Today in Entrepreneurial History: December 10

By Dane Carlson on December 10, 2012 in History

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• 1868 – The first traffic lights are installed, outside the Palace of Westminster in London. Resembling railway signals, they use semaphore arms and are illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps.
• 1955 – The Mighty Mouse Playhouse premieres on television.
• 1993 – The last shift leaves Wearmouth Colliery in Sunderland. The closure of the 156-year-old pit marks the end of the old County Durham coalfield, which had been in operation since the Middle Ages.

Monkwearmouth Colliery (or Wearmouth Colliery) was a major North Sea coal mine located on the north bank of the River Wear, located in Sunderland. It was the largest mine in Sunderland and one of the most important in County Durham in northeast England. First opened in 1835, the mine was the last to remain operating in the County Durham Coalfield. The last shift left the pit on December 10, 1993, ending over 800 years of commercial coal mining in the region.

For more on the 800 year history of coal mining in County Durham, read The Coalminers of Durham.

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Business Opportunities Weblog editor and publisher Dane Carlson lives in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, just 15 miles from Yosemite National Park. He accidentally became a professional blogger in 2001. He has added 12,203 posts to the site.

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Another Idea: How to Start a Genealogical (Family History Writer) Business

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