The first thing you’ll notice is the massive stone walls that seem to blend perfectly with the natural landscape. Once you step inside the walls of the palace, you find yourself in a place that feels both ancient and mysterious. The city is made up of stone buildings and terraces that are carefully arranged in a way that makes you wonder how they were built without modern tools. The buildings have no roofs, which means you can look up and see the drizzly sky above you.

Everywhere you turn, there are stunning views. Lush mountains stretch as far as the eye can see, and you see the winding Urubamba River far down below. Next, you spot one of the most fascinating parts of Machu Picchu, the Intihuatana Stone, which is like a giant sundial. On one of the terraces you also see a pack of llamas. These adorable animals turn and look at you in a friendly, curious way. 

Truly, visiting Machu Picchu is like entering a real-life fairy tale. It’s a place that sparks your imagination and fills you with a sense of awe. The history, the stunning views, and the unique atmosphere have made it a truly unforgettable experience. 

If you listened to our episode last week, we learned all about the rise of the Inca Empire and the construction of Machu Picchu. Now let’s dive into how it was discovered and became the treasured tourist destination that it is today.

In 1831, a child named Hiram Bingham III was born to Clara Brewster and Hiram Bingham II in Honolulu, Hawaii. The Binghams were the children of Protestant missionaries who had journeyed to the islands to teach the native people their religion. Growing up, Hirma’s parents were very strict. He really struggled with this because his favorite stories were of adventure and troublesome kids like Huckleberry Finn. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain was one of his favorite books and wished for a life of adventure like one of his heroes. He wanted to explore the world but felt like he was stuck on the island and with parents who wanted him to live a very traditional life and get a very traditional education.

When he was 12, Hiram and a friend hatched a plan to leave home and travel to Africa. He took $250 of his savings out of the bank and headed to the port to set sail to the United States. From there he’d travel to New York and then Africa! Unfortunately, the boat didn’t leave on time and Hiram’s father found out about the plan. As you can imagine, he was not happy! Hiram stayed in Hawaii until he was 16 until he got his chance to leave and study at Yale University and later Harvard. He eventually became a professor in Latin History and later married and continued to teach. But something inside Hiram still longed for the life of adventure he dreamed of as a child reading about his hero, Huck Finn. 

In 1908, Hiram Bingham traveled to Peru, South America to meet with other professors for work. There, someone told him a story about a lost Incan. Hiram was intrigued! He wondered if the story was about the lost city of Vilcambamba. During his trip, he did some exploring and took pictures of ruins, and started writing about his time in Peru, hoping that someday he could return and find this lost, mysterious city from the stories. 

By 1911, a few years later, Hiram Bingham had assembled a team of experts and enough money to make the return trip to Peru to find the lost city of Vilcambamba. He made great sacrifices, such as selling family property in Hawaii, to pay the $12,000 dollars for the trip, and leaving his family at a difficult time. But he was determined to make a great discovery that would put his name in the history books! 

Hiram and his crew sailed from New York to Lima, Peru, and got to work trying to figure out the location of the lost city. He interviewed people and studied maps and journals of Spanish priests and others who might have clues about the location of the city. From Lima, they traveled to the city of Cuzco, where in the last episode we learned about Pachacuti, the great king who once ruled the Inca Empire. In Cuzco, Hiram met a man named Melchor Arteaga, who said he knew the location of the lost city and could take Hiram and his team there. 

After a five-day journey through the jungle, Hiram, Melchor and his team arrived at a village at the base of the mountain. The weather was bad, making the mountain wet and slippery, but Hiram paid Melchor enough to convince him to take him up the mountain. They climbed up through the rain and mists and mud, sometimes on their hands and knees, and soon reached the mountaintop. The ruins were in view! There was something to the stories about this city. They found a family who were living and farming the terraces of the mountaintop. The family gave them water to drink before Hiram set about exploring the area further. Hiram hiked around and found more walls and more elaborate stone architecture. A temple, a palace, and aqueducts. Hiram didn’t know it yet but this was Machu Picchu, the ruins of Pichacuti’s mountaintop palace! He took pictures of the ruins and notes of everything he observed before climbing back down the mountain to his awaiting team. 

Hiram, still wanting to find the lost city of Vilcambamba, continued to explore the area – and did find a city of ruins overgrowing with vines and plants. He didn’t realize it at the time but it was Vilcambamba, but Machu Picchu was even more amazing and he was very excited to share his discoveries with the world! 

After returning home, Hiram wrote about his adventures in Peru. He quickly became known around the world for his discoveries and returned again the next year to explore the area deeper and take more pictures. The team also began to uncover more of the buildings. They dug and found pots and jewelry and gold and skeletons, which helped them better understand the life of Pachacuti and the Incas. Many of these artifacts were removed from Machu Picchu and taken to Bingham’s university to be put on display. One hundred years later, these artifacts were rightfully returned to Peru for its people to appreciate.

After Hiram’s later visits, National Geographic printed pictures of the Machu Picchu and people all across the world were able to appreciate the magnificent mountaintop palace. Since that time, Machu Picchu has become one of the most famous archeological sites in the world. In 1948, Peru built a road leading closer to the ruins and also made it a national park. This has helped it to become one of the most visited locations in the world. Since Hiram’s time, more archeologists and scientists have visited the mountaintop palace to learn about the people who lived there. And currently, around 2,000 tourists visit Machu Picchu every day!

The Story of Machi Picchu is one of the skilled, hardworking, and ingenious people who were able to engineer and construct such a magnificent site. Also, it’s a story of an intrepid professor, much like one of my favorite movie characters, Indiana Jones, who followed his childhood dreams and discovered an ancient city for the world to enjoy!

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Imagine you’re in a painting studio. You take a deep breath and smell the sweet smell of the oil paints and the crisp air within the painting studio. You look around and see many paintings on the walls, each one telling a different story.

But your attention quickly turns back to the canvas in front of you, which seems to be calling out for your attention. You dip your paintbrush into a palette of different colors and then put it on the canvas. You feel happy and excited when you see the brush moving so easily on the canvas. You create a beautiful picture of a world you want to see, and it makes you feel calm and happy.

You continue to work, feeling the warmth of the paint beneath your brush, and the gentle strokes of color as you add dimension and texture to your creation. As you paint, you feel a sense of peace and contentment that comes from being fully immersed in the creative process.

You continue to work, feeling the warmth of the paint beneath your brush and you see how the colors mix together, creating something new and unique. You love how it feels to make something special with your hands.

When you’re done painting, you step back and admire your work. You feel so proud of what you made and can’t wait to share it with others. You know that it will make people happy and inspire them to look at the world in a different way.

