AUTOMATIC LIGHT

Let me fire that up that for you. Come here often? Can I buy you a lubrica— I mean, can I buy you a drink?

Above is a fun photo of General Electric’s Mechanical Hands, which were on display at the 1948 Golden Jubilee Exposition at Grand Central Palace in New York City. A press release describes how a technician used the hands to successfully light a model’s cigarette. To make the hands appear to be completely automated, the techie was sitting behind a wall watching what he was doing in a mirror. The mirror wasn’t visible to onlookers, so the spectacle must have drawn quite a few oohs and aahs. Nothing in the press release about how many earlier models were fishhooked before the techie got his shit together.

GE’s hands were actually designed to help scientists handle radioactive materials, not impress random observers, but the Golden Jubilee Exposition was all about showing off the wonders of modernization. For example an AAP news item claims that, to welcome the first night’s visitors, the doors to Grand Central Palace were opened by an “atomic ray.” Another item describes the same moment, telling readers a miniature “atomic pile” was set off using the light of the star Alioth. The details:

The light was picked up simultaneously by telescopes on top of the Empire State Building and in a plane flying at 20,000 feet 180 miles east of New York. In turn, the light energy was transmitted by radio and telegraph to the atomic pile. The energy from the resulting chain reaction in the pile was sent to a piece of magnesium on a ribbon in front of the doors of the exhibition. The ribbon split as the magnesium ignited and the Jubilee was opened.

Do we believe this is what actually happened? After all, the mechanical hands were operated by a hidden technician, so why not have the atomic pile secretly lit by a janitor with a Zippo? For that matter why not have the GE techie do it? After all the models he scarred he was probably eager to prove himself. But we weren’t there, so we’ll give Jubilee organizers the benefit of the doubt. Whatever their methods, it sounds like it was a damn good show. If anyone wants to weigh in on the actual science of this focused starlight thing feel free. You know how to reach us.

New York City, Empire State Building, Grand Central Palace, Golden Jubilee Exhibition, General Electric

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

April 30

1927—First Prints Are Left at Grauman's

Hollywood power couple Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, who co-founded the movie studio United Artists with Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith, become the first celebrities to leave their impressions in concrete at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, located along the stretch where the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame would later be established.

April 29

1945—Hitler Marries Braun

During the last days of the Third Reich, as Russia’s Red Army closes in from the east, Adolf Hitler marries his long-time partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker during a brief civil ceremony witnessed by Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann. Both Hitler and Braun commit suicide the next day, and their corpses are burned in the Reich Chancellery garden.

April 29

1967—Ali Is Stripped of His Title

After refusing induction into the United States Army the day before due to religious reasons, Muhammad Ali is stripped of his heavyweight boxing title. He is found guilty of a felony in refusing to be drafted for service in Vietnam, but he does not serve prison time, and on June 28, 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court reverses his conviction. His stand against the war had made him a hated figure in mainstream America, but in the black community and the rest of the world he had become an icon.

April 28

1947—Heyerdahl Embarks on Kon-Tiki

Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl and his five man crew set out from Peru on a giant balsa wood raft called the Kon-Tiki in order to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia. After a 101 day, 4,300 mile (8,000 km) journey, Kon-Tiki smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947, thus demonstrating that it is possible for a primitive craft to survive a Pacific crossing.

April 28

1989—Soviets Acknowledge Chernobyl Accident

After two days of rumors and denials the Soviet Union admits there was an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Reactor number four had suffered a meltdown, sending a plume of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area. Today the abandoned radioactive area surrounding Chernobyl is rife with local wildlife and has been converted into a wildlife sanctuary, one of the largest in Europe.

April 27

1945—Mussolini Is Arrested

Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, his mistress Clara Petacci, and fifteen supporters are arrested by Italian partisans in Dongo, Italy while attempting to escape the region in the wake of the collapse of Mussolini’s fascist government. The next day, Mussolini and his mistress are both executed, along with most of the members of their group. Their bodies are then trucked to Milan where they are hung upside down on meathooks from the roof of a gas station, then spat upon and stoned until they are unrecognizable.