A form of apparatus often used for testing specimens of steel consists of a small electric furnace in which to heat the specimen, and a special thermo-couple pyrometer (see  Pyrometers ) for indicating the range of temperatures through which the steel passes.
Where the American Civil War Began. Decades of growing strife between North and South erupted in civil war on April 12, 1861, when Confederate artillery opened fire on this Federal fort in Charleston Harbor. Fort Sumter surrendered 34 hours later. Union forces would try for nearly four years to take it back.
Richard Ellis/Getty Images. The first shots of the Civil War were fired 150 years ago Tuesday at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. The state was the first to secede from the Union; now, it's treading carefully as it commemorates a war that left more than 600,000 soldiers dead.