Today we look back hundred years. On this August 2, 1923, the 30th President of the United States Calvin Coolidge was sworn into office at 2:43 AM. He was sworn in by his father, a justice of the peace in Plymouth, Vermont. Coolidge succeeded Warren G. Harding, who had died while on a trip in California. The ceremony took place in Coolidge’s father’s farmhouse, where the room was illuminated only by kerosene lamps. In those days, long before the Internet and satellites, even rural telephone and electricity service did not exist. News of Harding’s demise had to be transmitted by telegraph to the village of Plymouth Notch and delivered by messenger to the house. It is a reminder of how far technology has brought this country, and the world, in the past century. Automobiles were not ubiquitous. Functional aircraft were barely 20 years old and scheduled airlines available for the general public, or even government officials, did not exist. Running water, and sewage were installed only in urban areas, and not all of them. Newspapers and other documents, duplicated by technology whose basis was over 500 years old, was the only mass media, although broadcast radio stations had been established in a few cities by 1923. Coolidge was elected in his own right in 1924 and served until March 4, 1929. He famously stated in a note that he did not “choose to run for president” in 1928. He was known as “silent Cal” and his presidency was probably the most low-key tenure seen in the 20th century. Lots of changes in 100 years.
On another note regarding technological achievements, and those that are proposed, it is reported that Italy has tentatively approved a suspension bridge across the Strait of Messina to connect Calabria (the toe of the boot) with Sicily. That bridge would have a 2-mile-long main span that would be the longest in the world. It would be, of course, subjected to high winds and seas around the 1,400 foot towers planted in the channel.
That Strait has been known to be treacherous because of the current and rocks on the Calabrian shore. Ancient myths related the story of Scylla and Charybdis who guarded the Strait were a peril to sailors. Scylla had been a beautiful sea nymph who was changed into a monster by Circe, the jealous suitor of a certain demigod in love with the nymph. She became a monster with six dog-heads on the end of snakelike appendages. She would snatch and devour sailors from their ships when they passed too close. Charybdis was a whirlpool that would sink a ship drawn into its vortex. Homer’s Odyssey related how Odysseus elected avoid Charybdis to save his entire ship at the cost of losing six sailors to Scylla’s maw. Aeneas avoided the peril by sailing around Sicily to Rome. Scylla and Charybdis have become a metaphor for difficult choices, along with the “Hobson’s choice” and “between a rock and a hard place.”
Perhaps the Italians should take twice about their bridge. The rock that Scylla became can be easily avoided these days, and modern watercraft used to ferry people and vehicles can resist the currents. The engineering and logistical problems might result in a bridge too far. Nevertheless, in the land that gave us Da Vinci, Marconi, and Fermi great feats of technology and engineering are possible.
