For over 100 years, Electric Boat has been the primary producer of submarines for the United States and allied countries around the world. From its headquarters and shipyard in Groton, Connecticut, and auxiliary shipyards located in Quonset, RI and Newport News, VA, the company has designed and built dozens of technologically-advanced undersea vessels, beginning…
Tag: invention and technology
February 2: A Never-Done-Before Building Shaped Like a Boat
Today in 1961, the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company unveiled plans for a new corporate headquarters building in downtown Hartford, featuring a bold and revolutionary elliptical design unlike anything the city — or the world, for that matter — had seen before. Designed by the famous modernist architect Max Abramovitz, the new Phoenix Mutual…
January 29: The Clock Stops for Seth Thomas
While Connecticut has been home to many of the greatest names in American clock manufacturing, few have achieved more household recognition than Seth Thomas, whose name is emblazoned on countless clock faces throughout the world. Born in Wolcott, Connecticut in 1785, young Seth received little formal education, instead gaining hands-on experience, as a teenage…
January 28: The Man Who Connected People to the Telephone
In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a U.S. Patent for the first practical telephone design, ushering in one of the most revolutionary devices of the late 19th century. The earliest telephones, however, were extremely limited: they allowed for communication between two receivers, but only if they were directly connected by a single wire. It…
January 21: Launching the World’s First Nuclear Submarine
On January 21, 1954, hundreds of spectators, including General Dynamics employees, military brass, First Lady Mamie Eisenhower, and scores of reporters gathered along the banks of the ThamesRiver to witness a momentous occasion. At 10:57a.m., the USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear submarine, slid off a dry dock at General Dynamics in Groton, Connecticut,…
January 17: Hartford Takes an Electrifying Gamble on a Generator Named “Mary Ann”
On January 17, 1901, the Hartford Electric Light Company (HELCO) took a major — and somewhat risky — step into the steam-powered future with the delivery of a huge, innovative, first-of-its-kind steam-turbine-powered generator. The massive 90,000-pound machine arrived on a custom-designed railroad car following a long journey from the Westinghouse Machine Company of Pittsburgh,…
January 10: A Shocked City Mourns the Death of Samuel Colt at 47
Today in 1862, gunmaker Samuel Colt died in Hartford. Though he was only 47 years old, Colt died one of the richest men in the United States and left a legacy of manufacturing and innovation that changed the face of Hartford, Connecticut to the Western American frontier and beyond. Internationally recognized for his formative…
January 5: A Can-Do Connectican Invents the Can Opener
CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO HEAR AN AI WRITTEN AND AI NARRATED VERSION OF TODAY’S STORY. Comments invited to walt@uconn.edu, and thanks for listening. In the early 1800s, responding to Napoleon’s request to find a more efficient way to feed his armies in the field, French inventor Nicholas Appert discovered that heating…
December 19: A Stitch in Time Pays Off
While the Industrial Revolution forever changed the way Americans manufactured, bought, and sold everyday goods, fewer inventions had a larger impact on home life for American families than the sewing machine. While there had been several experimental and industrial models of sewing machines in existence since the earliest years of the 19th century, smaller…
December 11: The World’s First Jet-Powered Helicopter Flies Over Bloomfield
Today in 1951, aerospace engineer Charles H. Kaman’s modified K-225 helicopter took its first test flight in Bloomfield, Connecticut, changing the future of helicopter aviation forever. As the first helicopter to use a jet engine to power its drive shaft, the K-225 demonstrated a way to make helicopters fly faster and higher, with less…
December 2: The First Successful Permanent Artificial Heart
Born in 1946, renowned medical scientist Robert Jarvik grew up in Stamford, Connecticut. He. developed an affinity for the medical field at an early age, having frequently accompanied his father, an accomplished physician, to work. As a young man, he became fascinated with the intricate tools his father used during surgeries, and invented a…
December 1: PEZ Candy Opens Wide in Orange
Today, PEZ candy conjures up images of whimsical plastic dispensers full of small, brick-shaped little candies. First invented in Austria in the early 20th century, PEZ candy has quite a storied history — one that visitors can learn for themselves with a visit to the PEZ Visitors Center in Orange, Connecticut, which first opened…