The critics stood on the riverbank looking disapprovingly at Robert Fulton’s new-fangled steam-powered boat, the Clermont, which Fulton hoped to navigate up the Hudson River to Albany, New York. “It’ll never start! It’ll never start!” they cried in derision, but suddenly the engine did start and the Clermont began steaming up the river. The critics were stunned into silence, but only for a moment before running after the boat, waving their arms and shouting, “It’ll never stop! It’ll never stop!” 

Not a true story, although Fulton’s Clermont did begin its journey up the Hudson this week (Aug. 17) in 1807. What’s more, if those particular critics didn’t actually exist, over the years Fulton certainly came up against a number of their real life counterparts.  Having already failed as a commercial artist, Fulton turned to engineering during a stay in France, but failed to interest either the French or, later, the British in any of his experimental boat designs.  Finally, he caught the attention of America’s ambassador to France, Robert Livingston, who persuaded him to concentrate on designing steamboat engines. Thus did Fulton return to the U.S. where, with Livingston’s financial backing, he built and successfully deployed the Clermont.

Contrary to popular belief, Fulton did not invent the steamboat, but he was the one who made the boat a reliable — and therefore commercially viable — mode of transportation, which was to have a tremendous impact on the young United States. Prior to Fulton’s steamboat, river navigation — like its ocean counterpart — was at the mercy of capricious winds and currents, meaning predictable, regularly scheduled movement of both passengers and products was impossible.  As a result, transporting perishable products to new markets was a gamble, so slower, more expensive land routes were usually used, or the products remained confined to local markets.

Fulton’s steamboat changed all that, and as steam-powered technology improved, allowing for bigger, faster and even more reliable boats, it resulted in increased shipping of goods and services, as well as the large-scale navigation of America’s rivers and inland waterways.  This, in turn, allowed trade to expand rapidly, and paved the way for Americans to explore and settle the western territories, especially those lands around the mighty Mississippi, which had become part of America under the Louisiana Purchase just a few years earlier.

In his later years Fulton became a nationally recognized expert on steam engines and navigational issues, and, ironically, it was while crossing his beloved Hudson River after giving testimony in Trenton, New Jersey, about repealing laws hindering steam boat operations that he caught a cold which ultimately proved fatal.  He died on February 24^th, 1815, just as his young country was, literally and figuratively, beginning to gather steam.

The first humans in history walked on ground other than Earth this week (July 20) in 1969, when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin left their lunar module “Eagle” to explore the moon.

It’s a familiar story, but with a subplot worth retelling — one that proves NASA was right to make combat test pilots its first crop of astronauts. Those are the guys who land jet planes on the flight decks of aircraft carriers in rolling seas in the dead of night, and in terms of skill, endurance, focus and that special brand of courage Ernest Hemingway aptly called “grace under pressure,” they are a breed apart from the rest of us.

As Armstrong would prove:  On July 20, Eagle separated from the command module “Columbia” and headed for the moon’s surface where, at 4:10 p.m. EDT, it began its final descent, controlled by the Automatic Landing Mode (ALM) computers. Suddenly — one after the other — two alarms sounded, indicating two computer overloads, and although Command Center in Houston gave the astronauts the go-ahead to proceed, it was not an auspicious beginning.

And at 2,000 feet, as Armstrong looked out at the lunar surface, he saw that their initial landing area was much too rocky for a safe touchdown.  Overriding the ALM computers, Armstrong took manual control of Eagle and began searching for another landing site.

It was 4:16 p.m. and Eagle was less than a football field away from the surface when another warning light flashed, indicating Eagle’s engines were kicking up lunar dust, reducing visibility.  If that wasn’t bad enough, as Armstrong continued his search for a flat surface area, the fuel warning light flashed, telling him he had 90 seconds to land or abort the mission.

At 4:17, Houston tersely warned Armstrong, whose visibility problems have only gotten worse, that he has 30 seconds of fuel left. The world is holding its collective breath, when — at last — Armstrong’s calm voice finally announces, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

Talk about grace under pressure.  During the entire harrowing landing, while flying virtually blind, on manual control, dangerously low on fuel, destination uncertain, with hundreds of millions watching, and the possibility of failure, and even death, very real, Armstrong’s heartbeat barely registered above normal.  Indeed, he was arguably more nervous about what he was supposed to say after stepping on the moon than he was during his moon landing.  His historic remark was scripted to be “This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind,” but in his nervousness, he left out the “a,” slightly changing the meaning of the sentence.

But in no way changing the significance of the deed.

This week (May 24) in 1844, Professor Samuel F.B. Morse sat in the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., surrounded by members of Congress, who had come to witness history.  Morse complied, tapping out on his recently invented telegraph a simple code (later called “Morse Code”) of electric dots and dashes that spelled out the message “What Hath God Wrought,” which his assistant, Alfred Vail, received in Baltimore, Md., and then relayed back to Morse in Washington.  That message, from Numbers 23:23 in the Old Testament, was a fitting one given the telegraph’s future effect on the world.

Yet Morse’s telegraph was a secular miracle, not a religious one.  For the first time in history, communication was separated from physical transportation.  No longer was the speed of communication, or its range, limited to the distance and speed that messengers could travel, be it on foot, horse, boat or train (no airplanes yet).  For example, Vail’s relay station was in Baltimore because that’s where the national conventions to choose candidates for the upcoming presidential election were being held, and Congress was eager to know the results.  Thanks to the telegraph it took minutes, not hours, to learn that the Whig Party had chosen Henry Clay to run against the Democratic candidate James Polk.

Still, it was the financial and business community that quickly understood how important Morse’s telegraph would be to their operations.  Indeed, the main impetus behind the subsequent rapid spread of telegraph lines across America, especially to commercial and financial centers such as New York and Chicago, was the telegraph’s ability to quickly disseminate stock and commodity prices, while also quickly connecting financial borrowers with lenders at terms amenable to both.  To that end, it was only after the telegraph lines reached Chicago in 1848 that the now-famous Chicago Commodities Exchange was established.

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