GOING FOR A SPIN

So do you hang around here often?

This image, which we’ve seen around online a bit lately, shows a group enjoying a spin on an amusement park attraction often referred to as a centrifugal ride (in Newtonian mechanics centrifugal force is fictitious, for those who want to dig deeper). We’ve also heard these machines referred to as rotors, and some people call them gravitrons, but those are actually slightly different rides that weren’t invented until the 1980s. The rotor was created by German engineer Ernst Hoffmeister in 1948, and first unveiled during Oktoberfest a year later

If you’ve never seen a rotor and don’t know how they operate, basically it’s a spinning drum that accelerates until its riders are stuck to the wall, then the floor drops. The contraptions typically accelerated to about thirty-three rpms, creating an outward force of close to three times that of gravity. You notice below a couple of the more advanced riders managed to turn themselves upside down, which is pretty slick. These are interesting shots of good clean fun, made at a place called Luna Park, in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, circa mid-1950s.

Australia, Germany, Melbourne, Ernst Hoffmeister

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

February 17

1933—Blaine Act Passes

The Blaine Act, a congressional bill sponsored by Wisconsin senator John J. Blaine, is passed by the U.S. Senate and officially repeals the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, aka the Volstead Act, aka Prohibition. The repeal is formally adopted as the 21st Amendment to the Constitution on December 5, 1933.

February 17

1947—Voice of America Begins Broadcasting into U.S.S.R.

The state radio channel known as Voice of America and controlled by the U.S. State Department, begins broadcasting into the Soviet Union in Russian with the intent of countering Soviet radio programming directed against American leaders and policies. The Soviet Union responds by initiating electronic jamming of VOA broadcasts.

February 16

1937—Carothers Patents Nylon

Wallace H. Carothers, an American chemist, inventor and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont Corporation, receives a patent for a silk substitute fabric called nylon. Carothers was a depressive who for years carried a cyanide capsule on a watch chain in case he wanted to commit suicide, but his genius helped produce other polymers such as neoprene and polyester. He eventually did take cyanideâ€”not in pill form, but dissolved in lemon juiceâ€”resulting in his death in late 1937.

February 15

1933—Franklin Roosevelt Survives Assassination Attempt

In Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to shoot President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but is restrained by a crowd and, in the course of firing five wild shots, hits five people, including Chicago, Illinois Mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds three weeks later. Zangara is quickly tried and sentenced to eighty years in jail for attempted murder, but is later convicted of murder when Cermak dies. Zangara is sentenced to death and executed in Florida’s electric chair.

February 14

1929—Seven Men Shot Dead in Chicago

Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone’s South Side gang, are machine gunned to death in Chicago, Illinois, in an event that would become known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Because two of the shooters were dressed as police officers, it was initially thought that police might have been responsible, but an investigation soon proved the killings were gang related. The slaughter exceeded anything yet seen in the United States at that time.