This is what it’s like to be like Bob Ross, a painter who made people happy by showing them how to paint and see the world in a new way.

Bob Ross was born on October 29, 1942, in Daytona Beach, Florida. He grew up in a town called Orlando, where he spent a lot of time exploring the beautiful landscapes around him.

His dad was a carpenter named Jack, and his mom, Ollie, was a waitress. As a child, Bob loved to take care of injured animals which sometimes made his parents unhappy because they never knew what kind of animal they would find in the house! They might see a hurt alligator in their bathtub or an armadillo running around Bob’s room. 

Later, Bob didn’t finish high school. Instead, he left after 9th grade to work as a carpenter with his dad. One day, Bob had a terrible accident that injured his left index finger. He lost the tip of it! Even though he was hurt, Bob didn’t let that stop him. It was an injury he later hid from TV viewers most of the time with his paint palette.

When Bob turned 18, he joined the Air Force which he soon didn’t enjoy. He said that he had to be “mean” sometimes, and that made him unhappy. When he was in the Air Force, he was known for being tough on his fellow airmen, and they even gave him the nickname “Bust ’em up Bobby.”

Although he had a tough exterior, Bob Ross also had a softer side. He discovered his love for painting while attending an art class in Alaska during his time in the Air Force. Many of his painting instructors at the time were more interested in abstract art, but Bob was fascinated by nature and the beauty of the world around him. He found that painting allowed him to capture that beauty and share it with others.

After attending many art classes that focused on abstract painting, Ross found his passion for painting returned through a television show he found called The “Magic of Oil Painting”. The show was hosted by artist Bill Alexander Bill introduced Ross to an old painting technique known as “alla prima” which means “first attempt” in Italian. Ross was fascinated by “alla prima” because it allowed Alexander to finish a painting in just 30 minutes. Alla prima is also known as “wet-on-wet” painting, which means that wet layers of paint are added to paper to create an image. Bob loved this new technique and decided to master it himself.

Bob Ross started earning money by painting Alaskan mountainsides on the inside of gold pans, after observing Alexander’s Wet on Wet technique. He soon became well-known among the local Alaskan people for his artistic abilities and often taught children and the elderly how to paint, too. Eventually, Ross began making more money from selling paintings and offering art lessons than from his day job in the military. After serving in the Air Force for twenty years, Ross left the military and said that he would never yell or raise his voice again, he was known from then on to have a very soft and calming presence. 

In the 1980s after leaving the Air Force, Ross had a burning desire to truly master the art of wet-on-wet painting. He found his favorite artist Bill Alexander in Florida. There, Alexander was a part-time art teacher and happily shared all his knowledge with Ross.

Next, Bob Ross got a job as a traveling tutor for the Alexander Magic Art Supplies Company. He had a soothing, gentle voice, and an encouraging teaching style, and said things like “happy accidents” instead of the word “mistakes” to make people feel happier and more positive about painting and being ok with messing up. 

Have you ever made a mistake? Well, in painting it is very easy to make mistakes and Bob was excellent at helping people understand that even when we make mistakes we can turn those mistakes into something good! This idea that he used in his painting lessons caught the attention of a woman named Annette Kowalski. Annette was fascinated by Ross and thought they might find a way to sell the experience of painting with him. She saw potential in Ross’s teaching style and decided to work with him to build a successful business.

After a meeting with Annette Kowalski and her husband, Ross became convinced that he should leave the Alexander Magic Art Supplies Company and start his own teaching business. Kowalski was so confident in their potential for success that she spent all of her life savings on the business. Ross and his wife spent most of their money too! Unfortunately, their high hopes were met with a harsh reality: the business lost $20,000 in its first year open.

Low on money, Bob Ross decided to take a bold step and change his look. Gone were the days of the strict military haircut, and in its place emerged a new and unexpected style: the classic afro that would come to define him. Ross said that he decided to perm his hair and make it curly because then he could save money and he wouldn’t need to pay for haircuts every week. Little did he know that this bold decision to perm his hair would change his appearance forever. Ross’s afro was so different than what his hair used to look like that many of his friends only recognized him by his missing finger that he lost while working as a teenager. 

It is not totally clear how  Bob became a famous painter on TV. There are two stories about how he was able to get onto the PBS channel. One story says that Bob and his former teacher Bill Alexander filmed a commercial for his art classes, which happened to impress someone important. Another version suggests that his partner, Kowalski, took a video of one of Bob Ross’ 30-minute lessons and sent it to the TV station. It is possible that both stories are true. Either way, it is obvious that Bob Ross was so good that he couldn’t be ignored. Before long he was a famous TV star in a new show called “The Joy of Painting”!

While filming “The Joy of Painting,” Bob made it feel like he was talking to his audience one-on-one. Almost like a personal teaching lesson. 

Bob Ross put a lot of thought into every detail of his show. He took great care in selecting his clothes, wearing timeless jeans and casual shirts that wouldn’t look old in the future. He also sanded down his painting palette lightly to keep it from reflecting the studio lights, a trick he figured out over time by switching to a clear painting palette for the first few episodes. 

Bob never received payment for his appearances on the show, nor did he sell any of the paintings he created on air. The show served as a platform to promote his teaching business which grew to include Bob Ross paint brushes, paint, and other supplies, soon making him a millionaire!

Even though being on TV made Bob Ross very successful he remained humble and generous with his artwork. He gave away most of the paintings he created on the show, as well as thousands of others he made throughout his life. Some were donated to charitable causes to be auctioned off, while others were gifted to friends and acquaintances.

Bob Ross taught us that mistakes are not failures, they are just happy accidents. When you make a mistake, don’t give up. Instead, use your creativity and turn it into something beautiful. Just like Bob Ross, you can use your talents to make the world a brighter and more joyful place

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Think of some of the objects you saw: family, friends, trees, maybe a pet, or the big blue sky and white moon in the dark of night. Maybe you saw a smile and objects moving, a car speeding by, or someone kicking a ball. Most of these objects are things you are used to. But when you were a baby they were very interesting! You were curious about everything because it was all new and fresh! As we get older many of these things to become familiar and perhaps not as interesting. Tonight we’re going to learn about Leonardo da Vinci, also known as one of the most curious and creative geniuses in recorded history. As we learn about him, think about how he saw the world differently and how you might see the world differently, too. 

When was Leonardo da Vinci born?

Leonardo was born on April 15th, 1452 in the country of Italy in a town called Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci means Leonardo of Vinci, the town where he was born.  He was born during a time that later became known as The Renaissance, which means “Rebirth” because the way people saw the world was changing dramatically during this time. The Medieval Times was over and people were beginning to see themselves as beings who had control over their life and the world and could think differently than those who came before them. 

