November 24, 2023 • 11 mins
On this day in 1914, physical therapist and inventor Bessie Blount was born.
On this day in 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman recorded the first European sighting of the island now known as Tasmania.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey there, history fans. We're taking a break to stay
ahead of the holidays, but we've got plenty of classic
shows to keep you busy.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hey everyone, welcome to the podcast. I'm Eves and you're
listening to This Day in History Class, a podcast that
really takes to heart the phrase you learn something new
every day. The day was November twenty fourth, nineteen fourteen.
(00:29):
Bessie Blunt was born in Hickory, Virginia. Blunt was a
physical therapist and inventor who created tools and devices to
help people with physical disabilities. Bessie's parents were George Woodard
and Mary Elizabeth Griffin. She went to Digg's Chapel Elementary School,
a school that was built after the Civil War for
(00:49):
the children of formerly enslaved people and Native Americans. She
said that at the school, black kids learned how to
read by reading verses out of the Bible. She was
left handed, but one of her teachers would beat her
on her knuckles for writing with her left hand. She
figured that quote, if it was wrong to write with
my left hand, then it was wrong to write with
(01:10):
my right hand. So she taught herself to write with her.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Teeth and feet.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Her family moved to New Jersey, where Bessie studied nursing
at Kenney Memorial Hospital and attended Panzer College a physical education.
After she graduated from Panzer, she studied physical therapy at
Union Junior College. Once she became a practicing physical therapist,
she worked at veterans' hospitals where she taught soldiers who
(01:36):
lost limbs or didn't have use of their limbs new
ways to perform tasks. She taught them how to write
with their teeth and feet, and she designed inventions that
would help the veterans with tasks that could not be
compensated for with physical therapy. One of those inventions was
a device that helped people who were unable to use
their limbs to reach their mouth eat on their own.
(01:59):
She spent ten developing her first design of this device,
and after about four years of further development, she created
a working model made of stainless steel. One bite of
food at a time was delivered through a tube. A
patient would then bite down on the tube, which activated
a motor, and dispense that bite of food through the mouthpiece.
(02:19):
The device shut down between bites so the patient would
have time to chew the food. The chief medical director
of the Veterans Administration told her the feeding device was
impractical and that hand feeding was preferred. Medical supply companies
were not buying into her device, so she donated the
patent rights to the French government in nineteen fifty one.
(02:41):
The French government was interested in using the device in
military hospitals, but also designed another feeding device, which was
made up of a tube attached to a dish that
was connected to a brace that a person wore around
their neck. In nineteen fifty three, she appeared on a
television show about inventions called The Big Idea. She went
(03:02):
on to work as a caretaker for the mother in
law of Theodore Edison, son of inventor Thomas Edison, and
she designed more inventions, like a kidney shaped vomit basin
made out of paper mache. The invention wasn't picked up
in the US, but the Belgian government took interest in it,
and the basins are still used in Belgian hospitals today.
(03:22):
In nineteen sixty nine, Blunt switched career paths, turning to
forensic science. She became a handwriting analyst and published a
paper on medical graphology, or the study of handwriting. She
detected forded documents for the Violent Police Department in New
Jersey and for police departments in Virginia. She applied to
work in the FBI and was turned down, but in
(03:45):
nineteen seventy seven she took an advanced studies course in
the document division at Scotland Yard. She's believed to be
the first black American woman to train and work at
Scotland Yard. In her later years, Blunt continued to do
freelance forensic work, and she authenticated documents for museums. She
also worked as a consultant in law enforcement investigations. Blunt
(04:08):
died in New Jersey in December of two thousand and nine.
I'm Eve Stefcote and hopefully you know a little more
about history today than you did yesterday. Keep up with
us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDIHC podcast, or
if you want to get a little more fancy, you
can send us an email at This Day at iHeartMedia
(04:31):
dot com. Thanks for listening. We'll see you again tomorrow
with another episode.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Hello, and welcome to This Day in History Class, a
show that discovers something new about history every I'm Gabe Luzier,
and in this episode we're talking about the time when
a European explorer got lost while searching for a mythical
land and wound up finding the island of Tasmania instead.
