Little known is that the history of the rubber hose is also the history of discovering and producing latex for countless industrial uses, large and small, across nearly five centuries. Now, more than 4 million tons of natural rubber and 7 million tons of synthetic rubber are produced throughout the world. But before our current age of mass production, rubber was known to indigenous peoples in the Americas, especially in the Amazon, prior to the entrance of Europeans in the fifteenth century. Who knew that before our modern age shoes, balls, and handmade waterproof buckets were three utilitarian objects crafted from rubber? Later by the eighteenth century, interest in the properties of latex by one Charles de la Condamine in Peru led to the first scientific report on the subject, ushering in our modern fascination and scientific experimentation with the raw material. Around the same time, Pierre Joseph Macquer of Paris, author of the first chemical dictionary, followed up on Codamine's research, discovering that the substance could be fashioned into tubes.
It wasn't until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, however, that rubber and especially the advent of rubber hoses for broad use in firefighting, the automobile industry, and the medical field came to prominence. 1821 saw the first patent for fire hoses by James Boyd of Boston, Massachusetts. That first behemoth weighed nearly eighty-five pounds but replaced leather hoses of yore, which had been prone to splitting and cracking under intense water pressure. Boyd's invention was made with a cotton web lined with rubber, a rudimentary method with basic principals that are still broadly applicable now. Only twenty years later, when B.F. Goodrich discovered how to vulcanize rubber in the 1840s, helping it to withstand extreme temperatures, he expanded the possibilities of rubber as a protective surface and vessel. In the next five years, the rubber band was also patented. Only years later, the rubber industry boomed in Brazil where rubber trees were extracted of their raw latex. To accommodate this growth, their seeds were sent to Africa and Southeast Asia by way of London where large scale production commenced and still carries on today. Throughout, the material had been used in making pneumatic tires and textured tread for horse-drawn carriages. As we now know, cars adopted this same technology, which helped passengers from feeling the vibrations of the road. As with many other industries, war produced the circumstances for an even wider use of raw substances such as latex. Blood transfusions with latex tubes arose with WWI alongside oxygen breathing systems in aeronautics, whereas naval boats used the rubber hose for fueling at sea by WWII. Hydraulic systems large and small, from heavy machinery to dishwashers, continue to rely on the rubber hose for transporting pressurized fluids, making rubber components ubiquitous in a plethora of machinery. It wouldn't be an overstatement to say that it is one of the most important and diversely-used materials of our age.
Do you know? One in ten of us has a phobia of flying, and it's not really the flying that's the problem. It's the prospect of the plane falling out of the sky. It's the idea of plummeting to our deaths. Flying is the safest way to travel, but still, some people can't help but break out in a cold sweat whenever they think of boarding an airplane. For the deadliest plane crash in history, the great irony was that this horrifying accident didn't involve the planes to fall out of the sky - it happened on the ground. On March 27, 1977, two Boeing 747 passenger jets, the KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736, collided on a foggy runway at Los Rodeos Airport, on the Spanish island of Tenerife, Canary Islands, killing 583 people. During that time, the Boeing 747 airplane model was only in its eighth year of service. But it was already the biggest, most influential, and the most glamorous commercial jetliner ever built!
In fact, up to this very day, the Boeing 747 is still considered the most popular airplane in history. Due to the bomb explosion at Gran Canaria Airport, where two jumbo Boeing jets (one belonging to KLM, and the other to Pan Am) were supposed to land, the aircrafts were asked to land at Los Rodeos Airport instead. There were other diverted aircrafts already parked at that airport. The Los Rodeos Airport is small, and only has one airstrip. Air traffic control was not used to serving many aircrafts, let alone jumbo jets. KLM Captain Jacob Van Zanten, decided to offload his passengers so they can wait inside the terminal. The pilots of KLM were very anxious, and concerned. Their company has a new policy which prevents them from exceeding the company flying time limit. Unless the Gran Canaria Airport, their original destination, reopens soon, they will exceed their limit. If that happens, the flight will be cancelled, a new set of pilots will be flown in from Amsterdam, passengers would have to be given hotel and food accommodations, and on top of that, they might lose their licenses.
They wanted no further delays. And so to make use of the time stuck there, pilots of KLM decided to refuel, to avoid wasting time in Gran Canaria. Several minutes later, while they were still refueling, the Gran Canaria Airport was finally reopened. At last! They were on track. Captain Van Zanten of the KLM plane orders all his passengers on board. But they still have to wait until the aircraft finishes refueling. The Pan Am plane was just behind them, and the pilots were also eager to leave. But they can't. The KLM jumbo, located on the same taxiway was blocking the way. Refueling 55,000 liters took approximately 30 minutes. But even after the KLM plane was done, there's still a delay. Without explanation, the Spanish authorities forced the planes to sit on the tarmac for nearly 2 more hours. Four minutes to 5pm, KLM Senior Pilot requested permission to taxi.