Childhood & Early Education

Leonardo grew up with his father and spent much of his time exploring the land around their home. He loved to observe the birds and animals and get lost in the beautiful countryside. Around the age of 15, his father noticed he had an interest in and a gift for art. For this reason, his father had him become an apprentice to Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence, Italy. An apprentice is a student to a master artist. And at this time Florence was known for its gifted artists and sculptors. In Verrocchio’s workshop, Leonardo learned from his master how to paint and sculpt. Sculptors used materials like clay or marble to make grand sculptures.   

Leonardo studied and helped with paintings and sculptures in Verrochio’s workshop until he was 20 years old. The next step in an artist’s life was to join a guide and Leonard did just that when he was accepted into the painters’ guild in Florence. A guild was a group of skilled artists who worked and met together. At this time he created many pen and pencil drawings and technical drawings of weapons and other mechanical devices. He was very interested in how things worked and in creating new devices. He loved inventing things! 

Milan and Duke Sforza

In 1482, when he was about 30 years old Leonardo moved to the city of Milan where he worked for the city’s duke, Ludovico Sforza. There he created paintings and worked on inventions for the Duke. The ability to create and improve technical devices is called engineering — and Leonardo was a very gifted engineer. He worked for Duke Sforza for many years. There he painted two of his best-known works The Virgin of the Rocks and The Last Supper depicting Jesus and his Twelve Apostles. He also helped design buildings and gave the Duke engineering advice for his army. 

One of Leonardo’s other biggest projects was a huge, 24-foot bronze horse for Duke Sforza. He spent 12 years designing it out of clay, which would be a mold to be turned into bronze. Unfortunately, before they could pour the metal into the mold to finish the horse sculpture, the project was stopped, because a war started and the metal had to be used for cannons instead of the horse! In our day, someone decided to get together the money to finally build the horse Leonardo always wanted. If you ever visit Milan, Italy you can see it today!

After the war Duke Sforza was no longer Duke, so Leonardo stopped working for him. Leonardo continued working in his workshop in Milan and soon had his own students and apprentices.

Florence

In the 1500s a French army invaded and took over Milan, so Leonardo left and went to Florence, where he had been an apprentice as a young man. In Florence, he painted his most famous painting, The Mona Lisa. Leonardo was a gifted artist, but he wasn’t afraid to learn new topics and never stopped learning. He was infinitely curious! Leonardo began to study math and science. He studied the human body, which is called anatomy. He also observed the flight of birds and studied the flow of air and water. He looked at everyday objects through different eyes. He wondered how bodies worked, how birds flew, and what gave living things their motion. He didn’t take anything for granted and saw the miracle in everyday life and studied deeply to try and understand it. 

Eventually, Leonardo moved back to Milan and continued his scientific studies, writing and creating many sketchbooks to help others understand the human body and how it worked. He came to believe that all bodies and living things worked according to certain laws of nature, which was very ahead of his time. 

Rome

In 1513, around the age of 60, Leonardo again moved to Rome where he lived in the Vatican and worked for Giuliano de Medici. At this time many of the popular Renaissance artists were living and creating amazing works of art in Rome. The famous St. Peter’s Cathedral was being built at the time and Raphael was painting walls in the Pope’s new apartments. One of the most famous artists of all time, Michaelangelo, was also in Rome working on the Pope’s tomb. 

By the age of 65, Leonardo was asked by the King of France to move there, where he became his main painter, architect, and engineer, which was a great honor. There he continued his sketches and consulted other artists in their works. He also helped plan a palace and garden for the king. He spent a lot of time arranging his writings and sketches about nature in his many notebooks, which fortunately we have today! Leonardo passed away at an old age while living in France.

Leonardo’s Influences

Today we’re lucky to have many of Leonardo’s paintings and notebooks. Many of the ideas he had were for machines that wouldn’t be invented for hundreds of years. For example, in his study of birds and flight, he had the idea for an airplane, a helicopter, and a parachute, which he sketched in his notebooks. He also had the idea for many military machines, such as an armored car, a giant crossbow, and a three-barreled cannon. When you get the chance you can find a book about Leonardo’s inventions at the library or look at them online. They are amazing!

What can you learn from Leonardo?

One of the most interesting things about Leonardo was his ability to take his artistic talents and engineering skills and combine them. He became known as a Renaissance Man because of his curiosity and ability to combine many different skills to invent amazing things. He believed artists were the best qualified to achieve true knowledge, because of the unique way they were able to view the world. Think about that as you observe the miraculous world around you. Never take for granted the little things. Even the smallest living things like a flower or a bee are extraordinary as you look at them closely and learn more about them. Think about what you might do to learn more about the world around you like Leonardo. You could take the time to study a rock or a leaf and sketch it into a notebook as Leonardo did. This is the way he came to better understand the world, one simple object at a time. 

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Augusta Ada Byron was born December 10, 1815, in London, England. Her father was Lord Byron, a world-famous poet — and her mother was Lady Anne Isabella Byron. Only a few weeks after Ada was born her parents separated and her father left England. When Ada was 8 he passed away, so Ada never met her famous father. 

Early Childhood

Many times during her childhood, Ada was sick. When she was eight she had lots of headaches, then when she was 14 she had measles and had to stay in bed for nearly a year! Eventually, she was able to walk with crutches, but during this time she continued to study and learn about her favorite subjects such as math.

Unlike most girls at her time, Ada was taught math and science by her tutors. A tutor is someone who teaches children individually, which means she didn’t go to a normal school like kids in our day. Ada’s mother insisted she learned math and science and made sure she worked very hard to be educated. Sometimes her mother made her lie still for long periods of time because she thought it would teach her to have self-control. Self-control is being able to control your emotions and behavior. But from a young age, Ada showed talent with numbers, meaning she was very good at math. 

When Ada was 12, she decided she wanted to figure out how to fly. Very carefully, she planned out how she would do this and first designed her own wings. She tried different materials of different sizes, she studied birds to figure out how they flew. She even wrote a book called Flyology with drawings and descriptions about how someone would fly. Her final idea was to use steam power to fly. She never attempted to fly herself, but her investigations were a good example of how curious she was and the passion she had for a single project.  

Famous Acquaintances

When Ada was young she met many different famous scientists, inventors, and authors due to her social position. She often went to court and became popular even at a young age due to her smarts. At parties, some of the famous people she met were Michael Faraday, Charles Dickens, and Charles Babbage, a well-known inventor. Charles Babbage became Ada’s mentor, which means someone who taught her personally. She began to learn advanced math at this time and was very interested in Babbage’s ideas. Babbage was one of the first people to have the idea for a computer. He imagined a machine that could do the math on its own and he eventually created this machine, which he called The Difference Engine (Learn more about the history of computer science). Ada was fascinated by this new machine — which became one of the earliest versions of a computer. Babbage went on to create another machine called The Analytical Engine.

