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.
April 14 marks the date 150 years ago that the first person was killed in the Civil War â but there's more to the story. The First To Die. The first shots of the War Between the States were fired at Fort Sumter in South Carolina's Charleston Harbor in 1861. Federal troops, under command of Maj. Robert Anderson, surrendered to Confederate Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard after an artillery bombardment that had begun on April 12.