This Day in History: Dec 22, 1900: First "Mercedes" is delivered to its buyer

On this day in 1900, the first car to be produced under the "Mercedes" name is delivered to its buyer: Emil Jellinek, the Austrian car racer, auto dealer to the rich and famous, and bon vivant. Jellinek had commissioned the Mercedes car from the German company Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft. It was faster, lighter, and sleeker than any car the company had ever made before, and Jellinek was confident that it would win races so handily that besotted buyers would snap it up. (He was so confident that he bought 36 of them, paying D-M-G 550,000 marks in all.) In exchange for his extraordinary patronage, the company agreed to name its new machine after Jellinek's 11-year-old daughter, Mercedes.

In 1886, the German engineers Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach had built one of the world's first "horseless carriages": literally, their vehicle was a four-wheeled carriage with an engine bolted to it. In 1889, the two men built the world's first four-wheeled automobile powered by a four-stroke engine. They formed Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft the next year.

In 1896, Emil Jellinek saw an ad for the D-M-G auto in a German magazine. Jellinek was a rich tobacco trader and banker with a passion for fast (of course, "fast" was a relative term), flashy cars. As the story goes, Jellinek traveled to D-M-G's Cannstatt factory, charged onto the factory floor (wearing a pith helmet, pince-nez, mutton-chop sideburns and a luxurious moustache), and demanded the most spectacular car the company had. The first of his D-M-G cars was sturdy, but it could only go 15 miles per hour—not even close to fast enough for Jellinek.

In 1898, he ordered two more cars, stipulating that they be able to go at least 10 miles per hour faster than the first one could. Daimler complied; the result was the eight-horsepower Phoenix. Jellinek was impressed enough with his new cars that he began to sell them to his friends: 10 in 1899, 29 in 1900. At the same time, he needed a racing car that could go even faster than the Phoenix. Jellinek went back to D-M-G with a business proposition: if it would build him the world's best speedster (and name it the Mercedes), he would buy 36 of them.

The new Mercedes car introduced the aluminum crankcase, magnalium bearings and the pressed-steel frame, a new kind of coil-spring clutch and the honeycomb radiator (essentially the same one that today's Mercedes use). It was longer, wider, and lower than the Phoenix and had better brakes. Also, a mechanic could convert the new Mercedes from a two-seat racer to a four-seat family car in just a few minutes.
The new car was a hit. In 1902, the company legally registered the Mercedes brand mane, and in 1903, Emil Jellinek legally changed his own name to Jellinek-Mercedes.

This Day in History: Dec 21, 1988: Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over Scotland

On this day in 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes in midair over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members aboard, as well as 11 Lockerbie residents on the ground. A bomb hidden inside an audio cassette player detonated in the cargo area when the plane was at an altitude of 31,000 feet. The disaster, which became the subject of Britain's largest criminal investigation, was believed to be an attack against the United States. One hundred eighty nine of the victims were American.

Islamic terrorists were accused of planting the bomb on the plane while it was at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany. Authorities suspected the attack was in retaliation for either the 1986 U.S. air strikes against Libya, in which leader Muammar al-Qaddafi's young daughter was killed along with dozens of other people, or a 1988 incident, in which the U.S. mistakenly shot down an Iran Air commercial flight over the Persian Gulf, killing 290 people.

Sixteen days before the explosion over Lockerbie, the U.S. embassy in Helsinki, Finland, received a call warning that a bomb would be placed on a Pan Am flight out of Frankfurt. There is controversy over how seriously the U.S. took the threat and whether travelers should have been alerted, but officials later said that the connection between the call and the bomb was coincidental.

In 1991, following a joint investigation by the British authorities and the F.B.I., Libyan intelligence agents Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah were indicted for murder; however, Libya refused to hand over the suspects to the U.S. Finally, in 1999, in an effort to ease United Nations sanctions against his country, Qaddafi agreed to turn over the two men to Scotland for trial in the Netherlands using Scottish law and prosecutors. In early 2001, al-Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison and Fhimah was acquitted.

In 2003, Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing, but didn't express remorse. The U.N. and U.S. lifted sanctions against Libya and Libya agreed to pay each victim's family approximately $8 million in restitution. In 2004, Libya's prime minister said that the deal was the "price for peace," implying that his country only took responsibility to get the sanctions lifted, a statement that infuriated the victims' families. Pan Am Airlines, which went bankrupt three years after the bombing, sued Libya and later received a $30 million settlement.

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Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over Scotland, 1988

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Automotive

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Civil War

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Cold War

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Crime

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Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over Lockerbie, Scotland, 1988

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General Interest

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Sports

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Vietnam War

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World War I

Sir William Robertson is appointed chief of the Imperial General Staff, 1915

World War II

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This Day in History: Dec 20, 1914: First Battle of Champagne begins

After minor skirmishes, the First Battle of Champagne begins in earnest, marking the first major Allied attack against the Germans since the initiation of trench warfare on the Western Front.
 
Still determined to win a quick victory, and despite early defeats in the trenches against German positions, French commander Joseph Joffre planned a major offensive stretching throughout the Artois and Champagne regions of France from Nieuport in the north to Verdun in the south. After minor attacks on December 10 near Perthes in eastern Champagne, heavy fighting occurred simultaneously at Givenchy, Perthes, and Noyon, where the numerical advantage enjoyed by the French resulted in few gains in territory. The Germans were well-entrenched and their defense proved superior. From the outset of the war, machine gun battalions were used along with the regular infantry, which proved lethally effective in Champagne.

Winter weather made for dismal conditions on the battlefield: guns became clogged with mud and refused to fire, and heavy rainfall often made the trenches practically unusable. Fighting continued in the region from mid-December until mid-February, when the French paused briefly to reorganize, and then again until March 17, 1915. On that day, due to their continuing lack of gains and the strength of German counter-attacks since the beginning of the year, the French called off the attack. Joffre did not give up hope of eventual success in Champagne, however, and would begin another offensive there in the fall of 1915.

Also on This Day

Lead Story

Elvis Presley is drafted, 1957

American Revolution

Virginia cedes western land to federal government, 1783

Automotive

"Roger & Me" opens in U.S. theaters, 1989

Civil War

Rebels raid Union supply depot at Holly Springs, Mississippi, 1862

Cold War

Berlin Wall opened for first time, 1963

Crime

Man chased to his death in Howard Beach hate-crime, 1986

Disaster

Ferry collides with oil tanker near Manila, 1987

General Interest

French crack down on Vietnamese rebels, 1946

The U.S. invades Panama, 1989

NATO assumes peacekeeping duties in Bosnia, 1995

Hollywood

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Literary

John Fletcher is baptized, 1579

Music

"Funky Drummer" is recorded, 1969

Old West

The French surrender Orleans to the U.S., 1803

Presidential

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Sports

Guy Lafleur and Steve Shutt get landmark goals in same game, 1983

Vietnam War

National Liberation Front formed, 1960

President Johnson visits Australia, Thailand, and Vietnam, 1967

World War I

First Battle of Champagne begins, 1914

World War II

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