Ada Publishes Her Ideas

Ada also knew many languages, so she was asked to translate an article about Babbage’s Analytical Engine. But while making the translation she added many of her own ideas. The notes and ideas she added ended up being three times longer than the article! Her article was later published in an English Science Journal. In the article, Ada shared her ideas about how codes could be used to handle letters and numbers. She also had the idea of how these codes could be used to loop computer programs. Because of all of her original ideas, many consider Ada to be the first computer programmer! 

William King

In 1835, Adam married a wealthy Baron named William King, who later became the Earl of Lovelace, so Ada became the Countess of Lovelace. They had three homes and lived in luxury, both sharing a love of horses. Together they also had three children. In 1837 Ada became very sick and due to some of the medications she was given suffered from other problems. At the age of 36, Ada passed away from cancer.

Ada’s Contributions

While she was alive not many people read Ada’s article about computer programming. It wasn’t until the 1950s that her article was found and people realized how brilliant her ideas about computer programming were. Her ideas were shared in new books about computer programming. In 1980 the United States military named their new programming language after her, calling it “Ada.” Also, the Association for Women in Computing has an Ada Lovelace Award each year and since 1988 the British Computer Society awards a Lovelace Medal, named after Ada.  

Like Ada, you can be curious about the world around you and take the time to study subjects such as math and science. Ada not only learned about these subjects, but she took what she learned and started her own projects, like investigating how to fly and writing her own book. Ada showed that it was important to meet lots of different people and learn from their ideas. This is another great way you can learn, too, by meeting new people and asking lots of questions! Have you ever wanted to create your own app or website? You can do this by learning computer programming. If you’re interested in learning more about coding check out code.org or Scratch, which is a website kids can use to learn how to code.

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This isn’t a small boat, this is a very big, shiny white boat, full of people floating down a great river called the Mississippi. The year is 1835 and people are chatting in excitement because the boat is about to stop in the next town. The riverboat’s whistle blows and soon the boat docks and you load off with a large group of people. You are in the bustling town of Hannibal, Missouri, which will someday become famous because of a certain child who grew up here.

When was Mark Twain born?

On November 30, 1835, a boy named Samuel was born to John and Jane Clemens in the United States in Missouri. He was their sixth child and was born early. For many years he was an unhealthy child and his mother always worried about his health. With their big family, his father was always very busy trying to find work to support the family. He dreamed of making a lot of money for his family, but most of his businesses didn’t do well. Later Samuel said he never remembered his father laughing. But his mother Jane was very different. She was very funny and loved to tell stories and make jokes.  

Hannibal, Missouri

When Samuel was 4 his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, a town on the banks of the Mississippi River. Hannibal was a busy town and exciting for a boy of Samuel’s age. Three times a day steamboats blew their whistle as they stopped in Hannibal. A steamboat was a large, white steam-powered boat before gas was used to power boats. People from all over Missouri visited Hannibal. This included circuses and tradesmen, such as blacksmiths who made a show of their skills for all to see. To young Samuel, Hannibal was a place of excitement and adventure with all of these new visitors. He and his friend ran around the town freely, pretending to be pirates or other adventurers. They swam in the river, fished, and rowed canoes to the island in the middle of the Mississippi River. Two miles from town was a cave he and his friends liked to explore. When Samuel got older he used all of these adventures in Hannibal as part of the stories he wrote. 

But Hannibal was also a dangerous place. Slavery was common at the time, so he saw people of African descent treated badly. Many people in town also had to deal with disease and hardship from being poor. Samuel’s family was very poor. But he still played with his friends and tried to make the best of his life in Hannibal. 

When Samuel was 13 he started working to help take care of his family. He worked at a print shop and later for his brother’s newspaper and started writing stories for the newspaper at a young age. At age 17 he left Hannibal and traveled across the United States, working in places like New York, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. where he had different jobs. 

Riverboat Pilot

In his 20s Samuel began learning how to be a riverboat pilot, the person who drove the big steamboats up and down the Mississippi River. After much training and practice, he was piloting boats himself and loved the job. It gave him purpose and with it, he felt like he might go somewhere in life. He was paid him well and he enjoyed visiting new places every day. During this time he started writing more and first came up with the idea for his pen name. A pen name is a made-up name some authors give themselves. Whenever a riverboat wanted to measure the depth of the river they would call out “Mark Twain!” He thought it would make a great pen name, too.

Civil War

Samuel’s job as a riverboat pilot was cut short by the start of the Civil War. He returned to his hometown of Hannibal and was a soldier for a short time. The next job he found was a reporter, where he got to write all of the time. This is when he first started using his pen name, “Mark Twain.” Not long after this, he moved to San Francisco and continued writing as a reporter. His writing was very funny and soon he became very popular in the area. As his writing became more and more known around the country, he started touring and speaking. Americans loved listening to his funny stories about his life. Part of the reason they enjoyed what he said and wrote is that he was very honest, even when it offended others. With his growing popularity, he even started traveling outside of the United States where he visited faraway places like Europe and Jerusalem. During his trip, he wrote about his experiences and sent them back to the newspaper and they were read all across the United States and around the world. 

Tom Sawyer

It was at this time that he met Olivia Langdon, fell in love, and was married. He continued to write for magazines and newspapers and eventually started writing his books starting with one called The Gilded Age and one of his most famous books, Tom Sawyer. Tom Sawyer was about a rowdy, trickster, similar to himself and his friends who grew up in a town similar to Hannibal. Tom, his friend Becky Thatcher, and other friends played pranks, and went on adventures, which included an exciting escape from a cave with treasure. 

Huckleberry Finn

After Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain (we’ll call him by his pen name now) started working on a book called Huckleberry Finn. He wrote the book as if Huck Finn was writing it, using his same language. It took him many years to write the book, because he would often get frustrated or stuck and move to other projects, and then start work on it again. When it was finally finished, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published. In some ways similar to Tom Sawyer it was about a rowdy boy who doesn’t want to be civilized and his escape from his adopted family with a runaway slave named Jim. Together they float down the Mississippi River and struggle to stay alive and avoid being caught. To this day it’s considered one of the best American novels.

Mark Twain continued to write the rest of his life. He had many ups and downs, parts of his life were very hard, but he always kept writing. During the last years of his life he made friends with a group of 10 to 12 young school girls, who he called the “angel fish.” They wrote letters back and forth and helped cheer up Mark Twain who was growing older. He also spent his last years writing his autobiography. An autobiography is when someone writes their own history. Samuel Clemens, also known as Mark Twain, died on April 12, 1910. 

