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Medina
From its founding by Connecticut Yankees to its label as Home Town USA, this is the history of a picturesque community with a long and storied history. In 1945, Pathfinder magazine selected the village of Medina as a "shining example of small town living" and, with the film company RKO Pathe, produced a 15-minute movie about Medina called Home Town USA. The film focused on the Victorian square and on the nearby tree-shaded streets lined with century homes. But the film did not tell the dramatic story behind the picturesque facade. Medina was hewn out of the Ohio wilderness by Connecticut Yankees, many of them Revolutionary War veterans who brought with them a tradition of democracy and strong community spirit. In 1848, a fire devastated the public square. The citizens rallied, and it was quickly rebuilt. In 1870, another fire wiped out most of the business district. Over the next decade, the square once again rose from the ashes, and the result was a village center filled with handsome Eastlake Victorian-style buildings. That public square sits at the heart of the community whose history this book puts on display.
To Conquer the Air
James Tobin, award-winning author of Ernie Pyle's War and The Man He Became, has penned the definitive account of the inspiring and impassioned race between the Wright brothers and their primary rival Samuel Langley across ten years and two continents to conquer the air. For years, Wilbur Wright and his younger brother, Orville, experimented in obscurity, supported only by their exceptional family. Meanwhile, the world watched as Samuel Langley, armed with a contract from the US War Department and all the resources of the Smithsonian Institution, sought to create the first manned flying machine. But while Langley saw flight as a problem of power, the Wrights saw a problem of balance. Thus their machines took two very different paths—Langley’s toward oblivion, the Wrights’ toward the heavens—though not before facing countless other obstacles. With a historian’s accuracy and a novelist’s eye, Tobin has captured an extraordinary moment in history. To Conquer the Air is itself a heroic achievement.
Eureka
Tracing the long pre-history of five twentieth-century inventions which have transformed our lives, Gavin Weightman reveals a fantastic cast of scientists and inspired amateurs whose ingenuity has given us the airplane, television, bar code, personal computer, and mobile phone. Not one of these inventions can be attributed to a lone genius who experiences a moment of inspiration. Nearly all innovations exist in the imagination before they are finally made to work by the hard graft of inventors who draw on the discoveries of others. While the discoveries of scientists have provided vital knowledge which has made innovation possible, it is a revelation of Weightman’s study that it is more often than not the amateur who enjoys the “eureka moment” when an invention works for the first time. Filled with fascinating stories of struggle, rivalry, and the ingenuity of both famous inventors and hundreds of forgotten people, Weightman’s captivating work is a triumph of storytelling that offers a fresh take on the making of our modern world.
Bulletin
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