Category: History

1906sfcity-aeriel

San Francisco 1906 – New Found Footage

My step-grandfather was a survivor of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and subsequent devastating fire. He would have been 6 or 7 at the time. Reading books about the event was one of Grandpa Gus’ favorite pastimes later in life. I can’t imagine what he would have thought had this rare film footage from 1906 been available when he was alive.

San Francisco Earthquake and Fire from Red Channels on Vimeo.

Compare the early section of the above film with this 1905 footage of Market Street from a Long Now Foundation presentation.

Debunking Debunk

I was interested to learn from my brother, who is working on his doctorate at UNC,

the word “debunk” has its origins in the North Carolina county of Buncombe: In the early 1820s representative Walker from N.C.’s Buncombe county persisted in a dull speech while colleagues protested. He later said he had felt obligated “to make a speech for Buncombe.” Meaning empty talk or claptrap, it had become “bunkum” by 1828 and then “bunk.” “Debunk” is not recorded until 1923.

From a great entry at The Free Dictionary.

The exact birthplace of the web

David Galbraith took the ultimate geek pilgrimage to CERN to discover the exact birth of the web as created by Tim Berners-Lee. There’s a plaque in building 2, but it turns out that the actual work on the code was done in another location.

Tim Berners-Lee clarifies things in some correspondence with David.

I wrote the proposal, and developed the code in Building 31.

I was on the second (in the European sense) floor, if you come out of the elevator (a very slow freight elevator at the time anyway) and turn immediately right you would then walk into one of the two offices I inhabited. The two offices (which of course may have been rearranged since then) were different sizes: the one to the left (a gentle R turn out of the elevator) benefited from extra length as it was by neither staircase nor elevator.

The one to the right (or a sharp R turn out of the elevator) was shorter and the one I started in. I shared it for a long time with Claude Bizeau.

I think I wrote the memo there.

Thanks David for doing the legwork.

Celebrate Independence Day

The Library of Congress has recently uploaded a couple dozen movies from the first few years of the 1900s. These are some of the earliest movies ever made. One of them is from 1898 and it represents what you would have seen as an immigrant arriving at Ellis Island in NYC – a beautiful view of the Statue of Liberty.

This Independence Day, as our nation struggles with perhaps its greatest depression ever, I was inspired by these words inscribed on the Lady of Liberty and, since 1886, our calling card to the rest of the world.

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

It made me wonder, what has happened to our country that these words have become meaningless? Perhaps it’s time that we let Lady Liberty’s lamp be our guide once again.

Mystery of Arch Cape Cannons resolved?

I grew up going to Cannon Beach in Oregon, named after the cannons that were pulled from a shipwreck on the beach, and near by beaches like Arch Cape. I knew the coast of Oregon is peppered with shipwrecks, many of which have yet to reveal their treasures. But I didn’t realize how close I was to discovering some of them.

In 2008 two cannons were found on Arch Cape by a beachcomber. Their providence has just been identified – they’re British pounders. Probably bought by the US Navy and installed on the USS Shark, which was fated to sink miles north on the Columbia bar.

The Oregonian has more details, but it sounds like there is more to this story. The little boy inside me who played on that beach, dug forts, damned rivers for many summers, fought imaginary pirates, is thrilled to find out.