Most of us are familiar with record players even though MP3 players, Compact Discs, and other digital media are the current popular technologies. Record players and their vinyl discs are making a comeback and is a nostalgic item for those of us old enough to remember when they were the best way to have music other than the radio. The phonograph is not a new technology but the history and development of it is fascinating. The first device built to record sound waves was invented in 1857 by Frenchman Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville. It could record the sound waves onto a medium but it had no way to play back the sound. It is known as a Phonautograph but was not a practical device since the sounds could not be reproduced. A French scientist, Charles Cros, developed a theory of phonograph operation but he never produced a functional device and his theory was published in December 1877 after Thomas Edison had a working model. It appears that both men developed their ideas independently.

Edison worked on his ideas between May and November of 1877 but he was not trying to create records, he was working on a way to “play back” recorded telegraph messages. In November 1877 he formally announced and demonstrated his phonograph which was a way to record and play back sounds. His initial recordings do not resemble anything we are familiar with as records. Edison used a cylinder covered in tinfoil and the motion of a stylus to make groves in the foil. Edison’s patents show understanding that a disc could be used to record the sounds but he concentrated on the cylinders since there speed was constant.

In 1886, Cichester Bell and Charles Tainter patented the Graphophone which used wax coated vertical cylinders to record and produce the sounds. These cylinders used a different way of recording and playback. Edison’s devices were patented specifying an embossed technique which produced a three dimensional image on the medium. The Bell and Tainter device was called the Graphophone and used engraving which cuts grooves into the surface. Then in 1887, Emile Berliner developed the Gramophone which used a wax and zinc coated disc that recorded the motion of the stylus. An acid bath firmed the groove the stylus had created and removed any excess material so the recording could be played back.

1889 saw the first Phonograph Parlor in San Francisco where patrons would request a musical selection for a nickel and it would be played through a tube that was connected to the music cylinders in a separate room. These salons became very popular and are an early form of what we know as a jukebox since the patrons paid money for a specific piece of music to play. Many cities in America had at least one of these music parlors and the manufacturers of the cylinders began attempting to mass produce their products in the 1890s. The live music would create the initial recording while a few cylinders were connected to other phonographs. This technology sped up the process of creating the recordings since they no longer had to be individually hand created. As the technology improved, so did the methods of recording and production since the demand for certain artists increased.

Record players are a nostalgic item of a bygone era for many but there are a lot of people who are devoted to the phonograph’s audio quality as superior to any of the current popular technology. Regardless of which technology we personally prefer the importance of the record player and its rich history cannot be stressed enough.

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History Collectors: We offer a wide selection of museum quality replicas and authentic items representing nearly every century of the Common Era and the most significant civilizations of ancient history. Once you browse through our online catalogue, we are certain you’ll find the perfect gift for yourself or a loved one with an interest in history.

Orthodontic braces are a common fixture in today’s society and it is not rare to see classmates, coworkers, or family members with braces on their teeth. Both children and adults are often seen wearing braces and there are a wide variety of colors available to allow individual customization of them. Although braces are an everyday part of our culture, little is known about their development or origin. In ancient Greece both scholars Hippocrates and Aristotle talked about ways to fix dentals problems including the straightening of crooked teeth. There are a few men who history considers the fathers of orthodontics and they developed their ideas in the late 19^th century. The first individual is Norman Kingsley who was a writer, artist, and sculptor but was primarily a dentist. In 1880 he wrote “Treatise on Oral Deformities” which was a major influence on dentistry.

Another man deserving credit is Doctor J.N. Farrar who developed the idea of using intermittent mild force to correct dental irregularities in the 1880s. He wrote a couple of books that dealt with his ideas on correcting orthodontic problems. His scientific approach to the biological issues of orthodontics was revolutionary.

Edward Angle, an American dentist from Pennsylvania at the turn of the 20^th century is widely considered the creator of modern orthodontics and his system of classifying dental arches is used all over the world. In 1887 he wrote “Treatment of Malocclusion of the Teeth”. This volume was revised and republished several times and is the cornerstone of modern orthodontics. Angle served as a professor at a couple of medical colleges and in 1900 founded The School of Orthodontia in St. Louis, Missouri. He developed different types of fixed orthodontic appliances that have evolved into the braces and retainers that we are familiar with today. The sophisticated orthodontic systems used currently by most doctors are the result of improvements in technology and owe their development to the pioneering efforts of a few men. The smiles of millions are the result of these efforts.

