On This Day
880 – The Nea Ekklesia is inaugurated in Constantinople, setting the model for all later cross-in-square Orthodox churches.
The Nea Ekklēsia (Greek: Νέα Ἐκκλησία, “New Church”) was a church built by Byzantine Emperor Basil I the Macedonian in Constantinople between 876 and 880. It was the first monumental church built in the Byzantine capital after the Hagia Sophia in the 6th century, and marks the beginning of the middle period of Byzantine architecture. It continued in use until the Palaiologan period. Used as a gunpowder magazine by the Ottomans, the building was destroyed in 1490 after being struck by lightning. In English usage, the church is usually referred to as “The Nea”.
1885 – Cree and Assiniboine warriors win the Battle of Cut Knife, their largest victory over Canadian forces during the North-West Rebellion.
The Battle of Cut Knife, fought on May 2, 1885, occurred when a flying column of mounted police, militia, and Canadian army regular army units attacked a Cree and Assiniboine teepee settlement near Battleford, Saskatchewan. First Nations fighters forced the Canadian forces to retreat, with losses on both sides.
Born On This Day
1751 – Judith Sargent Murray, American poet and playwright (d. 1820)
Judith Sargent Murray (May 1, 1751 – June 9, 1820) was an early American advocate for women’s rights, an essay writer, playwright, poet, and letter writer. She was one of the first American proponents of the idea of the equality of the sexes—that women, like men, had the capability of intellectual accomplishment and should be able to achieve economic independence. Among many other influential pieces, her landmark essay “On the Equality of the Sexes” paved the way for new thoughts and ideas proposed by other feminist writers of the century.
1843 – Elijah McCoy, Canadian-American engineer (d. 1929)
Elijah J. McCoy (May 2, 1844 [2] – October 10, 1929) was a Canadian-born African-American inventor and engineer who was notable for his 57 U.S. patents, most having to do with the lubrication of steam engines. Born free in Canada, he came to the United States as a young child when his family returned in 1847, becoming a U.S. resident and citizen.
Early life
Elijah J. McCoy was born free in 1844 in Colchester, Ontario, Canada to George and Mildred (Goins) McCoy. They were fugitive slaves who had escaped from Kentucky to Canada via helpers through the Underground Railroad. George and Mildred arrived in Colchester Township, Essex, Ontario Canada in 1837 via Detroit. Elijah McCoy had eleven siblings. Ten of the children were born in Canada from Alferd (1839) to William (1859). Based on 1860 Tax Assessment Rolls, land deeds of sale, and the 1870 USA Census it can be determined the George McCoy family moved to Ypsilanti, Washtenaw, Michigan in 1859-60.
Elijah McCoy was educated in black schools of Colchester Township due to the 1850 Common Schools act which segregated the Upper Canadian schools in 1850. At age 15, in 1859, Elijah McCoy was sent to Edinburgh, Scotland for an apprenticeship and study. After some years, he was certified in Scotland as a mechanical engineer. After his return, he rejoined his family. By this time, the George McCoy family had established themselves on the farm of John and Maryann Starkweather in Ypsilanti. George used his skills of a tobacconist to establish a tobacco and cigar business.
Career
When Elijah McCoy arrived in Michigan, he could find work only as a fireman and oiler at the Michigan Central Railroad. In a home-based machine shop in Ypsilanti, Michigan McCoy also did more highly skilled work, such as developing improvements and inventions. He invented an automatic lubricator for oiling the Steam engines of locomotives and ships, patenting it in 1872 as “Improvement in Lubricators for Steam-Engines” (U.S. Patent 129,843).
Similar automatic oilers had been patented previously; one is the displacement lubricator, which had already attained widespread use and whose technological descendants continued to be widely used into the 20th century. Lubricators were a boon for railroads, as they enabled trains to run faster and more profitably with less need to stop for lubrication and maintenance.[3]
McCoy continued to refine his devices and design new ones; 50 of his patents dealt with lubricating systems. After the turn of the century, he attracted notice among his black contemporaries. Booker T. Washington in Story of the Negro (1909) recognized him as having produced more patents than any other black inventor up to that time. This creativity gave McCoy an honored status in the black community that has persisted to this day. He continued to invent until late in life, obtaining as many as 57 patents. Most of these were related to lubrication, but others also included a folding ironing board and a lawn sprinkler. Lacking the capital with which to manufacture his lubricators in large numbers, he usually assigned his patent rights to his employers or sold them to investors. Lubricators with the McCoy name were not manufactured until 1920, near the end of his career. He formed the Elijah McCoy Manufacturing Company to produce his works.[3]
Historians have not agreed on the importance of McCoy’s contribution to the field of lubrication. He is credited in some biographical sketches with revolutionizing the railroad or machine industries with his devices. Early twentieth-century lubrication literature barely mentions him; for example, his name is absent from E. L. Ahrons’ Lubrication of Locomotives (1922), which does identify several other early pioneers and companies of the field.
