A hundred years ago this month, the June 1918 issue of Electrical Experimenter carried these hints on how to avoid electric shocks. They’re all still good advice these days, but they were even more important then, since there was no effort made to polarize electric receptacles.  At the time, they were intended for light bulbs, but people were plugging all kinds of useful devices into them.  Thus, there was a 50/50 chance that any exposed conductors were “hot.”

The specific advice given in these illustrations was:

• Don’t touch water spigot and electric socket at same time.
• Never touch electric wires or fittings when in bath tub.
• Don’t touch radiator and electric fan.
• Don’t stand on heating register when extinguishing electric fires.
• Leave fallen wires alone–they may be “alive”.
• Don’t use telephone during thunderstorms.
• Keep away from radiators when using electric curling irons.
• Boys: don’t throw wires over trolley lines.
• 3rd Rail!
• Don’t stand on ground and touch “live” electrical switches.
• Don’t stand on ground and touch “live” circuits or apparatus.
• Don’t touch brass nozzle in fighting fires.

To these tips we will add that girls shouldn’t throw wires over trolley lines, either.

Seventy-five years ago this month, the June 1943 issue of Radio Craft carried this schematic for a simple one-tube all-wave receiver.  The set used a single  6F7 dual tube, half of which was used as the regenerative detector, with the other half serving as an audio amp. The circuit had been sent to the magazine by one Allan Hurd of Kelworthy, Ontario, who reported that the set pulled in the local stations with loudspeaker volume, and would even provide loudspeaker volume on shortwave from the London and Berlin stations. Presumably, weaker DX required headphones.

He also reported that no bandspread condenser was needed, as long as a good vernier dial was used on the main tuning condenser.

Was it a morning like this?

Sixty years ago this month, at the height of the Cold War, the February 1958 issue of Popular Science had as its cover feature an account of a motor trip by two Americans, with their dutiful Intourist guide in the back seat, across the Soviet Union from Brest to Moscow and then south to Yalta.

The author, Harry Walton, along with Dennis Michael O’Connor, made the trip in a Belgian-made 1957 Rambler station wagon. After reciting the preconceptions he had of the trip, Walton writes:

The preconceptions were wrong. The Russians I met were not hostile, and the roads and mechanics were first-rate. In several cities I met friendly, curious, wide-awake students (including some who regularly read Popular Science in the technical library). Often I talked with earnest, unsmiling but not unfriendly adults who took to hear their government’s much-repeated slogan: “Beat America.” Everywhere I saw evidences of a dedicated national effort to cram into two decades the industrial revolution that has taken the West two centuries.”

Today, we offer some fun math facts to amaze your friends.

You don’t need to be able to read the text to see these interesting mathematical relationships. This table appeared in the January 1958 issue of Юный техник (Young Technician).

Today marks the 100th birthday of Rose Mary Woods, President Nixon’s secretary, who was born on December 26, 1917. She is shown here demonstrating for the press how she accidentally created an 18 minute gap on one of the Watergate tapes. Ms. Woods died in 2005 at the age of 87.