In June 2010 at the ILA Air Show in Berlin, EADS, the European defence company, demonstrated the first public flight of an aircraft with one engine powered by algae derived bio-fuel. The aircraft was a twin-engine Diamond DA42 NG light aircraft. The engine fed with bio-fuel showed a fuel consumption that equated to a saving of 5-10 percent compared to the engine using conventional jet kerosene. It is claimed that exhaust gas measurements show that the bio-fuel is much less polluting than conventional fuels.

The earliest factory which made motorcycles in large numbers was opened in 1894 by Heinrich and Wilhelm Hildebrand and Alois Wolfmüller at Munich, Germany. In its first two years this factory produced over 1000 machines, each having a water-cooled 1488 cc (90.8 cu in) twin-cylinder four-stroke engine developing about 1.9 kW (2.5 hp) at 600 rpm. Although an Englishman, Edward Butler, produced a motor tricycle in 1884, the invention of the first true gasoline-engine motorcycle is generally attributed to German Gottlieb Daimler in 1885. Daimler’s Continue reading →

A 3 1/2ton Mercedes Benz Fernseh-Aufnahmewagen equipped with an intermediate-film transmission system was employed for the first time at the opening of the Berlin television station of the Reichs Rundfunk on 22 March 1935. Thereafter, it was taken out into the streets daily to gather contributions for the evening programme Spiegel des Tages (Mirror of the day).

MP3 is short for MPEG audio layer-3 and is a widely-used digital music file type. It is audio-only and is a direct descendent of the MPEG-1, which is low-bandwidth video compression, commonly used over the internet. The development of MP3 began in 1987 at the Fraunhofer Institut Integrierte Schaltungen in Germany, and in 1992 it was recognised as the international standard by the International Standards Organisation, as part of the MPEG-1 standard.

On 20 July 1936, the Greek athlete Konstantin Kondylis became the first ever Olympic torch bearer when he set off on the first leg of the journey from Olympia (Greece), where the original Olympics were born, to Berlin, Germany, where the 1936 Games were to be held. The 3,187 km (1,980 mi) journey was undertaken by a total of 3,331 runners, who each covered a distance of around 1 km (0.62 mi). The torch itself was designed to stay alight in all weathers, using highly Continue reading →

The Olympics made broadcasting history in 1936 when the Berlin Games was beamed out live in black and white to athletes in the Olympic village and to the wider public in 25 special viewing rooms located in Berlin and Potsdam. This was the first time a sporting event had ever been seen live on television screens and it opened the floodgates. Rome 1960 was the first Olympics to be broadcast live across Europe, while Tokyo 1964 was the first to reach a worldwide audience. Colour Continue reading →

The invention of a portable time-keeping device c. 1509 is attributed to Peter Henlein (Germany), designer of the “Nuremberg Egg” – a small, drum-shaped clock (with only an hour hand) that could be carried. References to a “pocket clock” have since been discovered that predate this invention by 40 years, but Henlein is credited with being the first person to manufacture such devices and introduce the concept of regular time-keeping – an essential tool for the “modern” world.

Milan Roskopf (Slovakia) juggled a total weight of 25.86 kg (57 lb) using three 8.62 kg (19 lb) shot puts for 40.44 sec at the Impossibility Challenger Games, Starnberg, Germany, on 7 November 2004.

The greatest distance by a radio-controlled model car in 24 hours is 34.1958 km (21.25 miles) and was achieved by members of the modelling group of the Anna-Schmidt-Schule Frankfurt (Germany) at the Tamiya Raceway in Sonneberg, Germany, on 24 July 2011. The model car used was a Tamiya “Desert Gator” with a cup machine motor using a MZ-Power Car Lipo Akku 5000 mAh battery. The electronic speed controller was a LRP Quantum Bullet and the remote control a Futaba 3PK 2.4 GHz.

The farthest distance covered on a water slide in 4 hours by a mixed team is 320.68 km (199.27 miles), achieved by Peter Hecker, Florian Pfeiffer, Dennis Bettin, Stefan Servos, Markus Sekta, Kerstin Nina Bauer, Michael Radowsky, Kristian Milde, Domenic Tollens (all Germany) and Steve Schild (Switzerland), at Galaxy Erding in Erding, Germany on 18 November 2010 in celebration of Guinness World Records Day 2010. The record took place on the longest inner-tube water slide Magic-Eye, which has been ascertained on Guinness World Records Day Continue reading →