, to Amsterdam. The flight was flown using a leased Aircraft Transport and Travel de Havilland DH-16, registration G-EALU, which was carrying two British journalists and some newspapers.

In 1920, KLM carried 440 passengers and 22 tons of freight.

In April 1921, after a winter hiatus, KLM resumed its services using its pilots, and Fokker F.II and Fokker F.III aircraft.

In 1921, KLM started scheduled services.

KLM's first intercontinental experimental flight took off on 1 October 1924. The final destination was Jakarta, then called Batavia, Java, in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia); the flight used a Fokker F.VII with registration H-NACC and was piloted by Jan Thomassen à Thuessink van der Hoop.

In 1927, Baltimore millionaire Van Lear Black, who had heard about the 1924 flight, chartered H-NADP to do the same flight, which departed June 15 and went successfully (16 days), and flew back to much rejoicing. This inspired KLM to make a second test flight, which left on 1 October, returning successfully with much experience gained.

In September 1929, regular scheduled services between Amsterdam and Batavia commenced. Until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, this was the world's longest-distance scheduled service by airplane.

By 1926, it was offering flights to Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, Paris, London, Bremen, Copenhagen, and Malmö, using primarily Fokker F.II and Fokker F.III aircraft.

The outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 restricted KLM's operations, with flights over France and Germany prohibited, and many of its aircraft painted in overall orange to limit the potential for confusion with military aircraft. European routes were limited to services to Scandinavia, Belgium and the UK, with flights to Lisbon (bypassing both British and French airspace) starting in April 1940.

When Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940, several KLM aircraft -mostly DC-3s and a few DC-2s- were en route to or from the Far East, or were operating services in Europe. Five DC-3s and one DC-2 were taken to Britain. During the war, these aircraft and crew members flew scheduled passenger flights between Bristol and Lisbon under BOAC flight numbers and registration.

After the end of the Second World War in August 1945, KLM immediately started to rebuild its network. Since the Dutch East Indies were in a state of revolt, Plesman prioritised re-establishing KLM's route to Batavia. This service was reinstated by the end of 1945. Domestic and European flights resumed in September 1945, initially with a fleet of Douglas DC-3s and Douglas DC-4s.

On 21 May 1946, KLM was the first continental European airline to start scheduled transatlantic flights between Amsterdam and New York City using Douglas DC-4 aircraft. By 1948, KLM had reconstructed its network and services to Africa, North and South America, and the Caribbean resumed.

On 30 September 2003, Air France and KLM agreed to a merger plan in which Air France and KLM would become subsidiaries of a holding company called Air France-KLM. Both airlines would retain their own brands; both Charles de Gaulle Airport and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol would become key hubs.

Dirk Roosenburg designed the KLM logo at its establishment in 1919; he intertwined the letters K, L, and M, and gave them wings and a crown. The crown was depicted to denote KLM's royal status, which was granted at KLM's establishment.

The logo became known as the vinklogo in reference to the common chaffinch. The KLM logo was largely redesigned in 1961 by F.H.K. Henrion. The crown, redesigned using a line, four blue circles and a cross, was retained.

In 1991, the logo was further revised by Chris Ludlow of Henrion, Ludlow & Schmidt. In addition to its main logo, KLM displays its alliance status in its branding, including Worldwide Reliability with Northwest Airlines (1993-2002) and the SkyTeam alliance (2004-present).

More information: KLM

The airline business is 

the biggest team sport in the world.
When you're all consumed 

with fighting among yourselves,
your opponents can run over you every day.

Gordon Bethune