Conceptualist.com, By Sahar Sarid

10. Electrocuting an Elephant

In the late 1880s, Edison was embroiled in the "War of Currents" with George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla. Edison had promoted the use of direct current (DC) for electric power distribution, whereas Westinghouse and Tesla wanted to use alternating current (AC).

At the time, Edison had over one hundred power stations in the United States that delivered DC electricity to consumers. But because of a power loss due to resistance of the wire during transmission, the power station had to be located within a mile of the consumers. Edison's then-employee, a brilliant Serbian engineer named Nikola Tesla proposed that AC could solve this problem but Edison didn't listen.

Indeed, Edison had previously asked Tesla to improve his electrical power stations with $50,000 ($1 million in 2006 US dollar, Tesla's wages were just $18 a week back then) as a reward. After Tesla delivered, Edison reneged on his offer and thus created bad blood between the two.

Back to the War of Currents: to demonstrate that his DC system was better and "safer," Edison noted that AC had a lethal potential and could be used to electrocute. Though he was against capital punishment, Edison (and a hired employee named Harold P. Brown) developed the electric chair.

In 1903, a circus elephant named Topsy at Coney Island's Luna Park went berserk and killed three people including an abusive trainer, who tried to feed her a lighted cigarette.

The elephant was considered a threat and the owners wanted it executed. When animal advocates protested the proposed method of hanging, Edison saw a publicity opportunity and suggested electrocution with AC.

Topsy was fed carrots laced with cyanide and then electrocuted with 6,000-volts AC. She died "without a trumpet or a groan" within seconds. (Source)

One of the U.K.'s leading travel community websites, www.cruise.co.uk, has forked out just over $1 million to purchase www.cruises.co.uk. The purchase, from German travel company Nees Reisen, is a record-breaking domain name deal in Britain.

The main purpose of the new site will be to focus on social networking, indicated Seamus Conlon, MD of www.cruise.co.uk. The number of first-time cruisers is rising, with the number of Britons taking a cruise in 2007 increasing 11 percent to 1.35 million. Those new travellers will search the Internet for real and unedited cruise reviews and that is exactly what www.cruises.co.uk will provide.

"Unlike normal package holidays, where people have been going to the same places and doing the same things for years, cruising is still a great unknown for a large percentage of our potential market,"? said Conlon.

"These people may not have friends or colleagues who have cruised, so they don't have a reference point - someone who can give their personal recommendation."?  

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