Thomas Blanchard (inventor)
Thomas Blanchard (June 24, 1788 – April 16, 1864) was an American inventor who lived much of his life in Springfield, Massachusetts, where in 1819, he pioneered the assembly line style of mass production in America, and also invented the first machining lathe for interchangeable parts. Blanchard worked, for much of his career, with the Springfield Armory. In 1825, Blanchard also invented America's first car, which he called a "horseless carriage," powered by steam. During Blanchard's lifetime, he was awarded over twenty-five patents for his creations.. Biography Tacks He was born in Sutton, Massachusetts. He had a fondness for mechanical employment, and was associated with his brother in the manufacture of tacks by hand. This process was exceedingly slow and tedious,. and his first machine, made and patented in 1806, was a mechanical tack-maker, which could fabricate five hundred tacks per minute, each much better than tacks made by hand. He sold the rights to his machine for $ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sutton, Massachusetts
Sutton, officially the Town of Sutton, is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 9,357 in the 2020 United States census. Located in the Blackstone Valley, the town was designated as a Preserve America community in 2004. History A Nipmuc, John Wampas, visited England in 1627 and deeded land in the Sutton area to Edward Pratt, who later sold interests to others. Competing claims involving the Nipmucs led to a Massachusetts General Court case in 1704, which granted Pratt and fellow proprietors an eight-mile-square section of land, which is now Sutton. Three families were the first to settle in Sutton, namely those of Elisha Johnson, Nathaniel Johnson, and Benjamin Marsh, who is credited as a founder of the town and the First Baptist Church of Sutton. In 1717, The Great Snow of 1717, The Great Snow completely buried structures their home cabins. According to accounts, a local Indigenous peoples of the Americas In ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Octagon
In geometry, an octagon () is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, which alternates two types of edges. A truncated octagon, t is a hexadecagon, . A 3D analog of the octagon can be the rhombicuboctahedron with the triangular faces on it like the replaced edges, if one considers the octagon to be a truncated square. Properties The sum of all the internal angles of any octagon is 1080°. As with all polygons, the external angles total 360°. If squares are constructed all internally or all externally on the sides of an octagon, then the midpoints of the segments connecting the centers of opposite squares form a quadrilateral that is both equidiagonal and orthodiagonal (that is, whose diagonals are equal in length and at right angles to each other).Dao Thanh Oai (2015), "Equilateral triangles and Kiepert perspectors in complex numbers", ''Forum Geometricorum'' 15, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Machine Tool Builders
A machine is a physical system that uses power to apply forces and control movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to natural biological macromolecules, such as molecular machines. Machines can be driven by animals and people, by natural forces such as wind and water, and by chemical, thermal, or electrical power, and include a system of mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of output forces and movement. They can also include computers and sensors that monitor performance and plan movement, often called mechanical systems. Renaissance natural philosophers identified six simple machines which were the elementary devices that put a load into motion, and calculated the ratio of output force to input force, known today as mechanical advantage. Modern machines are complex systems that consist of structural elements, mechanisms and control compone ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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19th-century American Inventors
The 19th century began on 1 January 1801 (represented by the Roman numerals MDCCCI), and ended on 31 December 1900 (MCM). It was the 9th century of the 2nd millennium. It was characterized by vast social upheaval. Slavery was abolished in much of Europe and the Americas. The First Industrial Revolution, though it began in the late 18th century, expanded beyond its British homeland for the first time during the 19th century, particularly remaking the economies and societies of the Low Countries, France, the Rhineland, Northern Italy, and the Northeastern United States. A few decades later, the Second Industrial Revolution led to ever more massive urbanization and much higher levels of productivity, profit, and prosperity, a pattern that continued into the 20th century. The Catholic Church, in response to the growing influence and power of modernism, secularism and materialism, formed the First Vatican Council in the late 19th century to deal with such problems and confirm ce ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1864 Deaths
Events January * January 13 – American songwriter Stephen Foster (" Oh! Susanna", " Old Folks at Home") dies aged 37 in New York City, leaving a scrap of paper reading "Dear friends and gentle hearts". His parlor song " Beautiful Dreamer" is published in March. * January 16 – Denmark rejects an Austrian-Prussian ultimatum to repeal the Danish Constitution, which says that Schleswig-Holstein is part of Denmark. * January 21 – New Zealand Wars: The Tauranga campaign begins. February * February – John Wisden publishes '' The Cricketer's Almanack for the year 1864'' in England; it will go on to become the major annual cricket reference publication. * February 1 – Danish-Prussian War ( Second Schleswig War): 57,000 Austrian and Prussian troops cross the Eider River into Denmark. * February 15 – Heineken Brewery is founded in the Netherlands. *American Civil War: ** February 17 – The tiny Confederate hand-propelled subma ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1788 Births
