If you happen to be in Downey, California, you can take a step back into fast food history.. This city boasts the oldest McDonald’s restaurant in existence.
The restaurant opened in 1953 and though it has been renovated, the franchise carefully retained it in its original condition. Its iconic red and white striped exterior remains, along with a 60-foot tall neon sign featuring "Speedee the Chef." It still has walk-up windows and outdoor seating.
Employees at this restaurant proudly wear the same uniforms they would have worn in the 1950s. These include white shirts and bolo ties, and paper hats. The store retained the original menu featuring hamburgers, cheeseburgers and fries. You can even order an old-fashioned milkshake. They also decided to update their menu with Big Macs, Happy Meals, and other more modern items.
The old building also boasts an addition housing a museum and gift shop, which were added during its restoration.
The Speedee McDonald’s is eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, which would ensure its survival.
If you would like to stop by this piece of history, Spedee McDonald’s is located on Lakewood Avenue at the intersection with Florence Avenue. You can also visit its website here
Friday, February 22, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
The World’s Oldest Working Computer
It may be old and slow, but it has been brought back to life, and that’s no small accomplishment. The world’s oldest working computer is 64 years old. And it has reclaimed its place in the Guinness Book of World Records. Its first entry as the world’s oldest working computer in the Guinness Book of World Records ended in 1973 when it was decommissioned.
The computer is Britain’s Harwell Dekatron, also known as the WITCH computer. The 2.5-ton monster was built in 1951 at Britain’s Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell, Oxfordshire. It was built to be reliable rather than fast, and it certainly lived up to expectations over its long life. It needs 10 seconds to divide a number, for example.
Volunteers spent three years restoring the giant machine and it was rebooted in 2012. The monster stands 6-1/2 feet (2 m) tall, nearly 20 feet (6 m) wide, and 39 inches deep. It contained 828 vacuum tubes with 480 relays and 7073 relay switches. One hundred ninety-nine lamps are used to interact with the machine.
The WITCH computer is now on display at the National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park, where it serves as a teaching tool.
If nothing else, the Harwell Dekatron computer shows us how far technology has come in a few short years. You can find more information about this venerable giant here
The computer is Britain’s Harwell Dekatron, also known as the WITCH computer. The 2.5-ton monster was built in 1951 at Britain’s Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Harwell, Oxfordshire. It was built to be reliable rather than fast, and it certainly lived up to expectations over its long life. It needs 10 seconds to divide a number, for example.
Volunteers spent three years restoring the giant machine and it was rebooted in 2012. The monster stands 6-1/2 feet (2 m) tall, nearly 20 feet (6 m) wide, and 39 inches deep. It contained 828 vacuum tubes with 480 relays and 7073 relay switches. One hundred ninety-nine lamps are used to interact with the machine.
The WITCH computer is now on display at the National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park, where it serves as a teaching tool.
If nothing else, the Harwell Dekatron computer shows us how far technology has come in a few short years. You can find more information about this venerable giant here
Friday, February 8, 2013
The World’s Oldest Running Car
A steam-powered car built in France is the oldest running car in the world at the age of 128 years. Though it is one of six of its kind still in existence of the twenty that were built, it is the only one that still runs.
The car, a De Dion-Bouton et Trepardoux, was originally built in 1884 especially for French Count De Dion, one of the three founders of the company that built it. It reportedly remained in one family for 81 years before being sold.
The design features three wheels, two in front and one in the rear. It is powered by coal, wood and paper, and takes about half an hour to build up enough steam to move. When it does, though, it can achieve a top speed of about 38 miles an hour, which was remarkable in its day. It can go about 20 miles on a tankful of water.
"Le Marquise," as it was nicknamed, is said to have been the only car to show up for the world’s first automobile race in 1887, averaging 16 miles per hour over the 20-mile long course.
The car was sold to an unidentified buyer for $4.6 million at an auction held in Hershey, Pennsylvania in October 2011. It literally came onto the stage under its own steam, to the delight of the audience.
