1897: African American Buffalo Soldiers test bikes for Army on 1,900 mile expedition
In 1897, 20 soldiers, an army surgeon and a reporter led by Lt. James A. Moss, rode bicycles from Fort Missoula in Montana to St. Louis, Missouri. The trip was made as an experiment to see whether the bicycle could serve a useful purpose in the Army.
1890s America was also experiencing a bicycle-craze due to the recent invention of the "safety bicycle" (a bicycle with wheels of equal size and chain driven). Accounts make it clear that Moss had a romantic streak, and enjoyed the outdoors, as well as what he referred to as "the poetry of cycling".
The 41-day journey to St. Louis was 1,900 miles and took the men through Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska and Missouri. In the 1890s, the Army was segregated, with most black units (a.k.a "Buffalo Soldiers") serving in the isolated outposts in the West. Fort Missoula, at that time, was home to the 25th Infantry, a black regiment. Moss was a Southerner and recent graduate of West Point. He was only twenty-five years old. He and some of the '97 riders had done trips before. In the summer of 1896, eight of them rode first to the Mission Mountains, north of Missoula and then Yellowstone Park. For the St. Louis trip, Moss picked a path that mostly followed the railroads -- the Northern Pacific to Billings and then various arms of the Burlington the rest of the way.
Fortunately, Eddie Boos, a nineteen-year-old, rode along with the Corps to St. Louis and wired lengthy reports to the local Missoula paper, as well as newspapers all over the United States.
Combining his accounts with those of Lt. Moss, we get a fairly detailed picture of the trip. Sadly, no accounts from the soldiers, themselves, are known to exist. We only know them through Boos and Moss's somewhat stereotyped descriptions. Nevertheless, what comes through is a group of highly dedicated, tough, resilient, men who at the end of a long, hard ride still had a keen sense of humor and enjoyment of life*. A year after the trip they proved their mettle as soldiers, securing key victories during the Spanish-American War. Boos tells us that the Corps was escorted by hundreds as they drew closer to the finish of their journey and were welcomed by over 10,000 upon reaching their goal in Forest Park in St. Louis.

In 1930, a Hungarian inventor observed children playing with marbles in a puddle, noticing that the marbles left a trail of water in their wake. That's how the idea came about: why not use a ball-shaped metal nib for writing? This is how the pen was born. 🖋 László József Biro shared his idea with his brother György, a chemist, and together they began researching and experimenting to create a new type of pen based on this concept. Finally, they found the perfect combination: a viscous ink and a tip with a small ball that rotated freely, preventing the ink from drying out and controlling its flow. They presented their invention at the Budapest International Fair in 1931 and patented it in 1938, although they did not market it immediately. With the start of World War II, the brothers emigrated to Argentina, where they founded a company in a garage. Although they were initially unsuccessful due to the high cost of the product, they secured a contract with the British Air Force, which boosted their popularity. In 1943, they licensed their invention to Eversharp Faber in the United States for $2 million. In 1950, Marcel Bich acquired the rights and, on the recommendation of an advertising expert, dropped the "h" from his surname and founded the company BICGroup. In that year, they launched the first BIC Cristal, one of the most perfect designs ever created, of which more than 20 million units are sold every day around the world. Since 1953, more than 100 billion BIC Cristals have been manufactured, making it the best-selling pen of all time.

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Bernoulli's Principle is a fundamental concept in fluid dynamics that describes the relationship between the speed of a fluid and its pressure. It states that as the speed of a fluid increases, its pressure decreases, and vice versa, as long as the flow is steady and the fluid is incompressible. This principle is often used to explain various phenomena in fluid mechanics, such as lift in aerodynamics, the behavior of fluids in pipes, and the operation of carburetors and wings. In simple terms, Bernoulli's Principle illustrates how the energy within a fluid is distributed between its kinetic energy (speed) and its potential energy (pressure), providing valuable insights into the behavior of fluids in motion.

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