The Locomotive That Outlasted Everything and a Spacecraft’s Final Dive

On 15 September 1981, the John Bull, a steam locomotive built in 1831, ran under its own power outside Washington DC, making it the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world. One hundred and fifty years after its construction, it proved that some engineering simply refuses to be retired. We also look at the 1813 attack on Beijing’s Forbidden City by the Eight Trigram Sect, a religious uprising that briefly breached the walls of imperial power. In 1994, Swiss astronomer Didier Queloz detected the wobble that would confirm the first exoplanet orbiting a sun-like star, forcing scientists to rethink how solar systems form. And on this date in 2017, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft completed its thirteen-year mission by diving into Saturn’s atmosphere, transmitting data until the very last second. Four stories about persistence, vulnerability, discovery, and knowing when to bow out gracefully.

Chapters

• Introduction Clara introduces the episode’s theme of things that refuse to quit, setting up four stories from 15 September across different centuries.
• The John Bull: Still Running After 150 Years The 1831 steam locomotive John Bull ran under its own power in 1981, 150 years after construction, becoming the oldest operable steam locomotive in the world. Built by Robert Stephenson’s firm and shipped to New Jersey, it served the Camden and Amboy Railroad before retirement in 1866 and eventual donation to the Smithsonian.
• The Attack on the Forbidden City, 1813 On 15 September 1813, followers of the Eight Trigram Sect stormed the Forbidden City in Beijing whilst the Jiaqing Emperor was away hunting. With help from palace eunuchs, they breached the walls before being suppressed, revealing cracks in Qing dynasty power that would eventually lead to its collapse.
• The First Exoplanet, 1994 Swiss doctoral student Didier Queloz detected a wobble in the star 51 Pegasi in 1994, confirming the first exoplanet orbiting a sun-like star. The gas giant, orbiting closer than Mercury to our sun, forced a complete rethink of planetary formation models. Queloz shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery.
• Cassini’s Final Dive, 2017 On 15 September 2017, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft ended its thirteen-year Saturn mission by diving into the planet’s atmosphere. Launched in 1997, Cassini discovered evidence of subsurface oceans on Enceladus, dropped the Huygens probe on Titan, and transmitted atmospheric data until its signal stopped.
• Closing Thoughts Clara reflects on the day’s stories of persistence, discovery, and graceful endings, closing with her trademark observation about human overconfidence.

Links

• https://www.si.edu/object/john-bull-locomotive
• https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/john-bull-locomotive-150-years-and-still-running
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/Eight-Trigrams-Uprising
• https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2019/queloz/facts/
• https://science.nasa.gov/mission/cassini/
• https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-cassini-spacecraft-ends-its-historic-exploration-of-saturn