Episode 4: Part 1-Blaise Pascal and the First Modern Omnibus Transit Network

Travel back to 17th century France for a biography of Blaise Pascal and the history of the first omnibus public transportation network of modern Europe. Yes, that Blaise Pascal, the mathematician, philosopher, scientist, and inventor also was instrumental in forming and designing a horse-drawn omnibus network in Paris that lasted beyond his lifetime.
Notes for Episodes 4 & 5: Blaise Pascal and the First Modern Omnibus Transit Network

Episodes 4 dives deep into the life of Blaise Pascal. In Episodes 5, we look at Pascal's friend, colleague, and benefactor, Artus Gouffier (the Duc de Roannez) and we discuss the omnibus system that the two friends created. 

Sources for more information:
Please note that the newspaper articles are available for free through many public library systems. They are not all available for free on the Internet.
 
Omnibus and Pascal
·      Fiona Zublin, The First Buses in the World Were in Paris (And They Ate Hay), Ozy (Dec. 11, 2018) – https://www.ozy.com/true-and-stories/the-first-buses-in-the-world-were-in-paris-and-they-ate-hay/90088/ 
·      Carrosses a cinq sols, Wikipedia (Updated Nov. 21, 2021) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrosses_%C3%A0_cinq_sols 
·      Randy Alfred, March 18, 1662: The Bus Starts Here … In Paris, Wired (Mar. 17, 2008) – https://www.wired.com/2008/03/march-18-1662-the-bus-starts-here-in-paris/ 
·      Transport Network, whytodayisbrilliant (blog) (Mar. 18, 2016) (Shows a map of the omnibus network at its height) – https://whytodayisbrilliant.wordpress.com/tag/blaise-pascal/ 
·      Jerry Mikorenda, Blaise Pascal Gets Taken for a Ride, Jerry Mikorenda (blog) (Mar. 10, 2020) – https://www.jerrymikorenda.com/post/blaise-pascal-gets-taken-for-a-ride-1 
 
Biography of Pascal
·      Morris Bishop, Pascal: The Life of Genius (Greenwood Press 1936)
·      Desmond Clarke, Blaise Pascal, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (June 22, 2015) – https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pascal/ 
·      Dominique Descotes and Gilles Proust, Les Pensees de Blaise Pascal, (Introduction provides a chronology of Pascal’s life and explains what happened to Pascal’s personal papers following his death; information about the authors appears at http://www.penseesdepascal.fr/General/CML.php) (2011) – http://www.penseesdepascal.fr/General/Introduction.php 
·      Bridge-to-terebethia, Blaise Pascal, Timetoast Timelines (undated) – https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/blaise-pascal--5 
·      David Simpson, Blaise Pascal, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (No date given) – https://iep.utm.edu/pascal-b/#SH1e
·      A Provincial Named Blaise Pascal (Undated) (Webpages with information about specific aspects of Pascal’s life and work) – https://blaisepascal.bibliotheques-clermontmetropole.eu/ 
 
Pascal’s health problems 
·      Anca Sava, et al., The mysterious “mental illness” of a philosopher: the case of Blaise Pascal, 60 Romanian Journal of Morphology and Embryology 1383-89 (2019) (Diagnosis of Pascal’s illness from early childhood, its progression, and medical causes of his early death) –https://rjme.ro/RJME/resources/files/60041913831389.pdf  
·      Marc Zanello, et al., The mysteries of Blaise Pascal’s sutures, Childs Nerv Syst 31, 503–506 (2015) (Diagnosis of oxycephaly, which has to do with malformation of the skull) – https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00381-015-2622-9 and https://rdcu.be/cGjiL 
·      David Simpson, Blaise Pascal, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (No date given) (Arguing that Pascal suffered from “migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, and fibromyalgia – a complex of illnesses often found together and which also frequently occur in combination with symptoms of anxiety, depression, and emotional distress.”) – https://iep.utm.edu/pascal-b/#SH1e
 
Calculating machine
·      Mechanical calculator, Wikipedia (Updated Nov. 3, 2021) (History of these early machines and their inventors) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_calculator 
·      Pascal’s calculator, Wikipedia (Updated Oct. 26, 2021) (Explains how the machine worked) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_calculator 
 
Artus Gouffier, the Duc de Roannez
·      Artus Gouffier de Roannez, Wikipedia (Last updated Dec. 28, 2021) - https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artus_Gouffier_de_Roannez 
·      Richard Watson, Pascal, Piety, and Les Roannez, brill.com (undated) (stated that the information about the friendship is derived from Jean Mesnard,Pascal et les Roannez (Paris: Desclée, De Brouwer, 1965), a “monumental” work) - https://brill.com/previewpdf/book/edcoll/9789004305922/B9789004305922_003.xml 
·      Artus Gouffier, Duke of Roannez, A Provincial Named Blaise Pascal (Undated) (webpage of a larger site with information about Pascal’s mathematic, scientific, and entrepreneurial work) – https://blaisepascal-bibliotheques--clermontmetropole-eu.translate.goog/autour-de-blaise-pascal/galerie-de-portraits/duc-de-roannez?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
 
Episode 4: Moment in Equity: Slavery Laws passed in 1662
·      Slavery and the Making of America, Thirteen, Educational Broadcasting Corporation (2004) [Website online, but no longer updated] – https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/slavery/timeline/1662.html 
 
Episode 5: Moment in Equity: French Slavery and the Sugar Trade
·      Slavery in the British and French Caribbean, Wikipedia (Updated Apr. 3, 2022) – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_British_and_French_Caribbean 
·      Khalil Gibran Muhammad, The sugar that saturates the American diet has a barbaric history as the ‘white gold’ that fueled slavery, NY Times (Aug. 14, 2019) (part of the 1619 Project – https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/sugar-slave-trade-slavery.html 
·      Mark Cartwright, Life on a Colonial Sugar Plantation, World History Encyclopedia (July 6, 2021) (describing the genesis of the plantation slave system with Portuguese colonization) – https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1795/life-on-a-colonial-sugar-plantation/ 
Episode 4: Part 1-Blaise Pascal and the First Modern Omnibus Transit Network
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