History
If you think modern dating is hard, you might want to consider how things used to be. During the Regency Era, with its strict, high-pressure style of courtship, finding a match in early 19th-century Britain wasn’t just about liking someone…it was a tightly orchestrated affair with a list of rules to follow. There were eight common rules that the couple had to follow, and they might surprise you!!
Strangely, in those years, at least for Britain’s elite, dating, or courting as it was called, was seasonal. So imagine that you couldn’t date unless Parliament was in session. In some places that was the case. Others used the time when the elite returned to their country estates. Other than that, courting was out of the question, or at least the beginning of courting was. It was during these times that parties, balls, and other gatherings were held, and people could be introduced. Young people had to know that they were courting the “right” kind of person. Families couldn’t be “embarrassed” by a child dating the wrong kind of person. It was paramount.
In those days, marriage often involved the transfer of property or family wealth, so men and women from the elite class typically had to get the approval of family members and friends before courting a potential partner. Imagine asking your siblings, or even cousins and friends if it was ok to go out with someone. Not only that, if someone found reasons not to approve or even to disapprove later, you were out of luck, whether they liked each other or not.
In those days, courting couples were not allowed to be alone together. In order to go on a date, a female chaperone, usually a friend or relative had to go along on the dates. And the outings were always in public. I don’t suppose a dark movie theater would qualify. Dates usually meant strolling through town or a garden, walking to and from church, or visiting a mutual acquaintance’s home for tea. The only real exception was 
sharing a meal at the woman’s family home, after which they might walk in the garden or stay up late talking, hoping for a stolen kiss. For those with less wealth, rules were looser, but the main concern either way was the risk of pregnancy.
In public, elite couples began by addressing each other with formal titles like Miss, Mr, Lord, or Lady. Using a first name was considered intimate, signaling a closer bond. In letters, couples often requested to move to more personal forms of address, progressing from “Miss X” to her given name and eventually to affectionate terms like “my dearest love.” Since in-person meetings weren’t always possible, many relied on letters. It was typically the man’s role to start a romantic correspondence, helping them learn more about one another and decide if they were suited for marriage. Letters were designed to exchange likes and dislikes, core values, and visions for a successful union. Letter-writing, however, was largely a privilege of the elite, as it was too costly for most ordinary people.
Engagement brought relaxed rules…a little. Once engaged, couples could exchange gifts to strengthen their bond. The gifts…romantic tokens…played a key role in deepening intimacy and moving the relationship toward marriage. Early in courtship, a man might give a woman sweet treats before progressing to more symbolic items like gloves, garters, or a ring. Some gifts, such as books with underlined passages, helped them learn about each other, while others…like flowers, snuffboxes, fine furs, or jeweled pieces…were more overtly romantic. If hoping for an invitation to dine at her family’s home, a man might send duck or pork. Women also gave tokens of affection, including handmade purses or waistcoats to show domestic skill, flowers like pressed violets symbolizing modesty and faithful love, or even locks of hair. Courtships usually lasted one to four years, with marriage following about a year after engagement. Strangely, they couples weren’t always exclusive, as both men and women might entertain multiple suitors. Length of the courtship mattered…too long and feelings might fade; too short and a couple risked being stuck for life with someone they couldn’t stand.
While storybooks make it seem so, not every courtship led to marriage. A match could fall apart due to differences in age, class, or religion, or simply because someone changed their mind or found a better prospect. Family pressures from either side could also bring things to an end. While men usually initiated the courtship, either person could call it off. If the courtship was broken off, it was expected that any letters or romantic gifts be returned, or at the very least, be tossed into the fire…to mark the official end of the relationship. While dating in any era is hard, some of the rules of the past were much more stringent than they are today.
As unusual holidays go, I would say that “Cow Milked While Flying in an Airplane Day” is the most unusual I have ever heard of. Nevertheless, “Cow Milked While Flying in an Airplane Day” is a real thin. Observed on February 18th each year, this lighthearted holiday commemorates a unique moment in aviation and agricultural history when a cow named Elm Farm Ollie took to the skies. The event happened on February 18, 1930, when the Guernsey cow became the first of her kind to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft. During the 72-mile trip from Bismarck to Saint Louis, Missouri, she was also milked mid-flight, marking a second historical first for both animals and aviation. Why, you might ask, was this important. Well, it really wasn’t, except to show that it could be done.