Conclusion

There is a famous quote associated with Mark Twain that says “write about what you know.” He spent most of his life writing about what he experienced and what he knew. He loved writing about his wild childhood in Hannibal, his life along the Mississippi River and his travels throughout the river. It’s fun to write about far off places or fantasy, I know I like writing about those things, but it’s also good to spend time writing about the things we know, the things that happen to us every day. A lot of people use a journal to do this. Think about starting your own journal. You can start simple, maybe it’s just a few sentences at first. But many people find writing in a journal helps them clear their mind and be reminded of what they are grateful for. Like Mark Twain, you can observe the world around you and write about it. He found much joy in it and so can you!

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Tesla Car Company

Have you ever heard of a Tesla car? Teslas are very fast cars, but unlike most sports cars, Teslas are electric-powered not gas-powered. Teslas are becoming very popular because they are one way to prevent carbon emissions and help the environment. Although you may be familiar with the name Tesla because of the famous car, you may not be aware of where the name came from. Tesla cars are named after an inventor named Nikola Tesla. Tonight we’re going to learn more about Telsa and why he became so well known.

Nikola Tesla’s Birth and Early Life

In 1865, Nikola Tesla was born to Serbian parents in what is now known as Croatia. His father was an Orthodox Priest and his mother never went to school but was a very intelligent woman. She was known for inventing her own electrical gadgets to be used around the house. Nikola later said his great intelligence came from his gifted mother.

Growing up Nikola went to school like most kids and studied German, math, and religion. They moved to a new town where his father was a priest and there he attended elementary and middle school. During high school, Nikola had a physics teacher who showed his class the power of electricity. When Nikola saw it he was amazed and wanted to learn more about this wonderful force. It was here that Nikola did so well in his math classes that the teachers thought he was cheating because he could do difficult math in his head, without using paper.

Nikola Tesla’s Education

Not long after graduating from high school, Nikola became very sick and spent nine months in bed, but finally, he got better. His father wanted him to become a priest like he was, but Nikola was more interested in engineering. Engineering is the science of designing and building things. 

Nikola went to the university in Graz, Austria for a time and did very well there. It was there that he first learned about a dynamo, which is used to generate electricity. He started to have ideas about how he could make it work better. Nikola worked very hard while in school. It was said he worked from 3 am to 11 pm and didn’t take breaks on the weekend. His friends and family worried if he didn’t slow down he would become sick from over-working himself.

After university Nikola moved to the country of Hungary and started working for a telegraph company. The telegraph was used to communicate by sending signals along a wire before the telephone was invented. While there, Nikola helped them improve the telegraph equipment! 

Thomas Edison

Nikola Tesla’s next job was in Paris working for one of Thomas Edison’s power companies. Thomas Edison was a famous American inventor known for designing the lightbulb among other inventions. From there Tesla moved first moved to America and got a job working directly with Thomas Edison. He was very poor at the time and arrived in America with only a few cents in his pockets and a few poems he had written. 

Alternating Current

Unfortunately, his work with Thomas Edison didn’t last long. Instead, Tesla took his ideas to Edison’s competitor, George Westinghouse, who bought his idea for the alternating current dynamo. Direct current is what Thomas Edison used and worked by sending an electrical current one way, but Tesla’s idea was to switch the directions in the current was sent. To this day Tesla’s alternating current is used more than direct current. 

Tesla’s Other Inventions

Next, Tesla started his own lab and experimented with ideas that helped pave the way for the x-ray. He also created the Tesla coil, which was later used for sending radio waves through the air or radios and televisions. It was around this time that the World’s Columbian Exposition was to be held in Chicago in 1893. This was an enormous world fair where people from all over the world would visit Chicago to see exciting new inventions and experience new things. This also started a competition between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla over whether AC (alternating current) or DC (direct current) would be used to power the huge world’s fair. In the end, Telsa’s alternating current won the match and it was used to power the World’s Columbian Exposition. 

Telsa went on to create the first hydroelectric power generator at Niagara Falls, New York. Hydroelectric means water power is used to create electricity. 

Telsa’s next big project was a huge electrical tower in Long Island, New York, which he planned to use to send radio waves all around the world. It was called the Wardenclyffe Tower. At this time a different tower was being built by Guglielmo Marconi to do a similar thing. Tesla got started on his tower, but Marconi beat him by sending a signal across the Atlantic Ocean first. This caused the people paying for Tesla’s tower to change their minds causing the project to fail.

Nikola continued to come up with new ideas, but most of his designs stayed in his notebooks and he didn’t get a chance to actually build them. 

For anyone who listened to the last Bedtime History episode about Mark Twain, you’ll be interested to know that Mark Twain and Tesla were friends. While growing up, Tesla read many of Mark Twain’s novels and so he was excited to finally meet him after moving to America. Twain was interested in Tesla’s inventions and often visited his lab and participated in experiments. He also gave him money to help with his new inventions.

Later in Nikola Tesla’s life, he won awards for his past inventions, and in 1937 when he passed away many around the world mourned his death. Someone was quoted as saying that he was “one of the outstanding intellects of the world who paved the way for many of the technological developments of modern times.”

Conclusion

Nikola faced many difficulties in his life, but he continued to learn and apply his mind to designing new things and improving the things around him. Like Tesla, you can be curious about the world around you. In school, he saw the power of electricity and wanted to learn how it worked. He found new ways to use it to improve the lives of people all over the world. Learning how to invent and improve things is a combination of learning how the forces in the world work, like physics, and what things are made up of, called chemistry — and then using creativity to apply that knowledge about the world. This is why it’s a good idea to pay attention in school and take the time outside of school to dig deeper and really understand how the world works.

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Close your eyes and imagine you’re riding a motorcycle. The air is pulling at your clothes as you go faster and faster. You round the edge of the track, then speed up to 90 then 95 miles an hour. The people watching flash by. You push harder on the gas. 100 miles an hour! The crowd stands up and cheers! For another lap around the track, you hold that speed and finally cross the finish line. Everyone congratulates you. You beat the record of the highest speed around the track! 

This is the story of motorcycle racer and engineer, Beatrice Shilling!

Birth

Beatrice Shilling was born on March 8, 1909, in Waterlooville, England. As a child, Beatrice loved mechanical things. This means she loved to understand how devices worked on the inside. Have you ever seen household items like a microwave or refrigerator or your family car and wondered how they do such amazing things? Beatrice wondered, too, so she used her extra money to buy tools to take these devices apart and figure out what made them tick. She was especially interested in engines. In her time, cars and motorcycles with engines were still very new, so these wonderful devices that made vehicles fly down the road made her very curious. Curiosity is a strong desire to know or learn something. 

