80 Years Ago in West & North Europe

A brilliant inventor and salesman, Rudolf Diesel made a poor businessman. His "diesel" engine, first made in 1895, was more efficient than either gasoline or coal-fired steam powered engines. Diesel lost all of his fortune on bad investments and disappeared off a ship in the English Channel in 1913, presumably a suicide. Along with the gasoline engine, the diesel was part of a transportation and energy revolution that would rapidly see the industrialized world become dependent on oil fuels instead of coal.

In 1905, the German journal, Annalen der Physik (Annals of Physics), published three original articles by Albert Einstein, including the famous paper on the special theory of relativity. The essential basis of the theory was the new idea that the speed light was constant, never changing, regardless of the speed of the source of the light. It also meant that the dimensions of space were no longer considered constant, but varied relative to the speed of light. Thus, vast distances through space are now measured according to the speed of light in units called light years (the distance it takes light to travel over one earth year). The main practical result of the new theory was mass and energy were convertible, that mass could be converted into energy, as summarized by the now equally famous mathematical formula, E=mc2.

The launch of the British battleship Dreadnought in 1906 had almost as much impact on military technology as the atomic bomb would have 40 years later. Using ultra-modern steam turbine engines (replacing the much less efficient piston engines) and new gun technology, the new warship made all other warships obsolete literally overnight. A race began between the major powers to build fleets of the new "dreadnoughts"--as all such new battleships were called. The race between Britain and Germany soured relations between the two countries and this was one important factor leading to the outbreak of the First World War.

Established by and named after the Swedish millionaire, Alfred Nobel, a woman who is almost forgotten also played a key role in the creation of the Nobel peace prize. Bertha von Suttner, from Austria, was a leading pacifist around 1900, having written an anti-war book that was a best seller in 1889. She worked for a time as Nobel's secretary. He had made his wealth from the manufacture and sale of explosives, but Suttner influenced Nobel to create an award for those people who worked for peace. In 1905, Suttner herself became the first woman to win the prize. She died in 1914, just before the outbreak of the First World War.