As part of the International Air Exposition in Saint Louis, organizers chose Elm Farm Ollie, also known as Nellie Jay, for her calm nature and impressive milk production. She was loaded onto a Ford Trimotor, a sturdy aircraft nicknamed the “Tin Goose,” piloted by Claude Sterling. The flight aimed to promote the air show and showcase the stability and potential of modern planes for transporting livestock. I would hate to have been the poor maintenance guy who was given the unpleasant task of cleaning up after this crazy event.
Although the mission was largely a publicity stunt, it also had a quirky scientific angle. Researchers were 
curious about how high altitudes and the vibrations of flight might impact a cow’s behavior and milk production. During the trip, Wisconsin dairyman Elsworth W Bunce did the milking, and Ollie yielded 24 quarts of milk. The milk was sealed in paper cartons, tied to tiny parachutes, and dropped from the plane to the crowd waiting below at the exposition. Of course, these days, such an event would be very unlikely, because the milk couldn’t be pasteurized or homogenized.
Nevertheless, this day celebrates the creativity and quirkiness that marked the early days of flight. In the 1930s, aviation was still new, and daring stunts like Ollie’s flight showed people that airplanes could be more than just risky machines…they could be reliable, adaptable tools. If a 1,000-pound cow could fly safely and calmly at high altitudes, then air travel was clearly dependable for almost any cargo or passenger. That success played a role in making air logistics a normal part of life.
The holiday is also a nod to the dairy industry and the resilience of farm animals. Elm Farm Ollie shot to national fame after her flight, earning the nickname “Sky Queen.” Thanks to the dedication of Wisconsin dairy fans, her story lives on, turning the anniversary into a day of celebration and historical appreciation. It’s a reminder that progress can stem from the most unusual experiments and that even the quirkiest ideas can change how people see the world. Elm Farm Ollie was a Guernsey cow known for producing rich, high-fat milk.
Famed aviator Charles Lindbergh was said to be among those who tasted the “air milk.” The Ford Trimotor used for the flight was considered one of the most dependable planes of its day. Ollie the cow lived another eight years on her farm after her brief brush with fame. To celebrate “Cow Milked While Flying in an Airplane Day,” one might enjoy a tall glass of milk or a milkshake in honor of the “Sky Queen.” Those near a dairy farm or aviation museum can take a more hands-on approach to the holiday, and some fans even throw small parties to share the tale of Ollie and her 24 quarts of milk dropped by parachute. For those who enjoy the creative side of the holiday, writing a poem or sketching a flying cow is a fun tradition. It’s a day for sharing laughs over one of history’s quirkiest milestones.
Ahhh!! The aroma of freshly baked bread. It’s enough to make your mouth water. At least these days. Not so much in ancient Greece. Personally, I can’t imagine not enjoying the smell of baking bread, but in ancient Greece, I don’t suppose anyone took real notice of it. That’s because in those days, in Greece, bread slices were used only as napkins!! It seems incredulous, but due to the communal nature of their meals, where hands were used to eat that was exactly what bread was used for. The practice, called apomagdalia, involved tearing off small pieces of dough, rolling and kneading them at the table to clean fingers after a meal. Far from being wasteful, these used dough bits were often fed to dogs or tossed to the poor, who I’m sure were thankful, but…gross!! Nevertheless, the practice minimized waste and, it did feed the poor, so there is that. Eventually, someone decided to give the bread a try, I guess, because it later graduated to being eaten by the diners themselves, with added a sustainable layer to the dining ritual.
These days, we would think it rude to eat most foods with our hands, but back then it was uncommon to eat with utensils, and in fact there weren’t any utensils. Eating with your hand when it’s a hamburger or chicken wings seems normal to us, but to eat something like spaghetti or beef stew with your hands would be really messy. Nevertheless, if they wanted to eat, they made do. Later when the bread became a part of the meal, it was used to slop up any gravy or juice to clean up the plate. That practice has been seen in many a Western movie. I guess that as napkins go, bread was the tastiest, provided the cook knew how to make good bread.
