Duck Creek Aqueduct is a rare surviving example of a covered timber aqueduct. It was one of several similar structures on the Whitewater Canal, which operated between the Whitewater Valley and the Ohio River from 1839 to 1865. After being displaced by the railroad, the canal supplied hydraulic power for the industrial districts at Metamora and Brookville.
USA
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Anthony Dillon
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Doe River Bridge is a fine example of a timber Howe truss, one of the most widely-used timber bridge designs. Built in 1884, this structure played an integral role in the development of the City of Elizabethton, Tennessee, and it is a rare example of a covered bridge that survives in an urban setting.
The original contract specified the unusual hip roof design, which resembles covered bridges in central Europe. The structure is very well-maintained and still carries automobile traffic. The bridge was restored in 2003.
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Brent Moore, Nashville
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Bunker Hill Bridge is the only surviving Haupt truss bridge in the U.S. and one of only two surviving covered bridges in North Carolina. Patented in 1839, the Haupt truss featured diagonal braces spanning multiple panels, which was an attempt to eliminate the cross-strain found in lattice truss bridges. Although it was almost immediately eclipsed by the Howe truss and never reached the mainstream of covered bridge building, the Haupt truss is of interest for its association with Gen.
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Catawba County Historical Association
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The Ashuelot Covered Bridge is located at the center of Ashuelot, NH. It is a Town lattice truss bridge, spanning the Ashuelot River in a roughly north-south orientation. It consists of two spans with a total length of 178 feet (54 m). The total width of the bridge is 29 feet (8.8 m), and has a central roadway and sidewalks (measuring 3'10" in width) on each side. The bridge rests on stone abutments and a central pier. The abutments have been reinforced with concrete since the bridge was built, and the central pier has been protected by a metal breakwater.
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Edwin S. Grosvenor
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Ackley Bridge is an excellent example of a multiple kingpost truss and a noteworthy early example of covered bridge preservation efforts in the United States. Built in 1832 by Joshua Ackley (b.1805) and Daniel Clouse (b.1812), Ackley Bridge originally spanned Enslow’s Branch of Wheeling Creek between Greene County and Washington County in Pennsylvania, where it carried traffic for over a century.
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The Henry Ford
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The Ackley Covered Bridge was moved to the Henry Ford Museum and restored.
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Design Concepts For Vegetated Waterways - Historic Landmark of Agricultural Engineering Rainfall runoff causes severe gully erosion on unprotected lands and has ruined thousands of U S acres in the past. Concepts were developed at this site for vegetation-lined waterways that now safely convey runoff water from millions of acres.Engineers of the US Soil Conservation Service (SCS) initiated studies on hydraulics of vegetated waterways at an outdoor laboratory near Spartanburg, South Carolina, in 1935. Under the directions of W. O.
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Courtesy The Geograph project/Hugh Venables (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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1990
The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) was developed at the USDA National Runoff and Soil Loss Data Center at Purdue University in a national effort led by Walter H. Wischmeier and Dwight D. Smith. The USLE was published in 1965 in USDA Agriculture Handbook 282.
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The Universal Soil Loss Equation for estimating average annual soil erosion.
2003
A = average annual soil loss (in tons/acre)
R = rainfall erosivity index
K = soil erodibility factor
LS = topographic factor
C = cropping factor
P = conservation practice factor Era_date_from:
In 1942, University of California, Davis (UCD) biologist, Jack Hanna recognized the need for breeding tomato varieties that ripen uniformly and withstand the rigors of mechanical harvesting. In 1949, UCD agricultural engineer Coby Lorenzen and Hanna began developing a mechanical tomato harvester. Parallel efforts by others, notably those started in 1957 by agricultural engineer Bill Stout and horticulturist Stan Ries of Michigan State University, eventually resulted in several different harvesting mechanisms. In the late 1950s, UCD agricultural engineer Steven J.
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2005
First Tower Silo Designated A Historic Landmark Of Agricultural Engineering. The First Tower Silo In America Was Erected Near This Site On The Hatch Farm, One Half-Mile East Of Spring Grove, Illinois. Fred L. Hatch And His Father, Lewis Hatch, Erected This Silo In October 1873, After Fred Graduated From The Illinois Industrial University. (Now The University Of Illinois). Textbooks On Agriculture Were Scarce, And Professor Willard F. Bliss Translated French And German Pamphlets On Silage Production Wherein The Entire Corn Plant Was Buried In Pits, And This Inspired Young Hatch.
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Courtesy Flickr/Doc Searls (CC BY 2.0)
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A modern tower silo
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1984
Since 1948, over 11,000 dams and associated conservation practices in more than 2,000 watershed projects encompassing 160 million acres in 47 states have been constructed as a part of the USDA Small Watershed Program. These projects have improved the quality of life and the environment in rural communities by protecting people's lives and property, conserving soil and water resources, reducing flooding, providing economic development, recreation, and water supplies, enhancing water quality, and improving wetlands and wildlife habitat.
