
New Bedford, Massachusetts: The city that once lit the world - MiriamWeiner
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20180719-the-city-that-lit-the-world
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D_Alex
As I have pointed out many times: the (crude) oil industry saved the whales!

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Scaevolus
Oddly enough, sperm whaling peaked in the 1960s, following increased demand
for heat-stable oils for automatic transmissions. It only stopped when the
International Whaling Commission _voluntarily_ enacted a moratorium in 1985.

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jrumbut
The later whaling industry is depressing to read about. It was more grizzly
than the Moby Dick era, with explosive tipped harpoons and faster boats
capable of corralling whales into bays where they could be killed en masse.

By the way, as a New Bedford resident, my favorite travel writing about NB
came from the New York Times' "36 hours in..." series. The biggest challenge
was what to do with the other 24 hours.

It's all a little dismal.

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emmelaich
It's grisly not grizzly but TBH I love your version too.

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jrumbut
That's bearly a typo

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Someone
_”the town was granted a city charter with the Latin motto, ‘Lucem Diffundo’.
‘We light the world’.”_

That’s quite a loose translation. I would translate it as “I spread light”.

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jhbadger
Interesting to read the line "Then, the final blow broke in 1879. Thomas
Edison had invented the electric lightbulb." in a BBC article. Normally, UK
sources side with Edison's rival, the English physicist and inventor Joseph
Swan as the inventor of the lightbulb.

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tomkinson
Actually I wrote an article for Nantucket news expressedly with this exact
premise, only about Nantucket, a decade ago. Love to go back and compare
numbers.

