Hello all -
Happy Sunday!
This week marks the 116th anniversary of the assembly of the first Ford Model T car in Detroit, Michigan, on 12 August 1908. The Model T was significant as the world’s first mass-produced vehicle. Within 15 years, the $850 price tag had more than halved, allowing a much larger market to sample the joys of motoring.
Of course, cars had been on the roads for several years before the Ford Model T. Karl Benz’s Patent-Motorwagen is recognised as the world's first road car, patented in 1886.
The three-wheeled machine looked more like a horse-drawn carriage than our modern notion of a car. However, not a horse in sight, just an internal combustion engine.
Karl’s wife, Bertha, completed the first long-distance road trip by motor car this week on 12 August 1888. The journey took 24 hours to cover approximately 120 miles. (To save you some Sunday morning maths, that’s an average speed of 5 miles per hour.)
Bridget Swift was born in Ireland in 1852. In her twenties, she married a labourer and had three children. Bridget Driscoll, as she was then known, moved to Surrey in England with her family. She led an unremarkable life, that is, up to 17 August 1896, 128 years ago on Saturday.
On that day, Bridget attended a League of the Cross Festival at the Crystal Palace in London, the structure originally built in Hyde Park for the 1851 Great Exhibition.
Bridget Driscoll, 1896: Modgamers, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
As she crossed a temporary roadway, Bridget was hit by a modified version of the original Karl Benz Patent-Motorwagen to secure the dubious honour of becoming the first person in history to be killed by a motor vehicle. The car was travelling at 4 miles per hour.
It was unlikely to be a drink-driving incident as the festival was for Catholics celebrating abstinence.
The coroner expressed hope that Bridget Driscoll would be the last to die in a motor accident. The number of road fatalities recorded in the UK as of 2024 is somewhere in excess of 400,000.
Many years ago, I remember my mother recalling her own 4 miles-per-hour road incident. Having returned to the car, she had edged out of a parking spot as a man walked across the path of the car looking the other way. The bumper nudged his leg and caught him by surprise. Startled, he turned to Mum, waved his arms and said,
I wish you wouldn’t keep doing that!
Margaret Mitchell was the author of the classic novel Gone with the Wind, her only published book during her lifetime. More classics may have followed but for her untimely death on 16 August 1949.
A speeding off-duty taxi driver in Atlanta, Georgia, hit Margaret, who died of her injuries a few days later. The driver was drunk. In the USA today, on average, 11,000 people die each year from drink-driving incidents.
Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.
Rhett Butler as he leaves Scarlett O’Hara in the film Gone with the Wind.
Podcast episode… a look back
Episode 23. Access Denied: The Kursk Submarine Rescue Story
Tomorrow, 12 August 2000, marks the 24th anniversary of the sinking of the Russian nuclear-powered submarine, Kursk, in the Barents Sea. All 118 submariners on board were killed.
A later investigation pinpointed an unplanned torpedo explosion in the submarine’s bow as the cause. Help was offered from around the world, including from the UK Royal Navy’s submarine rescue team.
In Episode 23. Access Denied: The Kursk Submarine Rescue Story, I talked with Mark Taylor, a member of that Royal Navy crew sent to the Barents Sea to attempt a rescue of the Russian submariners.
Mark poignantly talked about reaching the Kursk to be denied access by the Russian authorities to put their plan into action.
Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music or just about any other podcast player of your choice. Check out the show notes for the links and transcript to learn more.
My favourite quotes from the episode….
Only after all hope was lost, the Royal Navy submarine rescue team was allowed to visit the site to pay its respects:
We had a small service on the back of the ship. I guess there were 30 people. We knew at that point there were no lives (to save), they'd actually opened the hatch and the Kursk was flooded. We lay a reef over the site. All of us had tears.
In Norway a short while later, Mark's team demonstrated a simulated rescue for Russian hierarchy to witness the expertise so upsettingly rejected in the Barents Sea.
We invited some of the Russian admirals and commanders to this exercise. And we put on a simulation almost identical to the Kursk, with a Norwegian submarine sat on the seabed. And we vented, we locked on.
The Russians in the back were very stiff-lipped and looking at us like we didn't know what we were doing. And within seven minutes, at exactly the same depth, which was about 120 meters, we were locked on and opening hatches.
