upcoming events
Book Signing with Fellow Children’s Book Authors
Date: Sunday, April 26, 2009
Time: 1 to 3 p.m.
Location: Barnes & Noble NorthPark Mall
Davenport, Iowa
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Speaker on a Panel, “Nonfiction Book Blast: Booktalks for Reluctant Readers”
Date: Sunday, July 12, 2009
Time: 10:30 to 12 Noon
Location: ALA 2009 Annual Conference
Chicago, Illinois
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The Book
Timeline
| About 280 B.C. | The world’s first lighthouse, Pharos, completed |
| About A.D. 50 | Romans complete harbor at Ostia, including lighthouse |
| 869 | Lighted pagoda helps mark entrance to harbor in Shanghai, China |
| 1157 | Italians build lighthouse at Meloria |
| 1669 | Reflectors used in Swedish lighthouse |
| 1698 | First tower at Eddystone in England lighted |
| 1699 | Eddystone tower rebuilt and improved |
| 1708 | Third lighthouse at Eddystone lighted |
| 1716 | Lighthouse in Boston Harbor lighted |
| 1719 | First fog signal in colonial America used at Boston Harbor |
| 1731 | World’s first lightship put in service in England |
| 1759 | Smeaton’s Eddystone tower lighted |
| 1769 | First twin lights in United States established at Plymouth, Massachusetts |
| 1781 | First flashing light in a lighthouse installed in Sweden
Aimé Argand develops new type of oil lamp about this time |
| 1788 | First range lights in United States built at Plum Island, Massachusetts |
| 1789 | Ninth Act of Congress puts federal government in charge of lighthouses |
| 1792 | Lighthouse at Cape Henry, Virginia, begins operating |
| 1798 | Highland Light (Massachusetts) is first flashing light in United States |
| 1812 | Winslow Lewis sells U.S. government patent for oil lamps |
| 1818 | First lighthouse on Great Lakes completed at Buffalo, New York |
| 1820 | First use of fog bell in United States Stephen Pleasonton takes charge of U.S. lighthouses First lightship in United States in service on Chesapeake Bay |
| 1822 | Augustin Fresnel invents Fresnel lens |
| 1841 | First Fresnel lens installed in United States at Navesink, New Jersey |
| 1848 | First screw pile lighthouse in United States built in Delaware Bay |
| 1851 | First Minot’s Ledge Lighthouse in Massachusetts collapses Congress appoints commission to study state of lighthouses |
| 1852 | Stephen Pleasonton loses job; Lighthouse Board takes over |
| 1854 | First lighthouse on West Coast starts operatingon Alcatraz Island (California) |
| 1855 | Construction begins on second lighthouse at Minot’s Ledge |
| 1869 | First steam-powered fog signals used in United States |
| 1877 | U.S. lighthouses begin to use kerosene |
| 1882 | Smeaton’s Eddystone tower replaced |
| 1887 | First pneumatic caisson lighthouse in United States built |
| 1907 | Gustaf Dalén invents sun valve |
| 1910 | Lighthouse Board dissolved; U.S. Bureau of Lighthouses (known as the Lighthouse Service) formed |
| 1939 | U.S. Lighthouse Service merges with Coast Guard |
| 1968 | Coast Guard starts Lighthouse Automation and Modernization Program (LAMP) |
| 1983 | Last U.S. lightship removed from service |
| 2000 | National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act passed |
| 2005 | Hurricane Katrina destroys three lighthouses; damages others |
