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Balloonomania
Balloonomania was a strong public interest or fad in Balloon (aeronautics), balloons that originated in France in the late 18th century and continued into the 19th century, during the advent of balloon flights. The interest began with the first flights of the Montgolfier brothers in 1783 (in a balloon inflated with hot air). Soon afterwards Jacques Charles, Jacques Alexandre César Charles flew another type of balloon (inflated with hydrogen) and both types of balloon were in use from then on. The fad quickly spread in France and across the channel in England. Origins The science of lighter-than-air gases, and specifically the properties of oxygen, had been discovered as early as 1774 by Joseph Priestley, who noted its lightness and explosive qualities when heated. The chemistry of lighter-than-air and heated gasses was eventually put to the test by the Montgolfier brothers, two paper manufacturers in France, while experimenting with heated air caught in paper bags. Balloonomania ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Railway Mania
Railway Mania was a stock market bubble in the rail transportation industry of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in the 1840s. It followed a common pattern: as the price of railway shares increased, speculators invested more money, which further increased the price of railway shares, until the share price collapsed. The mania reached its zenith in 1846, when 263 Acts of Parliament for setting up new railway companies were passed, with the proposed routes totalling . About a third of the railways authorised were never built—the companies either collapsed because of poor financial planning, were bought out by larger competitors before they could build their line, or turned out to be fraudulent enterprises to channel investors' money into other businesses. Causes The world's first recognizably modern inter-city railway, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (the L&M), opened in 1830 and proved to be successful for transporting both passengers and freight. In t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canal Mania
Canal Mania was the period of intense canal building in England and Wales between the 1790s and 1810s, and the speculative frenzy that ensued in the early 1790s.British Canals. The Standard History. Joseph Boughey and Charles Hadfield. Background The earliest canal building was undertaken as a local enterprise, usually by a merchant, manufacturer or mine owner needing to ship goods, such as the Bridgewater Canal, built by the Duke of Bridgewater to ship his coal from Worsley to Manchester. Despite the high cost of construction, the price of coal in Manchester fell by 50% shortly after it opened, and the financial success was attractive to investors. The expensive American War of Independence ended in 1783. A long run of good harvests resulted in an increase in disposable income and an increase in the number of people looking to invest capital for a profit with little personal interest in the business. There was a dramatic rise in the number of schemes promoted. Only one cana ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bike Boom
The bike boom or bicycle craze is any of several specific historic periods marked by increased bicycle enthusiasm, popularity, and sales. Prominent examples include 1819 and 1868, as well as the decades of the 1890s and 1970sthe latter especially in North Americaand the 2010s in the United Kingdom. 1819 The first period which may be called a bicycle craze actually refers to a precursor of the bicycle which was propelled by being pushed along with the feet as the rider straddled the contraption, and had no pedals. This machine was invented by Baron Karl von Drais in Germany, and was called variously a "draisine" (English) or "draisienne" (French) after his name, a "velocipede" from the Latin terms for "fast foot", a "hobby horse", or a "dandy horse", the last name being perhaps the most popular. Drais got a patent for his invention in 1818, and the craze swept Europe and the United States during the summer of 1819 while many manufacturers (notably Denis Johnson of London) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Nares
Edward Nares (26 March 1762 – 23 July 1841) was an English historian and theologian, and general writer. Life He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He was Fellow of Merton College, Oxford and in 1813, he became Regius Professor of Modern History. He was curate of St Peter-in-the-East, Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ..., and then rector of Biddenden from 1798, of New Church, Romney from 1827. He was Bampton Lecturer in 1805. Orthodox on the Biblical account, he was speculative on the issue of the plurality of worlds; he wrote an 1803 pamphlet on the topic. He wrote for the ''Anti-Jacobin''. His novel ''Think's-I-to-Myself. A serio-ludicro, tragico-comico tale, written by Think's-I-to-Myself Who?'' (1811) caused a stir wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parachuting Animals
Since early in the history of human flight, flight, non-human animals have been dropped from heights with the benefit of parachutes. Early on, animals were used as test subjects for parachutes and as entertainment. Following the development of the Balloon (aeronautics), balloon, dogs, cats, fowl, and sheep were dropped from heights. During the 18th and 19th-century ballooning craze known as balloonomania, many aeronauts included parachuting animals such as monkeys in their demonstrations. Later, animals were parachuting, parachuted from airplanes, as test subjects, for amusement, and as a means of transporting working animals. During World War II, the many dogs parachuted from planes came to be known as "paradogs". Animal test subjects included a bear parachuted at supersonic speeds. Bat bombs, devised by the U.S. military, were designed to parachute a canister containing thousands of bomb-laden bats in Japan. Parachutes have also been used to transport animals, including mules a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Abukir (1799)
