Monday, November 28, 2016

Wikipedia: From St. John's College to Horsepower Taxes


Last Wikipedia trails assignment I decided to scroll through the class announcements, so this time I decided to begin my trail from something that I had written about. This is where St. John's College came into play.

I posted an image of St. Johns in my week 13 storytelling post where a college was the setting. I chose St. Johns because I had actually been there and I have a huge infatuation with England (check out my favorite place story if you don't believe me). St. John's college is located at Cambridge University in the UK. It started way back in the day, 1511 to be exact. After looking through the facts of St. John's I stumbled upon the pictures of the place and that led me to my next link, the Bridge of Sighs.

(Personal Image taken on the River Cam in 2016)

The Bridge of Sighs is one of Cambridge's most photographed landmarks. It was built in 1831 over the River Cam based off the Bridge of Sighs. I had the opportunity to be punted along the River Cam and went directly underneath the Bridge of Sighs. Rumor has it that students hoisted a car underneath it as a practical joke. This led me to my third link, the Austin 7.

(Image sourced from Wikimedia)

Austin 7 is one of the raddest cars on the market back in the 1920's. The Austin 7 was on the market from 1921 until 1939 produced in the UK. This car was licensed and produced in countries all over the world under other names, but the same model. After researching the Austin 7 I came across the horsepower tax.

I found this intriguing because I thought how in the world is someone going to place a tax on horsepower. According to this article, the tax was deciphered by an equation. This equation was set into place during 1910 by the RAC at the British invitation. It was put to rest in in 1948 when another tax was set in place.

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