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2011
Innovations
The ABACUS II, designed and built by Texas Instruments, was the first practical automated production machine for the assembly of integrated circuits. Using heat and pressure, it bonded fine gold wire to microscopic contacts on the silicon chip and pin connections on the package.
The…
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This, the first Curtis vertical turbine built, was constructed by the General Electric Co. for the Newport & Fall River Street Railway Co. It operated in the Newport, R.I., generating station until June 1927. It was transferred to the Harding Street Station of the Indianapolis Power &…
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In his laboratory at Western Reserve University (Now Case Western Reserve University), Edward W. Morley carried out his research on the atomic weight of oxygen that provided a new standard to the science of chemistry. The accuracy of his analyses has never been superseded by chemical means. His…
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Working in Bailey Hall on December 7, 1905, Hamilton P. Cady and David F. McFarland discovered significant amounts of helium in a natural gas sample from Dexter, Kansas. Cady and McFarland subsequently analyzed more than 40 other gas samples, showing that helium, previously thought to be rare on…
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In his search for a more economical way to make aluminum, Canadian inventor Thomas Leopold Willson accidentally discovered the first commercially viable process for making calcium carbide, which is used for production of acetylene gas, at a location in North Carolina. This chance discovery…
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On January 4, 1891, Herbert H. Dow succeeded in producing bromine electrolytically from central Michigan’s rich brine resources. In the years that followed, this and other processes developed by Dow and the company he founded led to an increasing stream of chemicals from brines. The commercial…
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In 1899, during the earliest days of the automobile revolution, A. O. Smith developed a new, lightweight steel car frame. Within a few short years, he was selling these frames to a “who’s who” of car makers including Cadillac, Oldsmobile, and Ford. A. O. Smith’s son, Lloyd Raymond, carried on…
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Steroid chemists often refer to the 1930s as the Decade of the Sex Hormones, when the molecular structures of certain sex hormones were determined and first introduced to medical practice as drugs. Russell Marker achieved the first practical synthesis of the pregnancy hormone, progesterone, by…
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In brilliant collaboration, Carl and Gerty Cori studied how the body metabolizes glucose and advanced the understanding of how the body produces and stores energy. Their findings were particularly useful in the development of treatments for diabetes. In 1947 the Coris shared a Nobel Prize for…
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It is difficult to recall a time when doctors and patients had trouble tracking the presence of glucose and other substances in urine and blood. Lack of sufficient measurement tools made it difficult to manage a host of diseases, including diabetes as well as other metabolic diseases and kidney…
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Monroe Wall, Mansukh Wani and colleagues at the Natural Products Laboratory of the Research Triangle Institute discovered and elucidated the structure Taxol®and camptothecin, two life-saving compounds for the treatment of cancer. These natural products kill cancer cells via unique mechanisms of…
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Founded in 1957, Raychem Corporation was the first company to successfully apply the new science of radiation chemistry to commercial use. This accomplishment led to the creation of tough new materials and high-performance products such as irradiated polyethylene insulated wire and heat-…
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Bread is considered a basic foodstuff; eaten down through the ages, it continues to be a staple of the modern diet. The development of baking powder made baking easier, quicker and more reliable for bakers in the mid-19th century. Eben Horsford’s unique formula was an important innovation and…
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When Arnold Beckman, a professor of analytical chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, was asked to devise a way to measure acidity in citrus fruit, the resulting “acidometer” revolutionized chemical instrumentation. The innovative features of the pH meter, including its use of…
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Around 1907, Belgian-born chemist Leo Hendrik Baekeland took two ordinary chemicals, phenol and formaldehyde, mixed them in a sealed autoclave, and subjected them to heat and pressure.
The sticky, amber-colored resin he produced in his Yonkers laboratory was the first plastic ever to be…
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This was a pioneering venture in mainline railroad electrification and was a proving ground for railroad electrification technology. It established single-phase alternating current as a technical and economical alternative to direct current. This concept exerted considerable influence over…
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This inertia dynamometer is used to test railroad wheels under controlled conditions that can greatly exceed normal service. It is the first and only…
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During the 1930's, research into advanced ballistic measurement techniques began at Aberdeen Proving Ground—the world's first large-scale, fully-instrumented ballistic range producing data on the aerodynamic characteristics of missiles in free flight.
Although this research had begun…
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Four prehistoric reservoirs at Mesa Verde National Park were constructed and used between AD 750 and AD 1180. They are: Morefield Reservoir (in Morefield Canyon), Far View Reservoir (on Chapin Mesa), Sagebrush Reservoir (on an unnamed mesa), and Box Elder Reservoir (in Prater Canyon). These four…
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Visionary Alexander Hamilton, the United States' first Secretary of the Treasury, visited the Great Falls of the Passaic River with George Washington in 1778. The 77-foot-high, 280-foot-wide waterfall inspired his dream of abundant, inexpensive energy as the means for economic independence from…
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