When Beatrice was 14 she bought her first motorcycle and loved to ride it around. She spent many hours tinkering with the engine and figuring out ways to make it go faster. Early on Beatrice decided she wanted to be an engineer. An engineer is someone who creates devices like engines.

Electrical Engineer

After middle school, Beatrice got a job at an electrical engineering company, where she learned more about how electricity worked and was able to practice her new skills by installing wires and generators. A generator is what creates electricity and wires are what allow it to move around. Beatrice’s boss saw how talented she was and encouraged her to go to school to become an even better engineer.

Beatrice followed her advice and enrolled at the University of Manchester. In her day it was very unusual for a woman to become an engineer, but Beatrice was determined to do it anyway. She worked hard at math and the other subjects until she was able to pass all of her classes and become an even more skilled engineer. She even graduated with honors, which means she did very well in engineering school. Beatrice went on to get a Master’s Degree.

World War II

After university, Beatrice got a job with the Royal Aircraft Establishment. She had many different roles there, but eventually became a Senior Technical Officer and worked on airplane engines. At this time it was very important to be an engineer working on airplanes because England and its Allies were fighting against Germany in World War II. The German Air Force had very powerful fighter planes that were faster and therefore more dangerous than England’s fighter planes. To fight back against these powerful planes, England designed a plane they called the Spitfire, which was also fast and could maneuver quickly through the sky to dodge bullets and get in a position to fight back. But even though the Spitfire was an amazing fighter plane, it had a serious problem. When pilots flew downward too fast the engines stopped working. This was a serious problem during a dogfight. A dogfight is when planes are fighting each other in the sky. Many Spitfires crashed as a result of this problem with their engines. 

As an engineer, Beatrice was determined to solve this problem. She thought long and hard about this and finally came up with an idea to add a diaphragm and hole inside the engine that only allowed some fuel to move across it when the plane was diving. This solved the problem! Once Beatrice’s new device was added to all of the Spitfire fighter planes they were able to dive and outmaneuver the enemy planes and win more battles! Her device saved many pilots and helped win the air war against Germany.     

Motorcycle Racer

Beatrice loved to work on hard problems, but she also loved to have fun. Over the years she kept tinkering with her motorcycle and riding it fast. Her knowledge of engineering helped her have one of the fastest motorcycles around. She even started racing! She often rode her motorcycle faster than 100 miles an hour. During one race she rode around the entire track at over 100 miles an hour and earned Brookland’s Gold Star for her achievement. She broke a record and became the fastest woman racer at this track reaching 106 miles an hour. 

Beatrice married a man George Naylor, who she met while working at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, and continued to work there until she retired in 1969. Her biographer said about her: “Her idea of relaxation was to drive a fast car at full throttle, and if the car was not fast enough, her workbench was there in the back room to machine new parts to make them faster.”

Conclusion

Spend some time thinking about what drove Beatrice to accomplish what she did. First, she was curious. Everyone is born curious, we all have the desire to learn more about the world around us. But we may all be curious in different ways. What are you curious about? What do you like to ask questions about? Next time you have a question, instead of just being curious and wondering, take it a step further and try and figure out the answer. This might mean looking up a video or searching for the answer in a book or online. The more you learn, the more you’ll understand the world around you. And when you figure out one thing, you can figure out the next and you’ll continue to build your knowledge and grow and the world will become more exciting and interesting. 

And even though most girls weren’t engineers, it didn’t stop Beatrice from doing it anyway. Jobs like engineering and coding are becoming very important in our day as more and more jobs are becoming automated. Automated means being done automatically by devices like robots. This means the future will need more engineers and coders. Take the time to figure out if this is the kind of job that interests you!

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Birth

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was born in New York City on October 27th, 1858. At the time New York City was the biggest, busiest city in the United States. His father was named Theodore, too, his mother’s name was Mittie, and he had an older sister named Anna. Later a brother Elliot and then a sister, Corinne, joined their family.

Theodore’s ancestors had lived in America for almost 200 years and over time the Roosevelt Family had become very wealthy. But his father believed in using their money to help people in need. He spent much of his time helping at the many orphanages in New York City. An orphanage is a place where orphans, children who don’t have families, live until they can find a home.

Illness

Theodore is a long name, so his family started calling him “Teedie” for short. Teedie loved to play outside and was very active, but he found out very soon that he had asthma. Asthma is when it’s hard for your lungs to breathe. So when Teedie played too hard, he had to stop and take deep breaths, and often his parents made him stay inside for long periods of time, so he could start breathing again. Often, at night when he struggled to breathe his father scooped him up in his arms and carried him around, trying to soothe him. Sometimes the only thing that helped was to ride him around the city at night in their carriage, so the cold air would make his lungs work again. Theodore loved his father and later wrote that he was was “the best man [he] ever knew.” 

Early Education

Not being able to breathe frustrated Teedie, especially when he had to stay inside while his brother and sisters played outside. But while he was stuck inside, Teedie found his parent’s library and spent the time reading. He spent many hours reading books about far off places and adventures and exotic animal life. He admitted to being nervous and timid as a child, but reading about the heroes of the Revolutionary War and other battles and adventures, made him want to be strong and brave like the people he read about.     

During the summers, the Roosevelt Family moved to their summer home in Oyster Bay, Long Island. There Teedie played outside whenever he could. He loved to learn the names of the different plants and animals and often made notes about them and sometimes took them home. This caused problems when bugs and other creatures ended up inside the house!

One day while traveling through the city in a streetcar, Teedie lifted his hat and several frogs lept out of it, frightening the other passengers. Another time, he brought mice home and his mother shrieked and had to send them outside.

A Curious Mind

He wrote in notebooks about all of his findings. He drew pictures of them and labeled them. This included every type of ant, spider, ladybug, firefly, beetle, dragonfly and other specimen he found. With all of the plants, animals, and insects he collected, he started calling the space in his bedroom the Roosevelt Museum of Natural History and dreamed of creating his own science museum someday. 

Teedie also started keeping a journal about his own life. During the summer, he loved exploring, swimming, hiking, and going on long horse rides. He was small and weak and still struggled with his asthma, but didn’t let it stop him from playing as long as his body allowed him to.

Often Teedie noticed his friends and family were able to see things he couldn’t see. When they’d go hunting, they were able to hit targets he wasn’t able to see. One day, his friends were able to read letters on a sign that were just blurry to him. He told his father about this and his father found him a pair of small glasses, called spectacles. When Teedie put on the spectacles, he later wrote “they literally opened an entirely new world to me. I had no idea how beautiful the world was until I got those spectacles.” For the rest of his life, Teedie wore spectacles that clipped to the end of his nose.  

