The newly discovered element of argon unfortunately proves to be useless for making knives out of.

 

However Edison has just patented the TWO WAY TELEGRAPH! Telephone conversations no longer neccesitate the participants having their speaking and listening devices transported between each others' locations repeatedly.

 

This is going to get a lot more interesting around post number 2006.

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967)

Might as well live to see the first bottle of Coca Cola produced, in 1894.

Indeed. In fact, maybe it was discoveries like Coca Cola that Alfred Nobel had in mind in 1895 when he wrote his last will and testament dedicating his estate to the establishment of the Prize which bears his name. Which was lucky because...

...he died in 1896.

Unlike Mark Twain, who, the very next year, is quoted as saying "The report of my death was an exaggeration."

Henry Moore, Northern Sculpturer who has an art gallery named after him Leeds, was born in this year on the 30th of July.

Just imagine, after a hard day's sculpting, you'd want to head off down to the pub, have a pint, and listen to the jukebox. Although it would help if you were in San Francisco in 1899, where the first jukebox was located.

Racoon, my dear. You posted 1900 just before I did, which I'm rather displeased about. I've got a big stick, and i'm going to hit you with.

 

Vice-President Roosevelt would be proud of me, for in 1901, he coined the phrase "speak softly and carry a big stick".

Theodore Roosevelt is famous for refusing to shoot a bear, but i can't help but wonder if he was as squemish about Tigers. I would hope not because between 1902 and 1907, the same tiger killed 434 people in India.

You can't help but wonder how much nicer the world would be if tigers ate peanuts instead of people. It's not as if there's a limited number of things they could do with them, as in 1903 some research was started at the Tuskeegee Institute, which eventually yielded over 300 uses for the peanut including cheese, mayonnaise, chili sauce, shampoo, bleach, axle grease, linoleum and ice cream.

Versatile though the peanut was justly found to be, it is of little use in a sinking ship. No, in such circumstances, you require that which internationally replaced CQD in 1904; you need SOS.

Even SOS, however, is inappropriate if you manage to avoid sinking, only to find yourself in the midst of a mutiny, as you would if you were stationed on the Battleship Potemkin 1905. Of course, if you didn't mutiny, your captain would have made you eat the rotten meat, and then everyone would have become violently sick, and you'd have sailed into some unseen rocks, or something. And /then/ you'd need SOS. Or a peanut.

Of course not even a battleship (even a mutinous Comunist one) could have saved the 'Irish Crown Jewels' from being mysteriously stolen in 1906.

Clearly an era for theft, 1907 saw the first and only train robbery in Sweden, and daylight robbery become commonplace the world over, as the first taxis were fitted with meters.

Such thefts need to be investigated. If only there were some kind of bureau which dealt with investigations. It wouldn't even have to be federal or anything.

 

How handy! In 1908, the Bureau of Investigation, forerunner of the FBI was founded. And there was much rejoicing (mainly in India, where they'd caught that tiger).

It was good that they caught that tiger as the screams of the victims could have made some people deaf. But if people did become deaf, they could always pay a visit to Utah, where the Association of the Deaf was founded in 1909.

And if they had stayed for a year, they could have joined the newly formed Boy Scouts of America. Too bad about Florence Nightingale - she won't be joining anything any more.

Those Boy Scouts could have had some days out as the first long-distance
auto race in the US was held on May 30 1911 in Indianapolis.