If you are interested in seeing pictures of this remarkable old vehicle, go here
The car, a De Dion-Bouton et Trepardoux, was originally built in 1884 especially for French Count De Dion, one of the three founders of the company that built it. It reportedly remained in one family for 81 years before being sold.
The design features three wheels, two in front and one in the rear. It is powered by coal, wood and paper, and takes about half an hour to build up enough steam to move. When it does, though, it can achieve a top speed of about 38 miles an hour, which was remarkable in its day. It can go about 20 miles on a tankful of water.
"Le Marquise," as it was nicknamed, is said to have been the only car to show up for the world’s first automobile race in 1887, averaging 16 miles per hour over the 20-mile long course.
The car was sold to an unidentified buyer for $4.6 million at an auction held in Hershey, Pennsylvania in October 2011. It literally came onto the stage under its own steam, to the delight of the audience.
If you are interested in seeing pictures of this remarkable old vehicle, go here
Friday, February 1, 2013
The World’s Oldest Known Flag
This record is going to prove to be hard to beat. The metal flag, known as the Shahdad Flag, is about 5,000 years old. It was found in 1971 by a team of archaeologists working at Dasht-e Lut in the Khabis region of eastern Iran.
Mounted on a 1.09 meter (40 inches) long metal pole, the flag itself measures approximately 22 centimeters by 24 centimeters (about 9" x 9"). A perching eagle adorns one end of the pole.
The engraving on the flag feature a woman standing behind sitting goddess. Other figures include three women, two lions with a long-horned cow standing between them. There is a garden featuring two palm trees, and another palm tree was placed beneath the feet of the three women. A flower-shaped motif located between the goddess and the three women is believed to represent the sun while twisted patterns have been interpreted as flowing water. Taken all together, the designs carved into the flag seem to represent an idyllic landscape
.
The flag is surrounded by a thick metal frame with two moving metal hooks.
The flag is currently thought to be under repair. It is reported that once it is restored it will be placed on display, although there is currently no information on when or where it will be housed.
Two other brass plates were also found at the site. These plates were decorated with depictions of fish and deer. Experts point out that the techniques used in creating the flag and the brass plates were highly advanced and are fine examples of the metalwork produced in the Khabis region.
Mounted on a 1.09 meter (40 inches) long metal pole, the flag itself measures approximately 22 centimeters by 24 centimeters (about 9" x 9"). A perching eagle adorns one end of the pole.
The engraving on the flag feature a woman standing behind sitting goddess. Other figures include three women, two lions with a long-horned cow standing between them. There is a garden featuring two palm trees, and another palm tree was placed beneath the feet of the three women. A flower-shaped motif located between the goddess and the three women is believed to represent the sun while twisted patterns have been interpreted as flowing water. Taken all together, the designs carved into the flag seem to represent an idyllic landscape
.
The flag is surrounded by a thick metal frame with two moving metal hooks.
The flag is currently thought to be under repair. It is reported that once it is restored it will be placed on display, although there is currently no information on when or where it will be housed.
Two other brass plates were also found at the site. These plates were decorated with depictions of fish and deer. Experts point out that the techniques used in creating the flag and the brass plates were highly advanced and are fine examples of the metalwork produced in the Khabis region.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Are The World’s Oldest Stone Spear Points Really Half a Million Years Old?
If these spear points are actually as old as they seem to be, they represent an archaeological and anthropological game-changer. Could it be that some of our most ancient human ancestors mastered the complex processes that were required to create and mount stone tips to wooden spears a quarter of a million years earlier than has been generally thought?
The spear tips were found at a site called Kathu Pan 1 in the Kalahari Desert. The sediments that held the stones were not dated until 2010. But even though the artifacts resembled younger points that were used as spear tips, their actual use remained uncertain. Researchers stabbed a springbok carcass with replicas of the original points. Then they compared the damage caused to the replicas with damage found on the ancient tips. They determined that the damage found on both sets of points closely resembled one another.
While it may seem relatively simple to successfully attach a stone point to a spear, the reality is that it was a complex process. The hunter needed not only the tip and the wooden spear, but also some sort of string, which could have made of sinew, finely sliced animal hide, preferably rawhide, which would shrink as it hardened around the assembly. He also needed some sort of glue. In primitive societies, glue is commonly based on a tree resin, often mixed with other ingredients. Fire was required to melt the glue and the temperature had to be carefully controlled so that the mixture did not burn.