Events January–March * January 1 – The first edition of ''The Times'', previously ''The Daily Universal Register'', is published in London. * January 2 – Georgia ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the fourth U.S. state under the new government. * January 9 – Connecticut ratifies the United States Constitution, and becomes the fifth U.S. state. * January 18 – The leading ship (armed tender HMS ''Supply'') in Captain Arthur Phillip's First Fleet arrives at Botany Bay, to colonise Australia. * January 22 – The Congress of the Confederation, effectively a caretaker government until the United States Constitution can be ratified by at least nine of the 13 states, elects Cyrus Griffin as its last president.''Harper's Encyclopaedia of United States History from 458 A. D. to 1909'', ed. by Benson John Lossing and, Woodrow Wilson (Harper & Brothers, 1910) p167 * January 24 – The La Perouse expedition in the ''Astrolabe'' and '' Boussole'' arrives ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of the longest-running newspapers in the United States, the ''Times'' serves as one of the country's Newspaper of record, newspapers of record. , ''The New York Times'' had 9.13 million total and 8.83 million online subscribers, both by significant margins the List of newspapers in the United States, highest numbers for any newspaper in the United States; the total also included 296,330 print subscribers, making the ''Times'' the second-largest newspaper by print circulation in the United States, following ''The Wall Street Journal'', also based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' is published by the New York Times Company; since 1896, the company has been chaired by the Ochs-Sulzberger family, whose current chairman and the paper's publ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mortising
A mortiser or morticer is a specialized woodworking machine used to cut square or rectangular holes in a piece of lumber (timber), such as a mortise in a mortise and tenon joint. Square chisel mortiser The square chisel mortiser (also called ''hollow chisel mortiser''), similar to a drill press in many respects, combines the cutting of a four-sided chisel with the action of a drill bit in the center. The bit clears out most of the material to be removed, and the chisel ensures the edges are straight and clean. This device was invented in 1874 by Robert and Ralph Greenlee (founders of the Greenlee Company). The first square chisel lever mortisers were purely manual and relied on the operator pulling down on a large lever to push the chisel through the timber. An improvement was to place a rotating cylindrical auger inside a hollow chisel. This helps to clear chips up the centre of the chisel. As electric power became easily available, the auger developed as a drill bit and beca ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Envelope
An envelope is a common packaging item, usually made of thin, flat material. It is designed to contain a flat object, such as a letter (message), letter or Greeting card, card. Traditional envelopes are made from sheets of paper cut to one of three shapes: a rhombus, a short-arm cross or a Kite (geometry), kite. These shapes allow the envelope structure to be made by folding the sheet sides around a central rectangular area. In this manner, a rectangle-faced enclosure is formed with an arrangement of four flaps on the reverse side. Overview A folding sequence such that the last flap closed is on a short side is referred to in commercial envelope #Manufacture, manufacture as a pocket – a format frequently employed in the packaging of small quantities of seeds. Although in principle the flaps can be held in place by securing the topmost flap at a single point (for example with a wax seal), generally they are pasted or gummed together at the overlaps. They are most commonly u ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Connecticut River
The Connecticut River is the longest river in the New England region of the United States, flowing roughly southward for through four states. It rises 300 yards (270 m) south of the U.S. border with Quebec, Canada, and discharges into Long Island Sound between Old Saybrook, Connecticut, Old Saybrook and Old Lyme, Connecticut. Its watershed encompasses , covering parts of five U.S. states and one Canadian province, via 148 tributaries, 38 of which are major rivers. It produces 70% of Long Island Sound's fresh water, discharging at per second. The Connecticut River Valley is home to some of the northeastern United States' most productive farmland, as well as the Hartford–Springfield, Hartford–Springfield Knowledge Corridor, a metropolitan region of approximately two million people surrounding Springfield, Massachusetts, and Hartford, Connecticut. History The word "Connecticut" is a Corruption (linguistics), corruption of the Mohegan word ''quinetucket'' and Nipmuc word ''kw ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Copying Lathe
The copying lathe or duplicating lathe is a lathe that creates shapes identical to the specified pattern. Early inventions Nartov's lathe In early 1700s Russian engineer Andrey Nartov invented a copying lathe for the purpose of ornamental turning, which allowed the operator to make ornaments with the same precision as that of handicraft work of that time.''Nartov and his Theatrum Machinarium'' (translated in 1966 from Russian original Виктор Данилевский (), ''Нартов и Ясное зрелище машин'', 1958); book review: , * It includes Nartovs's biography, his inventions, and illustrations and extended excerpts from Nartov's unpublished manuscript describing various machinery, stored in State Public Library in St.Petersburg, Russia. Nartov's manuscript was extensively annotated by editor A.S.Britkin. The Hermitage Museum, Russia, displays the Nartov's copying lathe used for ornamental turning: making medals and guilloche patterns designed by Nar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Turning
Turning is a machining process in which a cutting tool, typically a non-rotary tool bit, describes a helix toolpath by moving more or less linearly while the workpiece rotates. Usually the term "turning" is reserved for the generation of ''external'' surfaces by this cutting action, whereas this same essential cutting action when applied to ''internal'' surfaces (holes, of one kind or another) is called " boring". Thus the phrase "turning and boring" categorizes the larger family of processes known as lathing. The cutting of faces on the workpiece, whether with a turning or boring tool, is called "facing", and may be lumped into either category as a subset. Turning can be done manually, in a traditional form of lathe, which frequently requires continuous supervision by the operator, or by using an automated lathe which does not. Today the most common type of such automation is computer numerical control, better known as CNC. (CNC is also commonly used with many other type ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |