Dan Schlenoff was a contributing editor at Scientific American and edited the 50, 100 and 150 Years Ago column for one seventh of the magazine's history.
Facing Poison Gas, 1915
Following the introduction of large-scale gas attacks, one idea to repel gas was to use fans to blow the gas away—a terrible idea, but until the invention of gas masks there was little else that worked anyway
Desperately Seeking Anti-Submarine Weapons, 1915
The Armored Tortoise Fails, 1915
Battleship Optimism Ignores Reality, 1915
Women and the War, 1915
Reported in Scientific American, This Week in World War I: July 3, 1915
Railways and Mass Transit Move People and Goods, 1915
Fighting Zeppelins with Airplanes, 1915
Italy Is Bribed into War, 1915
Defense against Poison Gas, 1915
War and Automobile Advertising, 1915
Inventions: 70 Years That Changed the World, 1845–1915
The Teeth of the Submarine, 1915
American Heavy Metal: "Dreadnought" Battleships, 1915
A War of Poison Gas, 1915
Sinking the Lusitania, Part 2: Death and Blame, May 7, 1915
Reports and opinions in Scientific American on a key tragedy in World War I
Sinking the Lusitania, Part 1: Civilians Die in "Wicked" Atrocity, May 7, 1915
Reports and opinions in Scientific American on a key tragedy in World War I that had lasting repercussions
The Realities of War, 1915
As the Great War ran into the new year, assumptions about how the fighting would be conducted were dispelled
Battle of Gallipoli: A Strategic View, 1915
Scientific American looked at the wider context of the battle for Gallipoli. This Week in World War I: April 24, 1915 April 25, 2015, marks the 100-year anniversary of an important battle in the First World War: it was a major defeat for the Allies (Britain, France and Russia) and a great victory for the [...]
Heavy Guns Blast Trenches, 1915
Reported in Scientific American, This Week in World War I: April 17, 1915. High technology blasted a way through fortified lines in the First World War.
Rescuing the Drowning Submarine, 1915
Reported in Scientific American, This Week in World War I: April 10, 1915 The United States submarine F-4 was launched in January 1912, and foundered in March 1915 near Honolulu in 300 feet of water, with the loss of all 21 crew.
Proud Battleships, Subtle Mines: Dardanelles, 1915
Reported in Scientific American, This Week in World War I: April 3, 1915 "The day when Constantinople will be covered by the guns of the enemy is not very far distant." That's the ebulliant sentence from the article in Scientific American two weeks before this one, just after the initial British and French attack near [...]
Motor Vehicles Change the World, 1915
Better reliability made cars, trucks and other vehicles more useful and ubiquitous
The Zeppelin Earns a Fearsome Reputation, 1915
Reported in Scientific American, This Week in World War I: March 27, 1915 Airships with rigid frames were developed by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin of Germany starting in the late 19th century.
Naval Attack on the Dardanelles: Prelude to a Disaster, 1915
Reported in Scientific American, This Week in World War I: March 20, 1915 The report published in this issue from a century ago delivers a robustly optimistic outlook on the Allied attack on Turkish territory at the entrance to the waterway between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean: "If the great Mahan were living to-day [...]