July 17, 1973 – Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act

Spiro Agnew

After three years of years of contentious congressional debate, legal challenges from environmental groups and Alaska native claims, Vice President Spiro Agnew breaks the deadlocked 49-49 vote in the U.S. Senate. His deciding vote passes the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act.

Construction will begin in March 1975 on the 789-mile pipeline system, the largest private construction project in American history. Oil from the Prudhoe Bay oilfield will begin flowing to the port of Valdez in June 1977. Budgeted at $900 million, the pipeline ultimately costs about $8 billion to construct. Oil production tax revenues will earn Alaska $50 billion by 2002.

July 19, 1915 – Gasoline powers Washing Machines and Grass Cutters

One-cylinder, air cooled, two-cycle engines could run on gasoline, kerosene or alcohol.

Howard F. Snyder applies to patent his internal combustion-powered washing machine, assigning rights to the Maytag Company of Newton, Iowa. His invention is targeted “to the ordinary farmer” who does not have access to electricity.

Snyder’s washing machine uses a one-cylinder, air cooled, two-cycle engine that can run on gasoline, kerosene or alcohol. It provides “an assembled machine and power plant so constructed and arranged as to be compact, simple and economical.”

Four years after Snyder’s innovation, Edwin George of Detroit removes the Maytag engine from his wife’s washing machine, mates it with a reel-type lawn mower, and launches a new company, “Moto-Mower,” selling America’s first commercially successful power mower. Read the rest of this entry »