The actual age of the artifacts could not be established by direct evidence. Neither radiocarbon nor argon potassium dating methods could be used. Argon testing could not be done because there are no volcanic rocks in the area. Radiocarbon dating tests cannot be done on stone objects, not do they work on objects as old as the spear tips are believed to be. So the researchers used indirect methods to date the spear points, which, of course, leaves the door open to other theories.
As with every other remarkable archaeological discovery, new questions have been raised. If these artifacts are really half a million years old, why have no others been found dating between 500,000 and 250,000 years old? Was this valuable technology simply lost for a quarter of a million years, or have other examples simply not been found yet? Or is this another case where archaeologists were not looking for them simply because they did not expect to find them? Another question that arises concerns whether or not H. heidelbergensis used the same glue and string technique to half hand axes, knives, or other tools.
The discovery of the spear points also adds fuel to the argument about whether ancient people such as H. heidelbergensis and his successor, H. neanderthalis, possessed speech. Recently there has been some agreement that Neanderthals could speak. But the idea that H. heidelbergensis could speak is still generating controversy. The existence of the ancient spear points supports the idea that those ancient people could indeed speak. There is almost no other way that the spear-hafting technology could have been passed on or handed down.
An article written detailing the findings was published in the November 2012 issue of the journal Nature. The lead author was anthropologist Jayne Wilkins of the University of Toronto.
There’s a great article with additional detail and photographs here
The spear tips were found at a site called Kathu Pan 1 in the Kalahari Desert. The sediments that held the stones were not dated until 2010. But even though the artifacts resembled younger points that were used as spear tips, their actual use remained uncertain. Researchers stabbed a springbok carcass with replicas of the original points. Then they compared the damage caused to the replicas with damage found on the ancient tips. They determined that the damage found on both sets of points closely resembled one another.
While it may seem relatively simple to successfully attach a stone point to a spear, the reality is that it was a complex process. The hunter needed not only the tip and the wooden spear, but also some sort of string, which could have made of sinew, finely sliced animal hide, preferably rawhide, which would shrink as it hardened around the assembly. He also needed some sort of glue. In primitive societies, glue is commonly based on a tree resin, often mixed with other ingredients. Fire was required to melt the glue and the temperature had to be carefully controlled so that the mixture did not burn.
The actual age of the artifacts could not be established by direct evidence. Neither radiocarbon nor argon potassium dating methods could be used. Argon testing could not be done because there are no volcanic rocks in the area. Radiocarbon dating tests cannot be done on stone objects, not do they work on objects as old as the spear tips are believed to be. So the researchers used indirect methods to date the spear points, which, of course, leaves the door open to other theories.
As with every other remarkable archaeological discovery, new questions have been raised. If these artifacts are really half a million years old, why have no others been found dating between 500,000 and 250,000 years old? Was this valuable technology simply lost for a quarter of a million years, or have other examples simply not been found yet? Or is this another case where archaeologists were not looking for them simply because they did not expect to find them? Another question that arises concerns whether or not H. heidelbergensis used the same glue and string technique to half hand axes, knives, or other tools.
The discovery of the spear points also adds fuel to the argument about whether ancient people such as H. heidelbergensis and his successor, H. neanderthalis, possessed speech. Recently there has been some agreement that Neanderthals could speak. But the idea that H. heidelbergensis could speak is still generating controversy. The existence of the ancient spear points supports the idea that those ancient people could indeed speak. There is almost no other way that the spear-hafting technology could have been passed on or handed down.
An article written detailing the findings was published in the November 2012 issue of the journal Nature. The lead author was anthropologist Jayne Wilkins of the University of Toronto.
There’s a great article with additional detail and photographs here
Thursday, January 10, 2013
The World’s Oldest Known Prosthetic
A toe made of wood and leather is thought to be the oldest known prosthetic. It was found on a female mummy buried at Luxor and has been dated to approximately 950 and 710 BC.