In the Battle of Abukir (or Aboukir or Abu Qir) Napoleon, Napoleon Bonaparte defeated Mustafa Pasha (Egypt), Seid Mustafa Pasha's Ottoman army on 25 July 1799, during the French invasion of Egypt (1798), French campaign in Egypt. It is considered the first pitched battle with this name, as there already had been a naval battle on 1 August 1798, the Battle of the Nile. (A second pitched battle followed on 8 March 1801.) No sooner had the French forces returned from a campaign to Syria, than the Ottoman forces were transported to Egypt Eyalet, Egypt by Sidney Smith (admiral), Sidney Smith's Kingdom of Great Britain, British fleet to put an end to French rule in Egypt. Mustafa Pasha (Egypt), Seid Mustafa Pasha was an experienced commander who had fought against the Russians. He knew that cavalry charges against the French squares were futile. So, he sought to avoid them by fortifying his beachhead with two defensive lines. From this beachhead Mustafa could carry out the invasion of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horatio Nelson
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte ( – 21 October 1805) was a Royal Navy officer whose leadership, grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics brought about a number of decisive British naval victories during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest naval commanders in history. Nelson was born into a moderately prosperous Norfolk family and joined the navy through the influence of his uncle, Maurice Suckling, a high-ranking naval officer. Nelson rose rapidly through the ranks and served with leading naval commanders of the period before obtaining his own command at the age of 20, in 1778. He developed a reputation for personal valour and a firm grasp of tactics, but suffered periods of illness and unemployment after the end of the American War of Independence. The outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars allowed Nelson to return to service, where he was particularly active in the Mediterranean Sea. He fou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career of Napoleon, a series of military campaigns across Europe during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars from 1796 to 1815. He led the French First Republic, French Republic as French Consulate, First Consul from 1799 to 1804, then ruled the First French Empire, French Empire as Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1814, and briefly again in 1815. He was King of Italy, King of Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic), Italy from 1805 to 1814 and Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine from 1806 to 1813. Born on the island of Corsica to a family of Italian origin, Napoleon moved to mainland France in 1779 and was commissioned as an officer in the French Royal Army in 1785. He supported the French Rev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraordinaires'', a series of bestselling adventure novels including ''Journey to the Center of the Earth'' (1864), ''Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas'' (1870), and ''Around the World in Eighty Days'' (1872). His novels are generally set in the second half of the 19th century, taking into account contemporary scientific knowledge and the technological advances of the time. In addition to his novels, he wrote numerous plays, short stories, autobiographical accounts, poetry, songs, and scientific, artistic and literary studies. His work has been adapted for film and television since the beginning of cinema, as well as for comic books, theater, opera, music and video games. Verne is considered to be an important author in France and most of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
An Island In The Moon
''An Island in the Moon'' is the name generally assigned to an untitled, unfinished prose satire by William Blake, written in late 1784. Containing early versions of three poems later included in ''Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Songs of Innocence'' (1789) and satirising the "contrived and empty productions of the contemporary culture", ''An Island'' demonstrates Blake's increasing dissatisfaction with convention and his developing interest in prophetic modes of expression. Referred to by W. B. Yeats, William Butler Yeats and Edwin Ellis (poet), E. J. Ellis as "Blake's first true symbolic book," it also includes a partial description of Blake's soon-to-be-realised method of Etching#Variants: aquatint, soft-ground and relief etching, illuminated printing. The piece was unpublished during Blake's lifetime, and survives only in a single manuscript copy, residing in the Fitzwilliam Museum, in the University of Cambridge. Background The overriding theory as to the main impetus ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of the Romanticism, Romantic Age. What he called his "William Blake's prophetic books, prophetic works" were said by 20th-century critic Northrop Frye to form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language". While he lived in London his entire life, except for three years spent in Felpham, he produced a diverse and symbolically rich collection of works, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God", or "human existence itself". Although Blake was considered mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, he came to be highly regarded by later critics and readers for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work. His paintings and poetry have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Percy Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achievements in poetry grew steadily following his death, and he became an important influence on subsequent generations of poets, including Robert Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, and W. B. Yeats. American literary critic Harold Bloom describes him as "a superb craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, and surely one of the most advanced sceptical intellects ever to write a poem." Shelley's reputation fluctuated during the 20th century, but since the 1960s he has achieved increasing critical acclaim for the sweeping momentum of his poetic imagery, his mastery of genres and verse forms, and the complex interplay of sceptical, idealist, and materialist ideas in his work. Among his best- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