Podcast extra...
Soon after I published Access Denied: The Kursk Submarine Rescue, I was at a christening. An old friend mentioned that his mother had had problems listening to the latest episode.
Since she was in the room, I went over and asked her to describe the problem. She replied,
Every time I go to the episode to listen, it comes up with “Access Denied"!
Well, that’s teaching me…..
By the way...
The English East India Company, formed in 1600, was a peculiar entity. Starting out as a trading company under a charter from Elizabeth I, it became the unbridled sovereign power in India for 184 years.
Tuesday marks the 240th anniversary of the East India Act of 1784, which reined in this extraordinary power to re-establish the authority of the British Government. At one point, the East India Company’s private army was larger than the whole of the British Army. Almost exactly 163 years after the Act, on 15 August 1947, India gained independence from British rule.
One of the legacies of British rule in India was a phenomenon known as the Cobra Effect. The Cobra Effect describes a situation where a solution to a problem is implemented, but the original problem is made worse as a result.
The name derives from an incident in Delhi when the British Government, concerned about the rising number of venomous cobras in the region, offered a reward for every dead cobra brought in.
Enterprising locals started to breed cobras, killing them, delivering them to the British authorities and collecting the bounty. The British, no fools they, cancelled the reward.
The valueless home-bred cobras were then released into the wild, swelling the total indigenous population far beyond its original numbers.
A recent example of the Cobra Effect was observed when the airline manufacturer Airbus moved to improve its passengers’ airborne experience by reducing the sound of the engines inside the cabin.
The resulting noise reduction inside the cabin was a great success. However, the sound of inane conversations, babies crying and impromptu bodily evacuations were then so prominent that the customer experience deteriorated.
Dates with History...
Tomorrow...
43 Years ago tomorrow, on 12 August 1981, International Business Machines Corporation produced its first IBM PC, a personal computer which set the standard for future PC development.
One of its predecessors was the Apple II, launched in 1977, whose growth was knocked by the new IBM PC. In response, the Macintosh, or Mac, was conceived in 1979. After some lean years, the flagship iMac was introduced this Thursday on 15 August 1998.
The Mac and PC still battle for supremacy today.
Thursday…
Also this Thursday, 15 August 1519, Panama City was founded in the heart of Central America. The Spanish created the hub for their looted gold and silver from South America to be shipped back to Spain.
Ironically, the country of Panama wasn’t recognised until 384 years later when it gained independence from Columbia in 1903.
One of the driving forces for Panamanians seeking independence was the backing of the United States, keen to create a canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
The Panama Canal opened on the anniversary of the founding of Panama City, some 395 years later on 15 August 1914.
Question of the week...
On 13 August 1704, the 1st Duke of Marlborough won the Battle of Blenheim and, as a reward, was gifted land and funds to build Blenheim Palace in the heart of the Oxfordshire countryside. Which UK Prime Minister was born at Blenheim Palace?(answer at bottom of newsletter)
And finally...
A quick shout-out for International Left-Handers Day on Tuesday, 13 August. Only 10% of the global population are left-handed. Count me in.
But today’s And finally is the revelation that I went on my first date aged fifteen back in 1979. I had no idea what I was doing (a trait that hasn’t changed much over the years).
I took Susan to see Apocalypse Now, released in cinemas 45 years ago this Thursday, on 15 August 1979. For the uninitiated, Apocalypse Now is a cult movie revered for its vivid portrayal of the brutality of the Vietnam War. In other words, totally unsuitable for a first date.
I didn’t hear from Susan again.
As Scarlett O’Hara once said,
After all, tomorrow is another day!
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Thank you for joining me. Have a great week!
Steve
HOST & CHIEF STORY HUNTER
P:S: Incidentally, I am always keen to receive your feedback to help me continuously improve this newsletter and the podcast. Just hit reply to this email and...... let it rip! I respond to every email that I receive.
Answer to Question of the week: Sir Winston Churchill, born 1874 and grandson to the 7th Duke of Marlborough.
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Attribution for cover image: The Ford Model T, with family circa 1926: Godber, Albert Percy, 1875-1949, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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