Later, the Romans introduced cloth napkins, which eventually evolved into the modern version we use today. For a time, even before the napkin, the tablecloth was used as a communal napkin. That almost seems even 
stranger to me. I love my tablecloths, and to think of people wiping their messy hands on them makes me cringe. Maybe I wasn’t alone in that thought. After all, the Romans decided on actual napkins and moved away from the tablecloth. In my opinion the best napkins are made of paper, then they don’t even require washing. And to bring the world bad to sanity, the bread is no longer used as a napkin, but rather as a food. Imagine getting up in the morning to bake bread, only to have people wipe their hands with it. That is a crazy idea.
War is a terrible thing, but there are moments throughout history that show a side of war mixed with a bit of humanity…even when things are looking bleak. This happened with the Liechtenstein army. Liechtenstein is the fourth smallest country in Europe, and it is the sixth smallest country in the world. While the country would seem vulnerable, Liechtenstein has managed to stay neutral during many wars, even the two world wars. Interestingly, they didn’t even have an army when they banned the Nazi party from their country, having disbanded their army in 1868. It made sense, since their last deployment was in 1866. That task was to guard the Brenner Pass between Austria and Italy. That deployment was remarkable for many reasons, as they never lost a battle or suffered any casualties. While that was remarkable, even more remarkable was the fact that they left with a force of 80 men and returned with 81, having made a new friend while defending the pass. While it’s unclear who this person was, some say an Austrian liaison officer joined the group on the way back, while others claim it was an Italian farmer. It remains one of the most amusing historical tidbits ever.
The German Confederation dissolved in 1866, and due to its unpopularity and the rising costs of upkeep, Liechtenstein disbanded its 80-man army on February 12, 1868, declaring permanent neutrality. In 1893, former soldiers formed a veterans’ association, which had 141 members by 1896. The last surviving member, Andreas Kieber, passed away in 1939 at the age of 94.
Liechtenstein’s military history goes back to its earlier days as the County of Vaduz and the Lordship of Schellenberg. Once the country got rid of its army, it has never had one again. Still, the constitution requires citizens to defend the nation if there’s an external threat, and the army can be brought back if needed. What amazes me the most about this country without an army is that they stood up to the Nazis with no army. Far bigger nations fell to the Nazis, and they had an army too, but it didn’t matter. I suppose Hitler might have 
decided that the tiny nation of Lichtenstein wasn’t worth conquering, but then again, it should have been easy to just incorporate it into his masterplan. Nevertheless, when the nation banned the Nazis, they left and that was the end of it. I don’t think it is often advisable for a nation to disband its army, but in this case, it has worked out fine.
In this modern era, we take hospitals for granted, expecting to see at least one in every town of sustainable size. The first hospital in not only the Colonies, but in the Americas, is Pennsylvania Hospital, founded in 1751 by Dr Thomas Bond and Benjamin Franklin. Pennsylvania Hospital was founded to care for the sick, poor, and mentally ill who roamed the streets of Philadelphia. As the city grew rapidly, the need for organized medical care became urgent. Inspired by his time in European hospitals, Dr Thomas Bond imagined a place where anyone could receive medical help, no matter their financial means. In full agreement with Dr Bond, Benjamin Franklin, a well-known civic leader, played a key role in raising the funds to build the hospital.
The founding of Pennsylvania Hospital was a major milestone in the history of healthcare in the Americas. As the first institution devoted to caring for those in need, it set the stage for future medical facilities across the continent. Quickly becoming a beacon of hope, it offered everything from surgeries to mental health care and played a key role in shaping how healthcare was delivered in the United States. On May 11, 1751, the Pennsylvania legislature granted a charter to establish a hospital “to care for the sick, poor, and insane who wandered the streets of Philadelphia,” according to the history of Pennsylvania Hospital. Founded by Benjamin Franklin and Dr Thomas Bond, Pennsylvania Hospital has been the backdrop for many of the nation’s “firsts,” along with numerous other significant medical, historical, and cultural achievements. Chosen by Franklin and Bond, as the official seal was the story of the Good Samaritan. The seal reading, “Take Care of Him and I will repay Thee” ushers in a new attitude of social responsibility. In 1752, a temporary hospital is opened in a house on High (Market) Street and Elizabeth Gardner. A Quaker widow was appointed matron.
