Our history is a cause of celebration and reflection. It is a source of inspiration. There have been uncountable inventions, innovations, treaties, and other significant events in the past and all of them have something to teach us, to inspire us to keep going and not to stop even if we fail. Start your day with a positive thought. Do something great day and we might publish it in our Daily Column in the years to come. Let us read the historical milestones of July 8:
1497: Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama departs on his first voyage, becoming the 1st European to reach India by sea
Born in 1460, the Portuguese navigator Vasco Da Gama sailed from Lisbon on a new mission to reach India and open a sea route from Europe to the East. His expedition made numerous stops in Africa before reaching the trading post of Calicut, India.
1777: Independent Vermont introduces a new constitution, prohibiting slavery
Vermont became the first colony to ban slavery in response to abolitionists’ calls across the colonies to end slavery. The new constitution provided voting rights for African-American males. Vermont’s legislature agreed to abolish slavery entirely.
Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse
1800: Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse gives 1st cowpox vaccination in the US to his son to prevent smallpox
Born in 1754, Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse was a Harvard professor of medicine. He performed the U.S. vaccinations on his children. He wrote about his successful experiment to the then Vice President, Thomas Jefferson, titled as ‘A prospect of exterminating the smallpox.’
1879: The first ship to use electric lights departs from San Francisco, California
This ship was named as Columbia. It was the first ship to carry a dynamo powering electric lights, instead of the earlier-used oil lamps. This was the first commercial use of electric light bulbs outside of Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park, New Jersey laboratory.
Alfred Gilbert
1913: Alfred Gilbert’s patent for the Erector Set is issued; it becomes one of the most popular toys of all time
Alfred Carlton Gilbert was an American athlete, inventor, magician, toy-maker, and a businessman as well. He is best known as the inventor of the Erector Set and manufacturing of American Flyer Trains. As an athlete, he received a gold medal in the 1908 Summer Olympics for Pole Vault.
1918: Ernest Hemingway is wounded in Italy while working as an ambulance driver for the American Red Cross
On July 8, 1918, Ernest Hemingway, an 18-year-old rescue vehicle driver for the American Red Cross, was struck by a mortar shell while serving on the Italian front, along the Piave delta, in World War I This also showed his overwhelming persona, just as his one of his best-cherished books, A Farewell to Arms, which narrates the adoration for a youthful American rescue vehicle driver for a wonderful English medical attendant on the Italian front during the Great War.
1948: 500th anniversary of the Russian Orthodox Church celebrated in Moscow
The celebrations had begun on July 8 in Moscow in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the autocephaly of the Russian Orthodox Church. The celebrations denoting the 500th anniversary since St. Adage the Greek of Vatopedi Monastery showed up in Russia occurred on Holy Mount Athos. On that day, Patriarch Aleksei addressed the gathered patriarchs, striking the subject of Russia’s triumph over bogus remote strength.
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