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Manned Kite
A man-lifting kite is a kite designed to lift a person from the ground. Historically, man-lifting kites have been used chiefly for reconnaissance. Interest in their development declined with the advent of powered flight at the beginning of the 20th century. Recreational man-lifting kites gradually gained popularity through the latter half of the 20th century, branching into multiple sports. In the 21st century man-lifting kites are often used in kitesurfing, where brief launches can be followed by safe water landings and parasailing, where kites are towed behind a vehicle. Early history Man-carrying kites were used in ancient China, for both civil and military purposes and sometimes enforced as a punishment. The ''Book of Sui'', dating from 636 CE, records that the tyrant Gao Yang, Emperor Wenxuan of Northern Qi (r. 550-559), executed prisoners by ordering them to 'fly' using bamboo mats. The (1044) ''Zizhi Tongjian'' records that in 559, all the condemned kite airmen died except ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amundsen Kite
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (, ; ; 16 July 1872 – ) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He was a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Born in Borge, Østfold, Norway, Amundsen began his career as a polar explorer as first mate on Adrien de Gerlache's Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897–1899. From 1903 to 1906, he led the first expedition to successfully traverse the Northwest Passage on the sloop ''Gjøa''. In 1909, Amundsen began planning for a South Pole expedition. He left Norway in June 1910 on the ship ''Fram'' and reached Antarctica in January 1911. His party established a camp at the Bay of Whales and a series of supply depots on the Barrier (now known as the Ross Ice Shelf) before setting out for the pole in October. The party of five, led by Amundsen, became the first to successfully reach the South Pole on 14 December 1911. Following a failed attempt in 1918 to reach the North Pole by traversing the Nor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell
Lieutenant-general (United Kingdom), Lieutenant-General Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, ( ; (Commonly pronounced by others as ) 22 February 1857 – 8 January 1941) was a British Army officer, writer, founder and first Chief Scout (The Scout Association), Chief Scout of the world-wide Scouting, Scout Movement, and founder, with his sister Agnes Baden-Powell, Agnes, of the world-wide Girlguiding, Girl Guide / Girl Scout Movement. Baden-Powell authored the first editions of the seminal work ''Scouting for Boys'', which was an inspiration for the Scout Movement. Educated at Charterhouse School, Baden-Powell served in the British Army from 1876 until 1910 in India and Africa. In 1899, during the Second Boer War in South Africa, Baden-Powell successfully defended the town in the Siege of Mafeking. Several of his books, written for military reconnaissance and scout training in his African years, were also read by boys. In August 1907, he held a d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Franklin Cody
Samuel Franklin Cowdery (later known as Samuel Franklin Cody; 6 March 1867 – 7 August 1913, born Davenport, Iowa, USA)) was a Wild West showman and early pioneer of manned flight. He is most famous for his work on the large kites known as ''Cody War-Kites'', that were used by the British before World War I as a smaller alternative to balloons for artillery spotting. He was also the first man to fly an aeroplane built in Britain, on 16 October 1908. A flamboyant showman, he was often confused with Buffalo Bill Cody, whose surname he took when young. Early life Cody's early life is difficult to separate from his own stories told later in life, but he was born Samuel Franklin Cowdery in 1867, in Davenport, Iowa, where he attended school until the age of 12. Not much is known about his life at this time, although he claimed that during his youth he had lived the typical life of a cowboy. He learned how to ride and train horses, shoot and use a lasso. He later claimed to have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native English-speakers, and the province's population is 969,383 according to the 2021 Census. It is the most populous of Canada's Atlantic provinces. It is the country's second-most densely populated province and second-smallest province by area, both after Prince Edward Island. Its area of includes Cape Breton Island and 3,800 other coastal islands. The Nova Scotia peninsula is connected to the rest of North America by the Isthmus of Chignecto, on which the province's land border with New Brunswick is located. The province borders the Bay of Fundy and Gulf of Maine to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the south and east, and is separated from Prince Edward Island and the island of Newfoundland by the Northumberland and Cabot straits, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baddeck Bay
Baddeck () is a village in northeastern Nova Scotia, Canada. It is situated in the centre of Cape Breton, approximately 6 km east of where the Baddeck River empties into Bras d'Or Lake. Local governance is provided by the rural municipality of Victoria County, with an elected village council having limited authority. The population was 826 in the 2016 Canadian census. It was first settled by United Empire Loyalists in the late 18th century, and prospered in the 19th century with mining, milling, and shipbuilding. Today the economy depends on services, cultural activities, and tourism. Toponymy Baddeck is one of the few Nova Scotian Mi'kmaq language place names that was not replaced by colonial settlers. The French called it La Bedeque, while Canadian Gaelic speakers called it Badaig. Its original meaning has been variously reported as "reversing flow", "place with island near" (a likely reference to Kidston Island), "a portion of food set aside for someone", or "a sultry pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aerial Experiment Association
