On this day in history: Vacuum cleaner patented, 1901

Hubert Cecil Booth began his engineering career as a draughtsman working in a team of engineers designing engines for new battleships for the Royal Navy. He then became the senior engineer for the design of three large Ferris wheels in Blackpool, Paris and Vienna. In 1901 he started his own business as a consulting engineer.

One of his first projects was inspired by an invention that blew dust out of railway carriage seats. Booth started work on a machine that would use a vacuum to suck the dust out of carpets. On 30th September 1901 Booth received the patent for the worlds first powered vacuum cleaner and he set up his British Vacuum Cleaner Company to produce the machines.

His first models were large oil powered devices that were drawn by horses to the building to be cleaned. Booth continued to refine his design, switching to electric motors and scaling them down for domestic use. His machines were used to clean Westminster Abbey before the coronation of Edward VII, and so impressed was the new king that he asked Booth to demonstrate his vacuum cleaners at Buckingham Palace following which they were installed there and at Windsor Castle.

After successfully defending his rights to the product following a legal challenge that went to the High Court, Booth focused on large-scale machines for the industrial market rather than making smaller machines for people's homes. He continued as chairman of his company until he retired at the age of eighty-one. He died a few years later, but his company lives on as a division of the pneumatic tube transport system producers Quirepace.

On this day in history: Blackpool tramway opens, 1885

From the early nineteenth century, various towns and cities around the world introduced trams (streetcars) as a means of public transport. First horses and then steam engines provided the power for the trams until Werner von Siemens demonstrated his electric motor at the 1881 International Exposition of Electricity in Paris. A British engineer called Miochael Holroyd Smith became aware of electric traction and began experimenting with narrow-gauge electric tramways in 1883.

Spurred on by the success of these experiments, Smith demonstrated standard-gauge versions of his invention in Manchester and then in the seaside town of Blackpool. This latter demonstration led to the formation of the Blackpool Electric Tramway Company in 1885, which commissioned Smith to construct a two-mile long tramway along the Promenade from Claremont Park to South Shore. Most of the directors of the company hailed from Smith's hometown of Halifax, as were the engineers that built the track.

The grand opening of the world's first effective electric tramway took place on 29th September 1885 presided over by Smith and the Mayor of Manchester, Alderman Harwood. The company operated the trams until 1892 when the Blackpool Corporation took them over and extended the network and installed overhead cables to supply the power rather than use a conduit in the track. The trams continue to operate to this day, managing to avoid the replacement of tramways in other cities by becoming a tourist attraction.

On this day in history: First flight around the world, 1924

In 1923 the United States' Army Air Service decided to join the race to be the first to fly an aircraft around the world. Finding that none of their existing fleet were suitable for the task, the group of officers charged with organising the attempt received instructions from the War Office to evaluate the Fokker F-5 and the Davis-Douglas Cloudster. Rather than send details about the Cloudster, Donald Douglas chose to submit information about a modified version of the DT-2 torpedo bomber, called the Douglas World Cruiser, which the Air Service selected.

Douglas delivered a modified a World Cruiser with over five and a half times the original fuel capacity to the Air Service for testing. The aircraft met all the requirements and Douglas received an order for four more planes, the last of which arrived with the Air Service in March 1924. Douglas also delivered spare parts that were transported to various points along the proposed route for the flight.

On 6th April 1924, four World Cruisers — called the Boston, the Chicago, and the New Orleans — took to the air from Seattle, Washington for Alaska on the first leg of the attempt. A fourth plane — ironically called the Seattle — needed repairs and later set off to try to catch up with the other aircraft; however, it crashed into an Alaskan mountainside due to dense fog. Fortunately, the crew survived.

The remaining three planes continued on their journey, avoiding Russian air space because the Soviets had not given them permission to fly over their country. After flying across East Asia and the Middle East, the aircraft arrived in Paris on Bastille day (14th July). They then set off across the Atlantic via London and the north of England; however, on 3rd August the Boston had to land on the water (the planes were fitted with floats for the legs that crossed over large bodies of water) but it capsized while being towed by the ship that rescued the crew.

The Chicago and the New Orleans continued across the Atlantic landing at Iceland and Greenland. When they arrived in Canada they were joined by the test plane for the remaining legs that took them to Washington D.C. and Santa Monica, California, before returning to Seattle on 27th September 1924. The two crews — pilot Lt. Lowell Smith and 1st Lt. Leslie Arnold of the Chicago, and pilot Lt. Erik Nelson and Lt. Jack Harding of the New Orleans — had travelled over 25,000 miles in 175 days.

To learn more see C.V. Glines' article 'Around the World' on the Air Force Magazine Online site.