Reflection and musings on Trinidad's History

How an error in diplomacy affected a historic event. The seagulls and porpoises at the Port of Spain harbour witnessed a very unusual sight on Monday 23 rd , December, 1907 as sixteen freshly-painted, white ships of the US Navy entered the Gulf of Paria. That Monday, the citizens of the city were undoubtedly busy with their holiday preparations, and night fell very quickly as the ships gathered outside the port as there was no deep-water harbour. Of the sixteen warships that later came to be known as Theodore Roosevelt’s “Great White Fleet”, eleven of them were brand new, and five recently refurbished. The fleet steamed from Hampton Roads, Virginia six days before, and was in Trinidad for refueling. The supply of coals that they were about to take on was preordered and stockpiled in Trinidad in advance, so that the quantity required for a such a large fleet will not disrupt the normal coaling operation. Teddy Roosevelt, eager to raise the status of the United States from b

An insight into life and motoring in Trinidad during WW2 By Wayne Abraham We all know what a tyre is. They are everywhere: on our cars, vans and trucks, on airplanes, lawn mowers, and a variety of other vehicles. Scottish-born, John Boyd Dunlop, patented a pneumatic tyre in 1888 for use on bicycles and light vehicles. His patent was rejected in 1892, partly because he was not the inventor. This did not deter Dunlop from developing the pneumatic rubber tyre to the early predecessor of the ones we know today, and from participating in the formation of various rubber and tyre companies bearing his surname. Dunlop Tyres were manufactured at a factory in Point Fortin Trinidad for a while, but that's far ahead of my story. The first car to appear on the streets of Port of Spain in 1900 was an 1899 model, steam-powered, Locomobile. It was not long after that gasoline-fueled; internal-combustion engine cars became more popular than steam or electric cars. The popularity of cars