146 years ago, Thomas Edison entered the offices of Scientific American with a strange machine. Turning a crank on his cylinder phonograph, he astonished those present with the recording, "Good morning. How do you do? How do you like the phonograph? " It wasn’t until very recently in human history that sounds even could be recorded, and the invention of recording devices and media caused a monumental shift for society.
The Sargo Class submarine USS Seawolf was one of the most active American submarines in the early war in the Pacific. Her extraordinary service was kept secret for operational reasons during the war, but would later be described to two reporters by her chief radioman, and published as a book in 1945.
On October first, 1910, Americans were shocked by an unimaginable act of violence, in the very heart of one of the nation’s largest cities. The 1910 Los Angeles Times bombing was a product of the times, and proof that political violence is not new to the United States.
In 1817 the Linnaean Society of New England published a thrilling report: they had investigated reports of a new sea creature, and after scrupulous examination they could declare that they had discovered not just a new species, but an entirely new genus native to the shores of the United States. They had identified and scientifically described, they claimed, a great sea monster.