Todays Interesting Factoid from Wiggy: Today is the birthday of Jan van der Heyden. None of us know who he is, but we rely on him almost daily for safety--he practically invented modern firefighting. From Wikipedia: Jan van der Heyden (March 5, 1637, Gorinchem – September 12, 1712, Amsterdam) was a Dutch Baroque-era painter, draughtsman, printmaker, a mennonite and inventor who significantly contributed to contemporary firefighting. He improved the fire hose in 1672, with his brother Nicolaes, who was a hydraulic engineer.[1] He modified the manual fire engines, reorganised the volunteer fire brigade (1685) and wrote and illustrated the first firefighting manual (Brandspuiten-boek). A comprehensive street lighting scheme for Amsterdam, which lasted from 1669 until 1840, designed and implemented by Van der Heyden, was adopted as a model by many other towns and abroad. Thank you Jan. :)
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 21:23:06 +0000
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