World Traveler

When Theodore was 13, his father decided to take their family on a year-long tour of Europe. He thought it would be good for everyone to get out and learn more about the world outside of the United States. Teedie was sad to leave his friends, but he kept a very detailed journal along the way. First, they visited family in England and toured ancient castles. They sailed down the Thames Rivier and toured London, then moved on to the Netherlands and Germany, where they sailed down the Rhine River. Teedie often wrote about the places they visited, but also that he was very homesick. He also had many asthma attacks and his father did everything to help him feel and breathe better. 

During the trip, they also visited Venice, Italy, the city built on stilts over the water. He was fascinated by the gondolas that transported people from building to building. He also liked visiting the Natural History museums and studying their specimens, similar to the ones he liked to collect at home. They journeyed on to Paris, France, climbed a beautiful mountain there, attended an opera, then traveled to Rome, Italy. There they met the Pope, the leader of the Catholic Church, and Teedie wrote with excitement about meeting him and kissing his hand. 

After a year of traveling, they sailed home and saw a pod of whales along the way. When Theodore saw New York in the distance, he was very excited to finally return home.

“You must make your body”

As a teenager, Teedie grew taller. He began to notice how clumsy he was. His asthma still bothered him and his father and mother continued to worry about his health. One day his father took him aside and said “Theodore, you have the mind [meaning you are very smart], but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should. You must make your body. It is hard work to make one’s body, but I know you will do it.” Basically, his father believed the only way Teedie could work through his health issues, was to exercise and make it stronger. He didn’t know if this would fix all of his health problems but hoped at least it would help.

Teedie agreed to do his best. He started visiting a gym nearby and used weights to strengthen his arms and legs. He worked out every day for many months and noticed his arm and chest muscles growing harder and stronger. His health also began to improve. Teedie also added running and swimming to his daily workout routine. During the summers, he rowed while exploring the rivers.

Boxing

One day, Theodore took a coach ride by himself to a nearby lake. Along the way, he ran into two older boys who teased him and pushed him around. Theodore tried to defend himself, but found out that even though he was stronger, he was not able to defend himself against the bullies. He told his father about it and he gave him the idea to learn how to box. Taking his advice, Theodore added boxing to his daily workout routine, a sport he practiced the rest of his life.

“Egypt, the land of my dreams”

When Theodore was 14, his father decided to take the family on another tour, but this time of the Medeterranean, the Holy Land, and Egypt. This time Teedie was actually excited to go and like the last time, took very detailed notes of their adventures. They sailed across the ocean, then travelled through Europe on a train until they reached Egypt. Teedie wrote, “How I gazed upon it! It was Egypt, the land of my dreams; Egypt the most ancient of all countries! A land that was old when Rome was bright, was old when Troy was taken! It was a sight to awaken a thousand thoughts, and it did.” 

He wrote about the street life of Alexandria, Egypt, and the many ruins of the once powerful civilization. They boarded a boat and sailed down the Nile River. Theodore marveled at the exotic birds and plant life, the zebus, kites, vultures, and zic-zacs, and water buffalo. He treated the trip as a scientific voyage to gather more data and specimens for his own Roosevelt Museum of Natural History at home. His room wherever he went became a laboratory, where he sometimes dissected animals and prepared them for the trip home. He saw himself as a scientist with a mission to know everything about the wildlife of the world around him. 

Sadly, during the trip, he still suffered some asthma attacks, but they weren’t as bad or as frequent as before.

The family ended up in Cairo, Egypt where they vacationed for a while. There he was gifted his first shotgun and spent his free time exploring the area and hunting. From Cairo, they visited Palestine and Syria and then on to Greece. Lastly, they spent time in Dresden, Germany. There they visited relatives and Theodore spent time reading in their library before finally returning home to New York again.

Later Life

Young Theodore would go on to become a senator and eventually the President of the United States with the nickname “Teddy” Roosevelt, one of the most recognized Presidents of U.S. History. But like most people, he started out as an ordinary child. Spend some time thinking about Teddy’s childhood. How is he like you? How is he different than you? Do you struggle with any of the same things as Teddy such as asthma or poor eye-sight or wishing you were stronger? 

How can you be like Teddy?

Like Teddy, you can take an interest in the world around you. He enjoyed time outdoors and investigating the plants, animals, and insects he discovered. If you think about it, the world is a pretty amazing place with all of its diversity! Diversity means difference. Have you seen trees and noticed how each has very different leaves? Have you looked at insects and noticed they each have very different features and bodies and move in very different ways? Teddy liked to collect samples of the different things he found and described them in his notebook. You could do the same! Or you could take pictures of them and create your own catalog or little museum of interesting things you find. When you’re not outside there are many great documentaries about the different plant and animal life spread across the world. 

Also, when Teddy realized he had a problem, that his body wasn’t strong, what did he do? He started exercising. By creating a plan for himself and sticking to it every day, his muscles grew stronger. He was able to run faster and do more because his body improved. What kind of exercises might you do to strengthen your body? 

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Sometimes, siblings end up leading very different lives. And sometimes, they end up needing each other more than they realize, even when they’re grown up.

Birth of William and Caroline Herschel 

William and Caroline Herschel were born into the same family, but their opportunities in life were very different. Born in Hanover, Germany in the early eighteenth century, William was 12 years older than Caroline. At the time, as you might guess, girls were expected to learn how to run households and get married. But it wasn’t just the fact that Caroline was a girl that limited her opportunities. She was also sick a lot as a child. A bout of smallpox at age four left her face scarred. At 10, she suffered a typhus infection, which stunted her growth: she only grew to a height of 4 foot 3.

All this misfortune left Caroline’s mother, Anna, sure that her youngest daughter would never be able to marry.  Anna didn’t approve of girls being educated either. That left housework. She decided Caroline would become a servant, and promptly began treating her like one. 

While Caroline learned to cook and mend stockings, her brothers went to school and learned to play musical instruments. Their father, Isaac Herschel was a member of a military band. Though he was often away from home, he didn’t share his wife’s views on education for girls. When he did come home, he would always find time to teach Caroline alongside her brothers.  He even took her out one chilly evening to show her the stars and a comet.  So she did end up with a basic education.

With her ability to read and write, Caroline helped her mother, who couldn’t do either, write letters to her father when he was away. Other military wives in their neighborhood also took advantage of her skills. Whenever she found a spare moment without any chores, she made the most of it by reading or playing the violin.

