History
Although the bascule bridge has been in use since ancient times, it was not until the 1850s that engineers developed the ability to move very long, heavy spans quickly enough for practical application. The Blagoveshchensky Bridge across the Neva River in Saint Petersburg was the first large bascule bridge, opened in 1850. Since then, all bridges across the Neva and other major rivers in the city (21 in total) were bascule to facilitate navigation, which prevented the city's inhabitants from travelling across the river at night (this remained so until 2003 when the first cable-stayed bridge across the Neva was opened).
Read more about this topic: Bascule Bridge
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“[Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.”
—Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“... in America ... children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)