(05:21):
The day was November twenty fourth, sixteen forty two. Dutch
explorer Abel Tasman recorded the first European sighting of the
island now known as Tasmania. He noted the discovery and
his journal entry for that day, writing quote, in the afternoon,
(05:42):
about four o'clock we saw land bearing east by north
of us at about ten miles distance. The land we
sighted was very high. The next day the crew sailed
along the shoreline and Tasman gave the island a new name.
He didn't name it after himself, though that came later. Instead,
(06:03):
Tasman named it after the man who had financed their expedition,
the Governor General of the powerful trade hub known as
the Dutch East India Company. He marked the occasion in
his journal, writing quote, this land, being the first land
we have met with in the South Sea and not
known to any European nation, we have conferred on it
(06:25):
the name of Anthony van Damon's Land, in honor of
the honorable Governor General, Our illustrious master who sent us
to make this discovery. In the weeks ahead, Tasman and
his crew would also discover the island of staten Land
better known today as New Zealand, as well as Fiji, Tonga,
(06:47):
and several other Pacific islands. These were big discoveries in
their own right, but they weren't what Tasman had been
sent to find. His true mission was to explore a
mysterious southern land known as Tara Australis aka Australia, which
was still largely unknown to Europeans by sixteen forty two.
(07:10):
Dutch explorers knew there was some kind of large land
mass somewhere far to the south, but no one had
ever mapped or explored it. This uncertainty made the Southern
continent into a kind of legendary land. Some geographers of
the era went a little wild with their speculation. They
(07:31):
suggested that Terra Australis might be a massive stretch of
dry ground that covered the entire lower half of the globe. This,
they argued, would almost have to be the case, because
how else could the southern hemisphere counterbalance the northern one.
In the end, they misjudged the size of Australia just
(07:53):
a little and Abel Tasman didn't end up finding the
mainland until a second trip two years later. The annoying
part is he came incredibly close to finding it the
first time. By early December, Tasman was just about two
hundred miles south of what's now Victoria, Australia. If it
(08:13):
weren't for bad weather, he could have kept sailing north
and bumped right into it instead. A full picture of
the southern continent wouldn't come into focus until over a
century later, when British sailors found what other explorers had
just missed. But even without a sighting of Australia, Tasman's
(08:34):
first voyage was still eventful. After he and his crew
cited Tasmania on November twenty fourth, they spent the next
week exploring the island's southern coast as they dodged bad
weather and searched for a safe place to land. On
December first, they finally laid anchor and spent the next
few days exploring the island interior. The crew was grateful
(08:57):
to find fresh water and edible plants, which Tasman described
as quote refreshments for our own Behoof. During their time
on the island, they reported hearing voices and seeing rising
smoke and other signs of human life, but they never
actually met the indigenous people of Van Damon's land. Still,
(09:18):
even without a true encounter, Tasman's reporting on the inhabitants
effectively ended their fourteen thousand year isolation streak. It must
have been nice while it lasted. Abel Tasman definitely got
a bit turned around while searching for Terra Australis, but
he still managed to make some notable discoveries. For Europe.
(09:40):
He charted hundreds of miles of coastline, helped fill in
some blank spots on the map, and pretty much disproved
the idea of a dry super continent that wraps all
around the globe. Sadly, his patrons at the Dutch East
India Company didn't see it that way. Since Tasman had
and established any new trade routes or trading posts, the
(10:04):
company considered his voyages a flop, including his later expedition
where he actually made it to the northern coastline of
present day Australia. Too little, too late, apparently. As for
the island he accidentally discovered on that day in late November.
It was eventually colonized by the British in the early
nineteenth century. The colonists kept the name Van Damon's Land,
(10:28):
but it was subsequently changed after the island became self
governing in the mid eighteen fifties. By that time, the
British military had nearly wiped out the Aboriginal inhabitants of
the island. The old name had become synonymous with those atrocities,
so the decision was made to rename it Tasmania. It
(10:50):
was a tribute to the island's first visitor, the one
who came and left in peace, and who first put
the island on the map for better or were. I'm
Gabe Luesier and hopefully you now know a little more
about history today than you did yesterday. If you'd like
to keep up with the show, you can follow us
(11:11):
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC Show and
if you have any comments or suggestions you can send
them my way at this Day at iHeartMedia dot com.
Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank
you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow
for another Day in History class.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey there, history fans. We're taking a break to stay
ahead of the holidays, but we've got plenty of classic
shows to keep you busy.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hey everyone, welcome to the podcast. I'm Eves and you're
listening to This Day in History Class, a podcast that
really takes to heart the phrase you learn something new
every day. The day was November twenty fourth, nineteen fourteen.
(00:29):
Bessie Blunt was born in Hickory, Virginia. Blunt was a
physical therapist and inventor who created tools and devices to
help people with physical disabilities. Bessie's parents were George Woodard
and Mary Elizabeth Griffin. She went to Digg's Chapel Elementary School,
a school that was built after the Civil War for
(00:49):
the children of formerly enslaved people and Native Americans. She
said that at the school, black kids learned how to
read by reading verses out of the Bible. She was
left handed, but one of her teachers would beat her
on her knuckles for writing with her left hand. She
figured that quote, if it was wrong to write with
my left hand, then it was wrong to write with
(01:10):
my right hand. So she taught herself to write with her.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Teeth and feet.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Her family moved to New Jersey, where Bessie studied nursing
at Kenney Memorial Hospital and attended Panzer College a physical education.
After she graduated from Panzer, she studied physical therapy at
Union Junior College. Once she became a practicing physical therapist,
she worked at veterans' hospitals where she taught soldiers who
(01:36):
lost limbs or didn't have use of their limbs new
ways to perform tasks. She taught them how to write
with their teeth and feet, and she designed inventions that
would help the veterans with tasks that could not be
compensated for with physical therapy. One of those inventions was
a device that helped people who were unable to use
their limbs to reach their mouth eat on their own.
(01:59):
She spent ten developing her first design of this device,
and after about four years of further development, she created
a working model made of stainless steel. One bite of
food at a time was delivered through a tube. A
patient would then bite down on the tube, which activated
a motor, and dispense that bite of food through the mouthpiece.
(02:19):
The device shut down between bites so the patient would
have time to chew the food. The chief medical director
of the Veterans Administration told her the feeding device was
impractical and that hand feeding was preferred. Medical supply companies
were not buying into her device, so she donated the
patent rights to the French government in nineteen fifty one.
(02:41):
The French government was interested in using the device in
military hospitals, but also designed another feeding device, which was
made up of a tube attached to a dish that
was connected to a brace that a person wore around
their neck. In nineteen fifty three, she appeared on a
television show about inventions called The Big Idea. She went
(03:02):
on to work as a caretaker for the mother in
law of Theodore Edison, son of inventor Thomas Edison, and
she designed more inventions, like a kidney shaped vomit basin
made out of paper mache. The invention wasn't picked up
in the US, but the Belgian government took interest in it,
and the basins are still used in Belgian hospitals today.
(03:22):
In nineteen sixty nine, Blunt switched career paths, turning to
forensic science. She became a handwriting analyst and published a
paper on medical graphology, or the study of handwriting. She
detected forded documents for the Violent Police Department in New
Jersey and for police departments in Virginia. She applied to
work in the FBI and was turned down, but in
(03:45):
nineteen seventy seven she took an advanced studies course in
the document division at Scotland Yard. She's believed to be
the first black American woman to train and work at
Scotland Yard. In her later years, Blunt continued to do
freelance forensic work, and she authenticated documents for museums. She
also worked as a consultant in law enforcement investigations. Blunt
(04:08):
died in New Jersey in December of two thousand and nine.
I'm Eve Stefcote and hopefully you know a little more
about history today than you did yesterday. Keep up with
us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDIHC podcast, or
if you want to get a little more fancy, you
can send us an email at This Day at iHeartMedia
(04:31):
dot com. Thanks for listening. We'll see you again tomorrow
with another episode.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Hello, and welcome to This Day in History Class, a
show that discovers something new about history every I'm Gabe Luzier,
and in this episode we're talking about the time when
a European explorer got lost while searching for a mythical
land and wound up finding the island of Tasmania instead.
(05:21):
The day was November twenty fourth, sixteen forty two. Dutch
explorer Abel Tasman recorded the first European sighting of the
island now known as Tasmania. He noted the discovery and
his journal entry for that day, writing quote, in the afternoon,
(05:42):
about four o'clock we saw land bearing east by north
of us at about ten miles distance. The land we
sighted was very high. The next day the crew sailed
along the shoreline and Tasman gave the island a new name.