In 1755, Franklin wrote the inscription for the cornerstone of the East Wing, laid at the hospital’s current site at 8th and Pine on land the hospital purchased. Patients began being admitted the following year, in 1756. Over 
the years, Pennsylvania Hospital has grown and adapted, staying true to its mission of offering accessible and fair healthcare. Its original values of compassion and innovation still shape the medical field today, highlighting the importance of caring for everyone in need. The Pennsylvania Hospital, founded in 1751, is known as the first hospital in the Americas, and it also set the stage for modern healthcare practices and institutions in the area.
Imagine living in a place where owning or even borrowing a book could get you—and anyone who gave you one—killed. During the Holocaust, Jews and other nationalities or religious groups who didn’t fit the Nazi ideal of the Aryan race were considered “non-people” and therefore expendable. They weren’t allowed to live like others, and their lives were deemed unworthy of care. Friends and neighbors were often expected to turn them in to be deported to ghettos or even killed. They were frequently powerless to help themselves, yet many never lost hope. When the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939, persecution of Jews began almost immediately. Life was hard for everyone, but children were often in greater danger than anyone else. Many were too young to work, making them even less “important” in the eyes of the Nazis. To make it worse, they were often separated from their parents, losing everything familiar to them.
In 1942, 13-year-old Dita Polachova and her parents were deported to the Theresienstadt Ghetto, where life became even harsher. Later, they were sent to Auschwitz, where Dita’s father died. She and her mother were forced into labor in Germany and eventually sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where her mother also died. Despite enduring immense loss, Dita never gave up. She risked her life to protect eight books smuggled in by Auschwitz prisoners, hiding them in her smock and circulating them among the children in Block 31. Books were forbidden in the camps, as the Nazis sought to deny prisoners any knowledge of the outside world or access to educational materials. Believing the prisoners would not survive, the Nazis saw no need for them to have anything but work and death.
The prisoners had their own ideas. Inside the walls was a family camp called BIIb, where children could play and sing, though schooling was forbidden. Still, the Nazis couldn’t completely impose their will. Defying orders, Fredy Hirsch set up a small but impactful school to care for the children while their parents labored in the camp. The biggest challenge was finding materials—books had to be hidden from Nazi guards at all costs. In January 1944, Hirsch chose Dita, a courageous and independent young woman from Prague, to become the new Librarian of Auschwitz, a role she embraced with great dedication.
While her parents struggled to survive in Auschwitz, Dita fought her own battle to protect the books that brought joy to the camp’s children. These books offered a brief escape from the grim reality surrounding them. As the war went on, Dita continued to serve the teachers and children of Block 31 with dedication. Her situation worsened when her father died of pneumonia in the camp, leaving her alone with her aging, weakening mother. Realizing the camp was merely a front for Nazi propaganda, Dita battled despair and questioned the value of 
her life. By March 1944, hopelessness deepened when the Nazis announced that inmates from the previous September would be transferred—code for execution. The BIIb camp continued until news broke of its liquidation, with the healthy separated from the rest. Liesl, Dita’s frail mother, narrowly managed to sneak into the group deemed fit to work alongside her daughter, and they were sent to Bergen-Belsen. Just as Dita felt the end was near, Allied forces liberated the camp, but it was too late for her mother, who died shortly after the English arrived. Though free at last, Dita paid a heavy price—one most can hardly imagine. She later married author Otto Kraus, and together they settled in Israel as teachers.