Regarding the phrase “The real McCoy”
Main article: The real McCoy
This popular expression, typically meaning the real thing, has been associated with Elijah McCoy’s oil-drip cup invention. One theory is that railroad engineers looking to avoid inferior copies would request it by name,[4] and inquire if a locomotive was fitted with “the real McCoy system”.[5][6] This theory is mentioned in Elijah McCoy’s biography at the National Inventors Hall of Fame.[7] It can be traced to the December 1966 issue of Ebony in an advertisement for Old Taylor bourbon whiskey: “But the most famous legacy McCoy left his country was his name.”[8] A 1985 pamphlet printed by the Empak Publishing Company also notes the phrase’s origin but does not elaborate.[9] Other possibilities for its origin have been proposed[3] and while it has undoubtedly been applied as an epithet to many other McCoys, its association with Elijah has become iconic[10] and remains topical.[11][12]
The expression, “The real McCoy”, was first published in Canada in 1881, but the expression, “The Real McKay”, can be traced to Scottish advertising in 1856. In James S. Bond’s The Rise and Fall of the “Union Club”: or, Boy Life in Canada, a character says, “By jingo! yes; so it will be. It’s the ‘real McCoy,’ as Jim Hicks says. Nobody but a devil can find us there.”[13]
Marriage and family
McCoy married Ann Elizabeth Stewart in 1868; she died four years later.
He married for the second time in 1873 to Mary Eleanor Delaney. The couple moved to Detroit when McCoy found work there. Mary McCoy (b. – d. 1922) helped found the Phillis Wheatley Home for Aged Colored Men in 1898.[14]
Elijah McCoy died in the Eloise Infirmary in Nankin Township, now Westland, Michigan, on October 10, 1929, at the age of 85, after suffering injuries from a car accident seven years earlier in which his wife Mary died.
He is buried in Detroit Memorial Park East in Warren, Michigan.[15]
In popular culture
1966, an ad for Old Taylor bourbon cited Elijah McCoy with a photo and the expression “the real McCoy”, ending with the tag line, “But the most famous legacy McCoy left his country was his name.”[16]
2006, Canadian playwright Andrew Moodie’s The Real McCoy portrayed McCoy’s life, the challenges he faced as an African American, and the development of his inventions. It was first produced in Toronto[6] and has also been produced in the United States, for example in Saint Louis, Missouri, in 2011, where it was performed by the Black Rep Theatre.
In her novel Noughts and Crosses, Malorie Blackman describes a racial dystopia in which the roles of black and white people are reversed; Elijah McCoy is among the black scientists, inventors, and pioneers mentioned in a history class that Blackman “never learned about in school”.[17]
Legacy
1974, the state of Michigan put an historical marker (P25170) at the McCoys’ former home at 5720 Lincoln Avenue,[18] and at his gravesite.[19]
1975, Detroit celebrated Elijah McCoy Day by placing a historic marker at the site of his home. The city also named a nearby street for him.[20]
1994, Michigan installed a historical marker (S0642) at his first workshop in Ypsilanti, Michigan.[18]
2001, McCoy was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Alexandria, Virginia.[7]
2012, the Elijah J. McCoy Midwest Regional U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (the first USPTO satellite office) was opened in Detroit, Michigan.[21][22][23][A]
FYI
By Erienne Muldoon: World Press Freedom Day: Celebrating the Importance of Journalism
Affordability, reliability/durability and on and on… A Ford F450 starts at $90,000 and you get a wonderful 3 yr/36,000 mile warranty.
By Elizabeth Blackstock: Car Sales Just Keep Plummeting
Charlie Chesbrough, senior economist for Cox Automotive, told AutoNews that he has a working hypothesis. Mainly, it costs more to buy a car these days, and it’s tough to borrow the money to do it. It’s pretty tough to sell to a market that doesn’t have the means to buy.
Great comments!
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They willingly exchanged the painting in return for their lives. The German government later reimbursed them. Where is their case? Interesting that the Nazi’s were willing to accept the painting and let them go free…. I suspect there is more to this case.
By Paulina Dedaj: Spanish museum can keep Nazi-looted painting, Los Angeles judge rules
The painting, valued at more than $30 million, was completed in 1897 and purchased by Cassirer’s father-in-law directly from Pissarro’s art dealer. He left it to her and her husband when he died but Cassirer was forced to trade it to the Nazis in 1939 in exchange for exit visas for herself, her husband and her grandson.
The post-World War II German government, thinking the work was lost, paid her $13,000 in reparations in 1958.
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By Elizabeth Llorente | Fox News: Texas House passes bill allowing unlicensed handgun owners to carry in public during disaster
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By Janelle Griffith: Teacher caught on video kicking 5-year-old could face criminal charges “Had I not pushed to find information on my own, the safety of all those students could still be at risk,” the girl’s mother said.
By Amanda Kooser: Millipede trapped in amber for 99 million years gets its moment to shine Behold all of its tiny legs, gloriously preserved.
Spreadsheet Journalism: Philadelphia Police Complaints, Part 1: One Civilian’s Review
By Ben Kesslen: Family of slain UNC Charlotte student: We’re ‘beyond proud’ of his actions “We are just beyond proud of what he was able to do,” Riley Howell’s mother told “Today.” “While kids were running one way, our son turned and ran towards the shooter.”
By Laurel Wamsley: Florida Approves Bill Allowing Classroom Teachers To Be Armed
The Rural Blog: Alabama reporter up for an award for year-long investigation of corrupt rural law enforcement; Small daily newspaper tackles a tough topic, youth suicide, by first working with the community; How climate change is affecting 11 American crops and more ->
wikimedia
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for October 16 October 16, 2024Picture of the day Window in Arkadi Monastery (gr. Μονή Αρκαδίου) in Rethmyno Regional District, Crete, Greece
- Wikimedia Commons picture of the day for October 15 October 15, 2024Picture of the day Purple sea urchin (Sphaerechinus granularis), Garajau Marine Nature Reserve, Madeira, Portugal
Recipes
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