Still, Caroline felt lost and forgotten in her large family. But William always seemed to notice her and stand up for her. After their father died, he suggested that Caroline come and live with him and their brother Alexander in England. He was working as a musician in the city of Bath, and thought he might be able to train Caroline to sing in his performances. William played several instruments – violin, harpsichord, oboe- and also wrote songs and symphonies. 

Caroline had looked around for years, trying to find something other than the dull drudgery of housework she could do to support herself. She had learned how to knit and make frilly dresses and fancy hats, but her mother insisted she only do these things for family members. She had hoped to learn French so she could become a governess, caring for a wealthy family’s children. Her mother forbade it. Singing for her brother sounded like the perfect escape! William made a deal with his mother: He would pay for a servant to replace Caroline, and she would come to England to train as a singer. 

Astronomy: A New Hobby

So Caroline finally left her dreary life as the family servant behind at the age of 22. On their journey to England, she and William rode on top of their carriage at night, and he re-introduced her to the hobby their father had shared all those years ago: astronomy. William pointed out stars and constellations and told her about the telescopes he used to view them at home. They stopped at optician’s shops in London where William scoured the supply of mirrors and lenses for ones he might use to build new telescopes. 

When they arrived in Bath, things didn’t go as Caroline hoped, at least not immediately. She was frustrated to learn that she would still have to do most of the housework for her brothers. But in addition to the housework, she was learning and improving herself every day. William began tutoring her in math, bookkeeping, English, and, of course, singing. 

Caroline took two or three singing lessons each day and soon began to perform in public. After a few years, she had become famous in Bath! She got offers to sing in festivals, but she insisted on only performing when William was conducting. 

In the meantime, William was becoming more and more obsessed with his astronomy hobby. He’d stay up late, observing stars, and tell Caroline what he’d seen in the morning. Soon, Caroline became William’s astronomy assistant as well. He built a tall platform to observe from. He would yell down the positions of stars and nebulae and other celestial objects, and Caroline would record them carefully in her notebooks. Even on the coldest nights, they bundled up so they could keep watching the sky. 

Soon, Caroline was learning more advanced geometry and algebra so she could measure the distances and angles between celestial objects. She began making her own observations of the night sky. The siblings recorded every object they saw as they gazed up into the cold, dark heavens. 

Building a New Telescope

But William wasn’t satisfied with the tools he had at hand. Telescopes at the time didn’t magnify as much as he would have liked. They used small concave mirrors–think of a shallow bowl–to gather light from far off in space, then that image reflected onto another small, flat mirror that the observer looked at. But these mirrors were only a few inches across, and bigger mirrors would mean more magnification. But no one knew how to make a larger mirror that was still clear and smooth enough to create a sharp image. 

William bought his own equipment and began experimenting with creating his own mirrors. At first, Caroline was mostly responsible for making sure William had food to eat while he labored long hours on his mirrors. But soon, she began to help grind and polish the mirrors as well. It was smelly, messy work– they created molds for their mirrors out of horse poo– but after some practice, William created a better mirror: 6 inches across, polished to a perfect, smooth, uniform surface. He mounted it in a 5-foot-long telescope tube. Later, he created an even bigger mirror and built a 20-foot telescope! 

New Discoveries for William and Caroline Herschel

With their new instruments, the pair racked up thousands of discoveries. William realized that many bright stars were actually two stars that were so close together that they appeared to be one unless you looked at them through a powerful telescope. Likewise, some fuzzy objects that people once thought were nebulae turned out to be clusters of stars. Caroline discovered eight comets and thousands of new nebulae and star clusters using the better telescopes. 

In 1781, William made his most exciting discovery yet. He noticed a fuzzy object in the sky that looked a bit like a comet. But it didn’t behave like a comet. After watching it for weeks and calculating its orbit, he realized it was a planet! No one had discovered a new planet since ancient times. William decided to name the planet Georgium Sidus, or George’s Star, after the current king of England, King George the Third.

The Royal Astronomer

The name didn’t stick–eventually another scientist renamed it Uranus, after a Greek god. But King George didn’t let the compliment go unrewarded. He asked William to become the royal astronomer! William accepted, and he and Caroline moved closer to the palace. 

William even requested that Caroline be paid a salary, and King George agreed. Not only could Caroline now support herself–something she’d longed for her entire life–she also became the first woman to be paid for doing science! 

Working for the king allowed the Herschels to take on even bigger, more ambitious projects. King George gave William the money to build what would be the largest telescope ever constructed. It would have a 4-foot, one-thousand-pound mirror and be over forty feet long! That’s about the length of ten Caroline Hershcels! The telescope would have to sit on a specially designed rotating platform and would be supported by an elaborate system of scaffolding. It took 5 years to build. When it was done, they threw a party, with guests dancing in and out of the tube before it was put in place. 

William married in 1786, but unfortunately, Caroline didn’t get along with his new wife at first. After spending her entire adult life by her brother’s side, Caroline had to move out on her own as William’s wife took over running his household. But eventually, the two women seem to have mended their relations, and Caroline wrote about her in friendly terms in later journals. She became a role model and educator for their son, John, shaping him into a first-rate astronomer in his own right. 

Caroline kept herself busy with her own astronomical projects as well. She created a catalog of all known stars. An astronomer named John Flamsteed had created a catalog years earlier, but Caroline’s would correct many errors and add more than 500 new stars. The Royal Astronomical Society in London published her work in 1798. 

Royal Astronomical Society

William passed away in 1822. Caroline was devastated by the loss of her brother, but kept on studying the night sky, carefully recording every detail. She and William’s son, John, worked together to catalog their observations. Eventually, she moved back to Germany. She was famous and respected for her work. The Royal Astronomical Society in London and the King of Prussia–now part of Germany–presented her with gold medals. She lived until the age of 97, and died peacefully in her sleep in her hometown of Hanover.  

Together, William and Caroline discovered over 2,000 objects in space – asteroids, comets, nebulae, and star clusters. William’s gravestone has the Latin words Coelorum perrupit claustra engraved on it–”He broke through the barriers of the heavens.” Not only did he break through the barriers of the heavens, he made sure his sister was able to break through with him. Caroline saw that knowledge could help her leave behind a life of drudgery and housework if only someone would share it with her. William saw that his sister was smart and capable, and refused to let her talents go to waste. 

Together, William and Caroline changed how people viewed the universe, and opened many eyes to its wonders. And together, these siblings did more than either one could do alone!

Sources

https://www.sciencehistory.org/distillations/magazine/a-giant-of-astronomy

https://scientificwomen.net/women/herschel-caroline-43

https://www.space.com/18704-who-discovered-uranus.html

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/herschel/memoir/memoir.html 

Krull, Kathleen (2013) Lives of the Scientists: Experiments, Explosions (and what the Neighbors Thought). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York.

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