Page 180 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

akbar 65

that aviation was more than a lark. One measure of his Tomayko, J. E. (2000). Computers take flight: A history of NASA’s pio-
impact was the jump in air passengers in the years imme- neering digital fly-by-wire project. (NASA Publication SP-2000-4224).
Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
diately following his flight. Insignificant in numbers Trimble, W. F. (1995). From airships to airbus: The history of civil and
before Lindbergh flew the Atlantic, airline ridership in the commercial aviation.Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
United States surged from 12,594 in 1927 to 52,934 in
1928. By the end of the twentieth century, jet-powered
airliners had become the mainstay of commercial service
worldwide, capable of great speeds (nearly 1,000 kilo- Akbar
meters per hour in many instances) and range.These fly- (1542–1605)
ing behemoths can ferry five hundred passengers at once Ruler of Mughal India
from place to place, and their efficiency has had a dra-
matic effect on human mobility. Every year millions of bu-ul-Fath Jalal-ud-Din Muhammad Akbar was the
people around the world fly thousands of miles in mere Agreatest emperor of the South Asia-based Mughal
hours for both work and pleasure. In 2004, for example, dynasty (1526–1857). Over the course of a forty-nine-
in the month of March alone, commercial airlines world- year reign (1556–1605),Akbar proved himself a brilliant
wide carried 170.8 million passengers.Travel, once a lux- general, shrewd politician, able administrator, and gener-
ury reserved for the wealthy who had the time and the ous patron of the arts.Akbar’s energy and acumen placed
money for a journey, is now accessible to an extraordi- the Mughal empire on firm foundations and created a
nary swath of people. Almost no place on the planet is template for Mughal imperial governance that survived
inaccessible, thanks to the airplane’s ability to deliver any- almost unchanged until the early eighteenth century.
one to any destination quickly. Born in 1542 in Umarkot in Sind (in present-day south-
eastern Pakistan), Akbar was thirteen years old when he
Christian Gelzer
succeeded to the imperial throne following the premature
See also Exploration, Space; Transportation—Overview; death of his father, Humayun (1508–1556). Over the
Warfare, Air next four years, Akbar slowly extended his political con-
trol across Hindustan—the geographical and agrarian
heartland of northern India. In the 1560s Akbar asserted
Further Reading
his authority over the regions of Malwa (1561), Gond-
Bureau of Transportation Statistics website. Retrieved July 1, 2004, from
http://www.bts.gov wana (1564), Rajasthan (1568–69), and Bundelkhand
Constant, E.W. (1980). The origin of the turbojet revolution. Baltimore: (1569) in central and northern India. In the following
Johns Hopkins University Press.
Corn, J. J. (2002). The winged gospel: America’s romance with aviation. decades,his military campaigns extended imperial rule to
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Gujarat (1572–1573) in the west, Bihar and Bengal
Gorn, M. H. (2001). Expanding the envelope: Flight research at NACA and (1574–1576) in the east, Kabul (1585, in present-day
NASA. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
Klemin, A. (1929, October). American passenger air transport. Scientific Afghanistan), Kashmir (1586), Sind (1591), and Orissa
American, 141, 325. (1592) in the southeast, Makran and Baluchistan (1594,
Komons, N. A. (1989). Bonfires to beacons: Federal civil aviation policy
under the air commerce act, 1926–1938. Washington, DC: Smith- in present-day Pakistan),Kandahar (1595,in present-day
sonian Institution Press. Afghanistan), and Berar, Khandesh, and parts of Ahmad-
Miller, R., & Sawers, D. (1968). The technical development of modern avi- nagar (1595–1601) in the Deccan.
ation. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Schatzberg, E. (1994, January). Ideology and technical choice: The Akbar’s expansionist military goals found a comple-
decline of the wooden airplane in the United States, 1920–1945. Tech- ment in equally vigorous attempts to co-opt or destroy
nology and Culture, 34–69.
Singer, B. (2003). Like sex with gods:An unorthodox history of flying. Col- alternative loci of power.Thus, between the early 1560s
lege Station: Texas A&M University Press. and 1581, Akbar succeeded in crushing a host of rivals