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With a name that rings of bully characters in ‘80s coming of age movies, Buckminster Fuller, born in 1895, was quite the opposite. The Massachusetts raised philosopher, engineer and architect lived his life as, well, as he put it, “an experiment to find what a single individual can contribute to changing the world and benefiting all humanity.” His way of living resulted in a number of inventions, among them the Dymaxion car, a name that combines  dynamic, maximum, and tension. The first prototype of the unique vehicle rolled out of a Bridgeport, Connecticut, factory on this day in 1933. Above: The Dymaxion car, c. 1933. Top: The Dymaxion. By Starysatyr - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 The car came three years after the completion of his Dymaxion house. Fuller’s house (see what I did the...

The “Main Street of America,” U.S. Route 66, was officially decertified on this day in 1985 when the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials voted to remove all of its highway signs. The road, which was completed and given a highway designation in 1926, stretched from Chicago, Illinois, to Santa Monica, California, over the course of roughly 2,200 miles.  The road was originally constructed along a path forged in 1857 by U.S. Navy Lieutenant Edward Beale and his pack of camels. Before Route 66 became a highway the path had grown popular as a passageway for people heading west in the growing country. Over the years, horses and wagons gave way to cars and trucks. By the 1950s, new multi-lane highways were being built all across the country as part of a...