“THE NEW STYLE WORLD MAP IS MADE BY CUTTING CROSSES AT 6 EQUIDISTANT POINTS ON THE COVERING OF A SPHERE WHICH IS THEN LAID OUT FLAT.
THE BUTTERFLY MAP
SHOWS THE WORLD JUST ABOUT AS ONE SEES IT ON A GLOBE WITHOUT EXAGGERATION OR DISTORTION OR ERRORS OF DISTANCE, AREA, OR DIRECTION. LONG DISTANCE FLIGHTS ALL OVER THE WORLD CAN BE ACCURATELY COMPARED ON THIS MAP AS ON NO OTHER.”
Bernard Joseph Stanislaus Cahill (1866–1944), cartographer and Architect, was the inventor of the octahedral “Butterfly Map” (published 1909; patented 1913).
At the start of his professional career in 1896, Cahill participated in the Phoebe Hearst competition for the design of the U. C. Berkeley campus. He was elected an Associate Member of the A.I.A. in 1899. He wrote articles for the “California Architect and Building News” and later for “The Architect and Engineer.” An early advocate of city planning, Cahill helped to define the concept of a “civic center” with his 1904 design of the San Francisco Civic Center, which he felt was the basis for the plan adopted by the city in 1912. He continued to be involved in the plan for the city, and wrote letters to the editor and articles expressing his ideas on the proper plan.
A specialist in mausoleum design and mortuary architecture, Cahill designed the catacombs and columbarium for the Cypress Lawn Cemetery, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (San Francisco), Evergreen Memorial Cemetery Memorial Building (Oakland), the St. Mary’s Cemetery mausoleum (Sacramento), and the Diamond Head Memorial Park in Honolulu [more here].
About midway through the Cleveland Air Races in 1946 an event placed somewhat inconspicuously on the program was dutifully announced over the public address system. The man said that a Navy Flight Exhibition team in four Grumman Bearcat fighters would demonstrate Navy precision flying in formation. On the team were a Lieutenant Commander, a Lieutenant and two Lieutenants Junior Grade. They were all Naval Aviators with combat records.
[…]
Such a four-plane formation employed so skillfully in the last war [WWII] gave cause for its leader, out-numbered fifteen to one, to exclaim without hesitation,
“Red Leader to Carrier, I have 60 Zeros surrounded and am proceeding to attack!” All of his four planes got back and were accredited 17 “kills.”
This week in 1946 Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Chester W. Nimitz ordered the creation of a flight demonstration team. In 1949, the team took the name Blue Angels.