The Aerial Experiment Association (AEA) was a Canadian-American aeronautical research group formed on 30 September 1907, under the leadership of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell. The AEA produced several different aircraft in quick succession, with each member acting as principal designer for at least one. The group introduced key technical innovations, notably wingtip ailerons and the tricycle landing gear. According to Bell, the AEA was a "co-operative scientific association, not for gain but for the love of the art and doing what we can to help one another."Milberry 1979, p. 13. Although the association had no significant commercial impact, one of its members, Glenn Curtiss, later established a commercial venture that would ultimately become the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company. The AEA was disbanded on 31 March 1909. Origins The AEA came into being when John Alexander Douglas McCurdy and his friend Frederick W. "Casey" Baldwin, two recent engineering graduates of the Universi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tetrahedral Kite
A tetrahedral kite is a multicelled rigid box kite composed of tetrahedrally shaped cells to create a kind of tetrahedral truss. The cells are usually arranged in such a way that the entire kite is also a regular tetrahedron. The kite can be described as a compound dihedral kite as well. This kite was invented by Alexander Graham Bell. It came about from his experiments with Hargrave's box kites and his attempts to build a kite that was scalable and big enough to carry both a man and a motor. As such, it was an early experiment on the road to manned flight. He worked on the kites between 1895 and 1910. Bell wrote about his discovery of this concept in the June 1903 issue of ''National Geographic'' magazine; the article was titled "Tetrahedral Principle in Kite Structure". From an initial one-cell model, Bell advanced to a 3,393-cell " Cygnet" model in 1907. This 40-foot-long (12.2 m), 200-pound (91 kilogram) kite was towed by a steamer offshore near Baddeck, Nova Scotia, on Dec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell (, born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885. Bell's father, grandfather, and brother had all been associated with work on elocution and speech, and both his mother and wife were deaf; profoundly influencing Bell's life's work. His research on hearing and speech further led him to experiment with hearing devices which eventually culminated in Bell being awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone, on March 7, 1876. Bell considered his invention an intrusion on his real work as a scientist and refused to have a telephone in his study. Many other inventions marked Bell's later life, including groundbreaking work in optical telecommunications, hydrofoils, and aeronautics. Bell also had a strong influence on the National Geographic Society and its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stanwell Park, New South Wales
Stanwell Park is a coastal village and northern suburb of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. It is the northernmost point of the Illawarra coastal strip and lies south of Sydney's Royal National Park. It is situated in a small valley between Bald Hill to the north, Stanwell Tops to the west and Mount Mitchell to the south. It has two lagoons from the village's two creeks, Stanwell and Hargrave Creeks and a beach running between headlands. Stanwell Park and the surrounding suburbs are colloquially referred to by its postcode 2508. History Stanwell Park was the name given to the farm established on the grant given to Matthew John Gibbons in 1824. He was given most of the area called ''Little Bulli'' which included present-day Stanwell Park and Coalcliff. The whole of Northern Illawarra went under the Aboriginal name Bulli. Bulli remains the name of an Illawarra suburb further south of Stanwell Park. The area was originally inhabited by the Wodiwodi Aboriginal clan o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Box Kite
A box kite is a high performance kite, noted for developing relatively high lift; it is a type within the family of cellular kites. The typical design has four parallel struts. The box is made rigid with diagonal crossed struts. There are two sails, or ''ribbons'', whose width is about a quarter of the length of the box. The ribbons wrap around the ends of the box, leaving the ends and middle of the kite open. In flight, one strut is the bottom, and the bridle is tied between the top and bottom of this strut. The dihedrals of the sails help stability. The box kite was invented in 1893 by Lawrence Hargrave, an English-born Australian, as part of his attempt to develop a manned flying machine. Hargrave linked several of his box kites (Hargrave cells) together, creating sufficient lift for him to fly some 16 ft (4.9 m) off the ground. A winged development of this kite is known as the Cody kite following its development by Samuel Franklin Cody. Military uses also involved a kite/radi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lawrence Hargrave
Lawrence Hargrave, MRAeS, (29 January 18506 July 1915) was a British-born Australian engineer, explorer, astronomer, inventor and aeronautical pioneer. Biography Lawrence Hargrave was born in Greenwich, England, the second son of John Fletcher Hargrave (later Attorney-General of NSW), and was educated at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Kirkby Lonsdale, Westmorland, where there is now a building named in his honour. He immigrated to Australia at fifteen years of age with his family, arriving in Sydney on 5 November 1865 on the ''La Hogue''. He accepted a place on the ''Ellesmere'' and circumnavigated Australia. Although he had shown ability in mathematics at his English school he failed the matriculation examination and in 1867 took an engineering apprenticeship with the Australasian Steam Navigation Company in Sydney. He later found the experience of great use in constructing his models and his theories. In 1872, as an engineer, he sailed on the ''Maria'' on a voyage to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the South African Republic and the Orange Free State) over the Empire's influence in Southern Africa from 1899 to 1902. Following the discovery of gold deposits in the Boer republics, there was a large influx of "foreigners", mostly British from the Cape Colony. They were not permitted to have a vote, and were regarded as "unwelcome visitors", invaders, and they protested to the British authorities in the Cape. Negotiations failed and, in the opening stages of the war, the Boers launched successful attacks against British outposts before being pushed back by imperial reinforcements. Though the British swiftly occupied the Boer republics, numerous Boers refused to accept defeat and engaged in guerrilla warfare. Eventually, British scorched eart ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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