As the British found out, it’s never a good idea to antagonize the people of the United States of America…and while it’s a bad idea to antagonize us, it’s an even worse idea to underestimate us. On February 7, 1775, in London, Benjamin Franklin published “An Imaginary Speech” defending American courage. His piece aimed to respond to an unnamed officer’s remarks to Parliament, claiming the British had nothing to fear from the colonial rebels because “Americans are inferior to the people of this country [Britain] in devotion to women, in courage, and worst of all, they are religious.” Apparently, according to that officer, being religious was a “sign of weakness.” It was a statement he would come to regret. Benjamin Franklin was a Pennsylvania scientist and diplomat who went on to sign both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
In anger, Franklin met the three-pronged critique with his trademark wit and sharp insight. Observing that the colonial population had grown while the British population had shrunk, he quipped that American men must be more “effectually devoted to the fair sex” than their counterparts across the Atlantic. When it came to American courage, Franklin told a story from the Seven Years’ War in which colonial militias heroically saved blundering British regulars from strategic mistakes and cowardice. With poetic flair, Franklin proclaimed, “Indiscriminate Accusations against the Absent are cowardly Calumnies.” In reality, these militias were often undisciplined and ineffective early in the war. New Englanders, unused to taking orders and unfamiliar with the basics of military life, made themselves sick by refusing to build latrines, falling ill from their own waste. During the American Revolution, Washington echoed many of the same frustrations voiced by British officers as he tried to shape American farmers into an effective fighting force.
Benjamin Franklin was not a religious man, but he set aside his own dislike for the devout things and reminded his readers that it was the “zealous Puritans who had rid Britain of the despised King Charles I.” He figured his 
critic was a Stuart sympathizer…meaning Catholic…and therefore not particularly fond of American Protestants, “who inherit from those ancestors not only the same religion, but also the same love of liberty and spirit.” While Franklin didn’t always agree with the American Protestants, he knew well the value of the American spirit that would never allow the British to continue to run roughshod over the colonies. The American people were done with Britain, and the Revolutionary War would prove that fact conclusively.
Stacey Daniels met her first husband, Michael Wallace in 1985, when she was 17 years old. The couple married and had their first daughter, Ashley, in 1988. A second daughter, Bree, was born in 1991. Daniels was born in Clay, New York, on July 24, 1967. Her parents were Jerry Daniels and Judie Eaton. Daniels worked for an ambulance dispatch company, while Wallace spent his nights as a mechanic, yet the family still struggled financially. Daniels said Wallace was especially close to Bree, showing a favoritism she balanced out by becoming “best friends” with their older daughter Ashley. Despite their bonds with the kids, the couple drifted apart, and rumors swirled that both were involved in extramarital affairs.
In late 1999, Wallace started feeling sick off and on. His family remembers him seeming unsteady, coughing, and looking swollen. As his strange illness dragged on through the holidays, they urged him to see a doctor, but he passed away in early 2000 before he got the chance. Doctors told Castor her husband had died of a heart attack. Although Wallace’s sister didn’t believe that and wanted an autopsy. Daniels declined, saying she trusted the doctors’ conclusion.
In 2003, Stacey married David Castor and took his last name…the name she would carry for the rest of her life. David owned an air conditioning installation and repair business, where Stacey worked as his office manager. One afternoon in August 2005, Stacey called the Onondaga County sheriff’s office, saying David had locked himself in their bedroom after an argument and hadn’t been seen or heard from in a day. She added that he had been depressed lately. When Sergeant Robert Willoughby arrived for a wellness check, he kicked in the bedroom door and found David dead. Near his body were a container of antifreeze and a half-full glass of bright green liquid. Willoughby recalled Stacey screaming, “He’s not dead, he’s not dead.”
The coroner ruled David’s death a suicide from a self-administered lethal dose of antifreeze, but suspicion arose when police found Stacey’s fingerprints on the glass and discovered a turkey baster with David’s DNA on its tip. Investigators suspected she had used it to force-feed him once he was too weak to resist. With this new lead, they obtained permission to place audio and visual surveillance at the Castor home and the gravesites of Stacey’s husbands, buried side by side at her request. Detectives figured that if she truly loved her late husbands, she would visit their graves, but she never did. Eventually, they decided the only way to prove she was behind both deaths was to exhume Wallace’s body. A toxicology report confirmed that Wallace had also died from antifreeze poisoning.