He didn't name it after himself, though that came later. Instead,
(06:03):
Tasman named it after the man who had financed their expedition,
the Governor General of the powerful trade hub known as
the Dutch East India Company. He marked the occasion in
his journal, writing quote, this land, being the first land
we have met with in the South Sea and not
known to any European nation, we have conferred on it
(06:25):
the name of Anthony van Damon's Land, in honor of
the honorable Governor General, Our illustrious master who sent us
to make this discovery. In the weeks ahead, Tasman and
his crew would also discover the island of staten Land
better known today as New Zealand, as well as Fiji, Tonga,
(06:47):
and several other Pacific islands. These were big discoveries in
their own right, but they weren't what Tasman had been
sent to find. His true mission was to explore a
mysterious southern land known as Tara Australis aka Australia, which
was still largely unknown to Europeans by sixteen forty two.
(07:10):
Dutch explorers knew there was some kind of large land
mass somewhere far to the south, but no one had
ever mapped or explored it. This uncertainty made the Southern
continent into a kind of legendary land. Some geographers of
the era went a little wild with their speculation. They
(07:31):
suggested that Terra Australis might be a massive stretch of
dry ground that covered the entire lower half of the globe. This,
they argued, would almost have to be the case, because
how else could the southern hemisphere counterbalance the northern one.
In the end, they misjudged the size of Australia just
(07:53):
a little and Abel Tasman didn't end up finding the
mainland until a second trip two years later. The annoying
part is he came incredibly close to finding it the
first time. By early December, Tasman was just about two
hundred miles south of what's now Victoria, Australia. If it
(08:13):
weren't for bad weather, he could have kept sailing north
and bumped right into it instead. A full picture of
the southern continent wouldn't come into focus until over a
century later, when British sailors found what other explorers had
just missed. But even without a sighting of Australia, Tasman's
(08:34):
first voyage was still eventful. After he and his crew
cited Tasmania on November twenty fourth, they spent the next
week exploring the island's southern coast as they dodged bad
weather and searched for a safe place to land. On
December first, they finally laid anchor and spent the next
few days exploring the island interior. The crew was grateful
(08:57):
to find fresh water and edible plants, which Tasman described
as quote refreshments for our own Behoof. During their time
on the island, they reported hearing voices and seeing rising
smoke and other signs of human life, but they never
actually met the indigenous people of Van Damon's land. Still,
(09:18):
even without a true encounter, Tasman's reporting on the inhabitants
effectively ended their fourteen thousand year isolation streak. It must
have been nice while it lasted. Abel Tasman definitely got
a bit turned around while searching for Terra Australis, but
he still managed to make some notable discoveries. For Europe.
(09:40):
He charted hundreds of miles of coastline, helped fill in
some blank spots on the map, and pretty much disproved
the idea of a dry super continent that wraps all
around the globe. Sadly, his patrons at the Dutch East
India Company didn't see it that way. Since Tasman had
and established any new trade routes or trading posts, the
(10:04):
company considered his voyages a flop, including his later expedition
where he actually made it to the northern coastline of
present day Australia. Too little, too late, apparently. As for
the island he accidentally discovered on that day in late November.
It was eventually colonized by the British in the early
nineteenth century. The colonists kept the name Van Damon's Land,
(10:28):
but it was subsequently changed after the island became self
governing in the mid eighteen fifties. By that time, the
British military had nearly wiped out the Aboriginal inhabitants of
the island. The old name had become synonymous with those atrocities,
so the decision was made to rename it Tasmania. It
(10:50):
was a tribute to the island's first visitor, the one
who came and left in peace, and who first put
the island on the map for better or were. I'm
Gabe Luesier and hopefully you now know a little more
about history today than you did yesterday. If you'd like
to keep up with the show, you can follow us
(11:11):
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC Show and
if you have any comments or suggestions you can send
them my way at this Day at iHeartMedia dot com.
Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thank
you for listening. I'll see you back here again tomorrow
for another Day in History class.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
This Day in History Class News
Host
Gabe Luzier
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