The loss of a big toe hampers walking. Researchers, with the help of two volunteers who had lost big toes, showed that the artificial toe was a practical device that would have helped its wearer walk more naturally in sandals, although there were some problems when the testers walked barefoot. This lends support to the idea that these devices were not created for mere cosmetic purposes.
There are other examples of ancient prosthetic devices, though none are currently thought to be older than the Egyptian toe. One is a big toe known as the Greville Chester toe which dates before 600 BC and is currently in the British Museum. This toe is made of cartonnage, a papier mache made with a mixture of animal glue, linen and plaster. A much later example is a Roman bronze and wooden leg, known as the Capua leg, dated to approximately 300 BC.
The Cairo toe is currently at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. For more information and to view photos of the Cairo toe, go here
The loss of a big toe hampers walking. Researchers, with the help of two volunteers who had lost big toes, showed that the artificial toe was a practical device that would have helped its wearer walk more naturally in sandals, although there were some problems when the testers walked barefoot. This lends support to the idea that these devices were not created for mere cosmetic purposes.
There are other examples of ancient prosthetic devices, though none are currently thought to be older than the Egyptian toe. One is a big toe known as the Greville Chester toe which dates before 600 BC and is currently in the British Museum. This toe is made of cartonnage, a papier mache made with a mixture of animal glue, linen and plaster. A much later example is a Roman bronze and wooden leg, known as the Capua leg, dated to approximately 300 BC.
The Cairo toe is currently at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. For more information and to view photos of the Cairo toe, go here
Monday, December 31, 2012
Is This the World’s Oldest Cheese-making Equipment?
Little Miss Muffet, eating her curds and whey, probably did not know that cheese was originally produced more than 7,500 years ago.
Researchers from Britain, the United States and Poland analyzed residue embedded in pottery found in the Polish region of Kuyavia. They found the pottery fragments, which were perforated much like sieves used today, contained fatty acids consistent with the production of curds and whey.
Turning milk into cheese has several advantages. Cheese is more easily stored than milk, which helped add to early man’s ability to store food. It is believed that most people of the time would have been lactose intolerant. Curds contain far less lactose than whole milk and are rich in fat, which is a valuable source of energy. The whey is rich in lactose, which can be thrown away or used for animal feed.
Cheese-making, of course, had to wait until milk-producing animals such as cows and goats were domesticated. Before then, milking an aurochs or wild goat would have proven hazardous at best.
Evidence of milk production and storage has been found at 8,000-year old sites in Turkey and Libya, but there was no evidence at any of these sites that any of the milk had been made into cheese.
It is not known at present what the source of the milk was. People living around the world today harvest milk from horses, cows, goats, and other local domesticated animals.
The more we learn about the food producing capabilities of our distant ancestors, the more our respect for the ingenuity and sophistication of these people grows. How much more of our "modern" inventions and practices really had its origins in the ancient world?
Researchers from Britain, the United States and Poland analyzed residue embedded in pottery found in the Polish region of Kuyavia. They found the pottery fragments, which were perforated much like sieves used today, contained fatty acids consistent with the production of curds and whey.
Turning milk into cheese has several advantages. Cheese is more easily stored than milk, which helped add to early man’s ability to store food. It is believed that most people of the time would have been lactose intolerant. Curds contain far less lactose than whole milk and are rich in fat, which is a valuable source of energy. The whey is rich in lactose, which can be thrown away or used for animal feed.
Cheese-making, of course, had to wait until milk-producing animals such as cows and goats were domesticated. Before then, milking an aurochs or wild goat would have proven hazardous at best.
Evidence of milk production and storage has been found at 8,000-year old sites in Turkey and Libya, but there was no evidence at any of these sites that any of the milk had been made into cheese.
It is not known at present what the source of the milk was. People living around the world today harvest milk from horses, cows, goats, and other local domesticated animals.
The more we learn about the food producing capabilities of our distant ancestors, the more our respect for the ingenuity and sophistication of these people grows. How much more of our "modern" inventions and practices really had its origins in the ancient world?
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