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History Collectors: We offer a wide selection of museum quality replicas and authentic items representing nearly every century of the Common Era and the most significant civilizations of ancient history. Once you browse through our online catalogue, we are certain you’ll find the perfect gift for yourself or a loved one with an interest in history.

As hundreds of scientists from around the world were conscripted in the Manhattan Project during the thick of Word War II, the best and brightest were passed along to the top-secret research site in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where the secrets of the world’s first atom bomb would soon be unlocked.

Though the US Army heavily patrolled the site and sensitive documents were kept under lock and key, Los Alamos was far from leak proof. The researchers themselves, highly prized for their brilliance and unique areas of expertise, could not be explicitly ruled out of service due to any supposed political leanings. Even the “Father of the Atomic Bomb,” Robert Oppenheimer, was known to keep company with known Communists and under surveillance by the FBI during his involvement in the project.

Meanwhile, another Los Alamos team member, theoretical physicist Klaus Fuchs, while a staunch anti-fascist, had been a member of the Communist Party in his native Germany. After fleeing to Britain to escape the Nazis, he was loaned out to the Manhattan Project in 1943 and, in short order, became a valuable asset to the team. To this day, Fuchs is credited with several key calculations that would prove essential to making the bomb a reality.

After the project disbanded in 1946, however, Fuchs switched sides and spent the next two years passing secrets to Soviets that included a method for refining uranium and diagrams for the construction of a hydrogen bomb. At the same time, the Central Intelligence Agency was projecting that the Soviets would be incapable of going nuclear until the mid-1950s. When the USSR conducted their first successful atomic test in 1949, a stunned President Truman initially declared that the explosion must have been an “accident.”

Fuchs was exposed the following year after US Intelligence decrypted messages implicating him as a traitor. He confessed immediately, leading to a rash of similar revelations from other Los Alamos workers. An Army corporal who worked the base, David Greenglass, revealed that he too sold secrets to the Soviets, including schematics of Fat Man, the atom bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. In strange confluence of events, he was able to receive a reduced sentence in exchange for testifying against his own sister and her husband — who happened to be none other than Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Both were found guilty and executed, sparking one of the opening salvos of the Cold War and leading to a controversy that lingers to this day.

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Born September 22, 1791 Michael Faraday was a poorly educated economically challenged south London boy. He grew to become one of Britain’s foremost scientists who we remember today as the foundational thinker in the study of electromagnetism. In other words, without Faraday, there would be no electric motor.

Leaving school at 14 forced Faraday to become a self educated man. He read scientific books in his spare time as he apprenticed for a local book binder. In 1813, he finally got a job as a lab assistant at the famed Royal Institution. He worked under Humphry Davy a known chemist at the time. Faraday spent several years working in the shadow of some of Britain’s foremost scientific minds, he own thoughts unaccredited in a several experiments, studies and lectures.

In 1821, Faraday published his first solo paper on the electromagnetic radiation. It discussed the idea that charged particles produced waves. The different types and length of these waves are discussed in modern times by the use of the electromagnetic spectrum. Technical thoughts for a high school drop out.

As the years passed, Faraday established a name for himself among his fellow scientists and the students at the Royal Institution, creating a lecture series tradition that continues today. All this time, he continued his research into electromagnetism and in 1831, he determined the rules that governed electromagnetic induction.

Electromagnetic induction is the science behind the electric generator and the electric transformer. It meant that electricity could go from a novelty item of the rich to the power behind mass production, industrialization and modern manufacturing and transportation. Faraday changed the world by expanding the scientific knowledge of his era and giving it a truly practical application.

Faraday’s work and discoveries earned him many titles and honors throughout his scientific career. An unfortunate bout of ill health but a stop to further research and in late August of 1867, Faraday died. Without him, the words “electrode”, “ion” and “cathode” may never have existed and the fundamental principles behind the electric motor never thoroughly worked out.

Every school student learns that moving a magnet inside a coil of wire produces an electrical current. That was Faraday’s original experiment and took a man of humble beginnings into the books of modern world history. Michael Faraday not only discovered the role of electromagnetism but also the compound benzene reminding everyone who knew him that he was not just a physicist but a chemist, one of England’s finest.

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History Collectors: We offer a wide selection of museum quality replicas and authentic items representing nearly every century of the Common Era and the most significant civilizations of ancient history. Once you browse through our online catalogue, we are certain you’ll find the perfect gift for yourself or a loved one with an interest in history.