In September 2007, after her first husband’s body had been exhumed, Castor decided to kill her daughter and “best friend” Ashley for the murders to save her own skin. This was her “best friend” and yet, she felt no 
remorse. A suicide note seemed her best option, so she typed it up and presented it as Ashley’s. Castor invited Ashley to the family home in Liverpool for a drink. Ashley agreed, as Castor was not just her mother but also her “best friend.” The next day, Castor invited Ashley over for drinks at home again, offering her a “nasty-tasting” beverage that she initially turned down. Seventeen hours later, Ashley was found unconscious in bed by her younger sister, Bree. Thankfully, Bree insisted they get help, prompting Castor to call 911. When Bree briefly stepped away and returned, she discovered a suicide note beside Ashley, allegedly confessing to the murders of her father and stepfather. Castor swiftly took the note and later handed it to paramedics. Tests showed that Ashley had potentially deadly painkillers in her system and would likely have died if she’d arrived at the hospital just minutes later. When she woke up, police asked her about the murders and the suicide note. She said the last thing she remembered was her mother making her an alcoholic drink, which had never happened before. She told them she hadn’t written the note and was baffled by their questions.
The DA even pointed out that Castor may have even murdered her own father, Jerry Daniels, who died February 22, 2002, shortly after his daughter visited him in the hospital where he had a minor lung complaint. Castor’s first husband’s family also believes Castor may have killed her father by bringing in an open can of soda for her father to drink. She was the executor of his estate. On February 5, 2009, Castor was convicted of second-degree murder for poisoning David and of attempted second-degree murder for overdosing Ashley. She kept her eyes closed as the verdicts were read. Keller stated she would appeal the decision, planning to challenge the use of evidence related to Wallace’s death, for which Castor had not been charged.
On March 5, 2009, during Castor’s sentencing, Garvey urged Judge Fahey to hand down the maximum consecutive sentences, citing the brutality of David’s death. She condemned Castor for “partying in her backyard with friends like nothing was happening” while Ashley lay comatose in her room. Calling her cold, calculating, and devoid of emotion, Garvey said, “Human life is sacred. Stacey Castor places no value on it, not even her own flesh and blood. To her, people are disposable.” David’s son, cheated out of his inheritance, also pleaded for severe punishment, calling Castor “a monster and a threat to society” who had caused immense pain and loss, multiplying the suffering among the families she hurt.
Judge Fahey told Castor he had never seen a parent try to kill their own child just to frame them for a crime they committed. He told her she was “in a class all by herself.” The judge then gave her the maximum sentence of twenty-five years to life for David’s murder, plus another twenty-five years for attempting to kill Ashley. For forging David’s will, he added an extra 1 1/3 to 4 years in prison. The trial had lasted for four weeks. An emotional Ashley told the judge she hated her mother “for ruining so many people’s lives” but still loved her for the bond she had originally had with her. She said, “I never knew what hate was until now. Even though I do hate her, I still love her at the same time. That bothers me, it is so confusing. How can you hate someone and love them at the same time? I just wish that she would say sorry for everything she did, including all the lies. As horrible as it makes me feel, this is goodbye mom. As hard as you tried, I survived and I will survive because now I’m surrounded by people that love me. I’m going to do good things in this world despite making me in every sense of the word an orphan.”
Castor became New York Department of Corrections inmate number 09G0209 and was placed in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women in Bedford Hills, New York. Even with credit for time served, her earliest possible release date was June 15, 2055…slightly over a month shy of her 88th birthday. Castor had been dubbed “The Black Widow” by media outlets. Her prison term would be long, but she wouldn’t live to see much of it. Castor was found dead in her cell on the morning of June 11, 2016. It was not immediately apparent how she died and the manner of her death was listed as undetermined; it was later determined by the DA’s office that she died of a heart attack, with no evidence of suicide or foul play.
Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was a French civil engineer. He was born in France’s Côte-d’Or, the first child of Catherine-Mélanie (née Moneuse) and Alexandre Bonickhausen dit Eiffel. He descended from Jean-René Bönickhausen, who had left the German town of Marmagen and settled in Paris in the early 18th century. The family adopted the name Eiffel as a nod to the Eifel mountains in their native region. Although they always went by Eiffel, Gustave’s birth was registered as Bonickhausen dit Eiffel, and it wasn’t officially changed to Eiffel until 1880. It’s always sad, in my estimation, when last names are changed for any other reason but marriage. So often the line of ancestors can also be lost in that change.
