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On This Day | February 1

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2013
The Shard opened

The Shard, also referred to as the Shard London Bridge and formerly London Bridge Tower, is a 72-storey skyscraper, designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, in Southwark, London, that forms part of The Shard Quarter development. Standing 309.6 metres (1,016 feet) high, The Shard is the tallest building in the United Kingdom, and the seventh-tallest building in Europe. It is also the second-tallest free-standing structure in the United Kingdom, after the concrete tower of the Emley Moor transmitting station.

1974
Commodore Barry Bridge opened

The Commodore Barry Bridge is a cantilever bridge that spans the Delaware River from Chester, Pennsylvania to Bridgeport, New Jersey, in Logan Township. It is named after John Barry, an American Revolutionary War hero and Philadelphia resident. Along with the Betsy Ross Bridge, the Benjamin Franklin Bridge and the Walt Whitman Bridge, the Commodore Barry Bridge is one of the four toll bridges connecting the metropolitan Philadelphia region with southern New Jersey owned by the Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA). It has a total length of 13,912 feet (4,240 m), and a main span of 1,644 feet (501 m), making the bridge the fourth longest cantilever bridge in the world, and the longest in the United States.

1935
Hoover dam: Filling of Lake Mead began

Lake Mead is a reservoir formed by Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in the Southwestern United States. It is located in the states of Nevada and Arizona, 24 mi (39 km) east of Las Vegas. It is the largest reservoir in the US in terms of water capacity. Lake Mead provides water to the states of Arizona, California, and Nevada as well as some of Mexico, providing sustenance to nearly 20 million people and large areas of farmland. At maximum capacity, Lake Mead is 112 miles (180 km) long, 532 feet (162 m) at its greatest depth, has a surface elevation of 1,229 feet (375 m) above sea level, has a surface area of 247 square miles (640 km2), and contains 28.23 million acre-feet (34.82 km3) of water.

1903
Sir George Stokes, 1st Baronet died

Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet, was an Irish physicist and mathematician. Born in County Sligo, Ireland, Stokes spent all of his career at the University of Cambridge, where he was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics from 1849 until his death in 1903. As a physicist, Stokes made seminal contributions to fluid mechanics, including the Navier-Stokes equations; and to physical optics, with notable works on polarization and fluorescence. As a mathematician, he popularised "Stokes' theorem" in vector calculus and contributed to the theory of asymptotic expansions. Stokes, along with Felix Hoppe-Seyler, first demonstrated the oxygen transport function of haemoglobin, and showed colour changes produced by the aeration of haemoglobin solutions.

1860
Staten Island Railway opened

The Staten Island Railway (SIR) is a rapid transit line in the New York City borough of Staten Island. SIR operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, providing local service between St. George and Tottenville, along the east side of the island. There is currently only one line on the island, and there is no direct rail link between the SIR and the New York City Subway system, but SIR riders do receive a free transfer to New York City Transit bus and subway lines, and the line is included on official New York City Subway maps. Commuters on the railway typically use the Staten Island Ferry to reach Manhattan. The line is accessible from within the Ferry Terminal, and most of its trains are timed to connect with the ferry. In 2022, the system had a ridership of 3,757,700.

1809
Peter W. Barlow was born

Peter William Barlow was an English civil engineer, particularly associated with railways, bridges , the design of tunnels and the development of tunnelling techniques. In 1864 he patented a design for a cylindrical tunnelling shield.

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