History's big decisions, replayed without hindsight.
Drawer
Ideas & Technology
How business ideas, institutions and technologies appeared, met resistance and became routine, traced year by year through dated records and named sources.
4 replays on file; the lead file comes first, the rest newest first.
By the Supreme Court's account, Seatrain's ships carried loaded rail cars from 1932, a predecessor's from 1929. Rail cars aren't containers; Ideal X came later.
Filed
Image credit
"Conex containers are stacked on the pier after being unloaded from an incoming ship at Newport" by SP5 Robert C. Lafoon, U.S. Army — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Conex_containers_are_stacked_on_the_pier_after_being_unloaded_from_an_incoming_ship_at_Newport.jpg — Public domain (U.S. federal government work, 17 U.S.C. §105; U.S. Army photograph, National Archives 111-CCV-154-CC43714)
Tulip mania prices were real: the best-evidenced top price for one bulb equaled about 4,100 days of a master's wage. The ruin story traces to 1637 satire.
Filed
Image credit
"Drie tulpen met dagpauwoog. Vizo Roy / Parangum Brabantsen Acosta" by Jacob Marrel — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drie_tulpen_met_dagpauwoog_Vizo_Roy_Parangum_Brabantsen_Acosta_(titel_op_object),_RP-T-1950-266-7-2.jpg — CC0 1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
Jefferson's 1785 letter from Paris tells of musket-lock parts that fitted at random. Eli Whitney's contract came in 1798 and, by his biographer, took 8 years.
Filed
Image credit
"Eli Whitney (1765–1825) B.A. 1792, M.A. 1795" by Samuel F. B. Morse — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eli_Whitney_by_Samuel_Finley_Breese_Morse_1822.jpeg — Public domain (author d. 1872; US/EU; Yale University Art Gallery 1827.1)
In the 1852 edition of Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions, 3 of 16 chapters are on money, 13.6% of the words by our count. The longest is on alchemists.
Filed
Image credit
"Caricature: John Law in a car drawn by cocks" by Unknown artist — https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Law_in_Car_Drawn_by_Cocks.png — Public domain (anonymous caricature dated about 1720 on its file page and reproduced in Mackay's 1852 edition (list of engravings: Caricature, Law in a Car drawn by Cocks); public domain in the US (published before 1931) and the EU (anonymous work published more than 70 years ago); faithful scan of a two-dimensional public-domain work)
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