When Alexandre, who always went by Gustave finished his public schooling, he went on to graduate from École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures. After graduation, he began to make a name for himself with various bridges for the French railway network, most famously the Garabit Viaduct. Gustav had planned to work in his uncle’s workshop in Dijon after graduating, but a family dispute put an end to that idea. After spending a few months 
as an unpaid assistant to his brother-in-law, who ran a foundry, Gustav reached out to railway engineer Charles Nepveu, who offered him his first paid role as a private secretary. Soon after, Nepveu’s company went bankrupt, but he helped Gustav land a job designing a 72-foot sheet iron bridge for the Saint Germaine railway. When some of Nepveu’s businesses were taken over by the Compagnie Belge de Matériels de Chemin de Fer, Nepveu became managing director of two factories in Paris and brought Gustav on as head of the research department.
In 1857, Nepveu secured a contract to build a railway bridge over the Garonne River in Bordeaux, linking the Paris-Bordeaux line with routes to Sète and Bayonne. The project involved constructing a 1,600-foot iron girder bridge supported by six pairs of masonry piers on the riverbed, built using compressed air caissons and hydraulic rams…cutting-edge methods at the time. Gustav first oversaw the assembly of the metalwork but later took charge of the entire project after Nepveu resigned in March 1860.
While Gustav Eiffel built a number of bridges in his lifetime, he is most famous for the Eiffel Tower, created by his company for the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris, and for helping build the Statue of Liberty in New York. However, a little-known fact is that Paris was not the location Gustav initially had in mind when he designed the 
tower. Originally, he presented the design to city officials in Barcelona, Spain. The officials who saw the design deemed it too ugly for their city. So, Gustav switched gears and had his tower constructed in Paris as a temporary showpiece for the 1889 International Exposition…and it’s been drawing visitors to the City of Light ever since. I wonder what the officials in Barcelona thought of their comments after the Eiffel Tower became such a showpiece in Paris. After retiring from engineering, Gustav turned his attention to meteorology and aerodynamics, where he also made notable contributions. Gustav Eiffel died peacefully on December 27, 1923, supposedly while listening to Beethoven’s 5th symphony andante, in his mansion on Rue Rabelais in Paris. He was 91. He was buried in the family tomb in Levallois-Perret Cemetery.
When you think about the years of the Earth, and all that has happened over all that time, much of it during a time when recorded history was next to impossible, it has been estimated that as much as 97% of the world’s history has been lost to time. Of course, we have the Bible, so the Earth’s beginnings have been recorded and much of that time period, but even during that time there were limited historical records. The history of the average, everyday person was not recorded. Then when we consider the various languages and the lack of the ability to communicate, and we can see how so many of history’s events could be lost.
We’re not just talking about human history here. I don’t know and no one else does either, exactly how many years the Earth has been in existence…nor will we likely ever know. I for one will never debate the truth of the Bible, so my story will be written from that aspect. The records of early life recorded in the Bible are true. However, not every person who lived at that time was necessarily recorded in the Bible. That would 
have been an impossible task, so the history of those other people would not have been recorded, nor would their accomplishments, even if they were remarkable. They were simply not a part of the Bibles purpose.
So, the history of many people from that time was an untold story. Carry that fact forward of the passage of time, and the fact that many people even today don’t record or have a record of their own history. Over time, many people have been lost to their family, and the family timelines have been severed. Things like family name changes, sealed adoptions, abductions, and other types of disappearances, have destroyed the timelines. And that is just the human descendant line.
Then, there is the history of discoveries, some of which we know, and others that we either took for granted or 
simply knew nothing about. The failures of inventions would have simply been thrown in the trash, often with nothing learned from the attempt. While we may thing that the only inventions were in modern times, there were many inventions that happened in very early times…we just think of them as something that had been there for many years. Sometimes, we knew that something was an invention, but the history of the invention was lost or unrecorded. Then there are the records lost to fire, flood, or other natural disasters. Unless someone who was there at the time, knew the facts, they are lost. It is a sad reality. When you think about all these factors, you can see how as much as 97% of history could be lost.
