December 10

Traffic lights are so common as to be boring. They have always been around and most people do not consider them a big deal. Certainly, I don’t. I had always assumed that these lights started appearing at roughly the same time that cars began appearing – the early 20th century. That wasn’t the case, however. The very first traffic light began operation on the 10th in 1868, when J. P. Knight installed a gas-powered, manually operated, traffic light outside the British Houses of Parliament in London, England.

On January 2, 1869, the traffic light exploded gravely injuring the police constable operating it.