The Mysteries of History (July 10 Edition)
A Better Seatbelt; Rainbow Warrior Bombed
1962 — Newfangled, Safer Seatbelt Receives U.S. Patent
public domain image from Volvo
Installing seatbelts has been mandatory in American automobiles since 1968.
That law has saved countless lives, as it has been estimated that using seat belts reduces fatalities and serious injuries from collisions to almost half what they would be without their use.
Although the new three-point seatbelts had already been in use in Volvos for three years (beginning in 1959), the American patent for the new design was not issued until almost three years later, on this date in 1962.
Many readers won’t even remember a time when cars came without seatbelts. In fact, many won’t recall a time without the current “three-point” seatbelts, or “safety-belts.”
Previous seatbelts strapped across the abdomen of the wearer; these, though, proved problematic when, in high-speed crashes, serious harm could be done to the seatbelt wearers’ innards (“guts”) as their midsections were “strangled” and squished by the belts as their bodies propelled violently forward and were then unrelentingly yanked back by the “safety” belts.
Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin (1920-2002) had come up with the design for the safer three-point seatbelt, which reduces the force on the wearer’s body while also protecting both their upper body and their midsection.
In a philanthropic gesture, Volvo (Bohlin’s employer) released the design to other car manufacturers, and the rest is history (that is to say, almost everyone uses the three-point safety-belt design now).
image generated using Bing Image Creator
Questions: How many lives has the design and implementation of the three-point seatbelt saved, according to estimates? Do you recall a time when many people would eschew buckling their seatbelt? Why did they do that? What is the guy in the image above holding in his hands?
1985 — Rainbow Warrior Sunk
image from Greenpeace of Rainbow Warrior 3 being escorted by apparently insightful dolphins
On this date forty years ago, in New Zealand, Greenpeace’s flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, was bombed by agents working under the aegis of the French government (the bombers were specifically sanctioned by then-president of France François Mitterrand). The Rainbow Warrior sank.
Besides the sinking of the ship, one person was killed in the explosion: Portuguese-Dutch photographer Fernando Pereira.
Why did Mitterrand (1916-1996) take special umbrage at Greenpeace and its vessel? Probably because the Rainbow Warrior was soon to be bound for the site of nuclear testing carried out by his nation, with the intent of protesting against those tests.
Greenpeace was not deterred, though; it sent another ship, the eponymously-christened Greenpeace, to protest the nuclear tests.
New Zealand arrested the two agents responsible for the bombing for manslaughter and the destruction of property. France, predictably, denied involvement in the mayhem, claiming that the pair who were captured were simply spying on Greenpeace. But British investigators later uncovered Mitterrand’s ordering of the scuttling of the Rainbow Warrior and so, ultimately, France’s Prime Minister Laurent Fabius (born 1946) had to admit that the attack had been carried out from orders officially given. Previously, “fabulous” Fabius had denied it. Did he not know? Had he been misled? Or was he lying about it previously?
The two French scuba divers who sank the Rainbow Warrior and “manslaughtered” Pereira only served a year in prison for their crime.
In 1992, Mitterrand (who served as President of France until 1995, the year before his death) halted nuclear testing by France. This was just a pause, though, as it was resumed just three years later, in 1995. Rainbow Warrior II (2) was sent to French Polynesia to protest the next series of tests that year, ten years after the bombing of the original Rainbow Warrior.
From the “let the punishment fit the crime” department, Rainbow Warrior 2 was paid for by the fine France had to pay Greenpeace. RW2 served for 22 years, and was then replaced by RW3 (pictured above).
Questions: What are your thoughts on Greenpeace? Who was responsible for the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior and the death of Pereira — François Mitterrand and his minions alone (including the scuba divers who planted the bombs), or others, too? At what point —under what circumstances — can orders be ignored with impunity? How were Nazis judged when they defended their heinous actions during World War 2 by claiming that they were simply following orders? Have you seen the movie Cool Hand Luke?
