Over the course of publication (1732-57), Benjamin Franklin’s Almanack sold on average 10,000 copies per year.

The U.S. fielded about 540,000 troops, by far the most of any nation in the coalition it led against Iraq in the Gulf War. Iraqi ground forces in the Kuwaiti theater of operations were estimated at 545,000.

The federal government founded the National Rail Passenger Corporation Amtrak in 1970 to prevent the imminent extinction of passenger railroads in the U.S. Unable to compete with airlines, the commercial railroads had been eliminating most of their passenger service and concentrating on freight. Railroad passenger-miles traveled in a single year had declined from a height … Read more

The term “manifest destiny” appeared in an article by John L. O’Sullivan in the July-August 1845 United States Magazine and Democratic Review. In the article, O’Sullivan said it was “our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”

“M” and “N” are tied with eight states each for the most common initial letter for U.S. states: Maine Nebraska Maryland Nevada Massachusetts New Hampshire Michigan New Jersey Minnesota New Mexico Mississippi New York Missouri North Carolina Montana North Dakota

Alexander Graham Bell first displayed his electric telephone in 1876 at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Levittown was named for the construction company that designed and built the post-World War II suburban developments, Levitt and Sons, William Levitt, owner. The first Levittown development was built between 1947-51 in Hempstead, New York.

The pioneer of modern dance Martha Graham (1894-1991) choreographed for women from 1927 to 1938. She began her own dance troupe in 1929. Her works include Deep Song and Night Journey.

W. E. B. Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk (1903), wrote “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others”. Du Bois took issue with Washington’s idea that blacks had to prove their worth to whites. Du Bois encouraged blacks to take pride in their African origins and to struggle for political, educational, and economic … Read more

The doomed whaling ship Pequod commanded by Captain Ahab in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851) was named for the Pequot tribe of Connecticut, massacred by English colonists in 1637. Melville said the “celebrated tribe” was “now extinct as the ancient Medes.”

The Equal Rights Amendment elude ratification by three states. Between 1972 and 1982, 35 state legislatures approved the amendment. Thirty-eight were needed for the amendment to be incorporated into the Constitution.

The Bataan Peninsula is in the Philippines. Following the Allied surrender of Bataan to the Japanese in April 1942, it was the site of the infamous “death march” in which thousands of American and Filipino prisoners died.

The last American troops left Vietnam under President Gerald Ford (served 1974-77). The troops left on April 29, 1975. The Saigon government surrendered shortly thereafter.

The first public showing of a motion picture in the U.S. took place on April 23, 1896, at New York’s Koster & Bial Music Hall on 34th Street and Broadway. The 12 short-subject films, projected on Thomas Edison’s Vitascope, accompanied a vaudeville show. Previously, Edison’s films could only be viewed peep-show style on his Kinetoscope … Read more

The duel in which Vice-President Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton was held on July 11,1804, in Weehawken, New Jersey. Burr had challenged Hamilton to the duel in response to Hamilton’s attacks on his character during the election campaign for governor of New York. Wounded by Burr’s pistol, Hamilton died the next day.

The principal speaker at the ceremonies dedicating the military burial ground at the Gettysburg cemetery on November 19, 1863, was Edward Everett, former governor of Massachusetts and famous orator. His speech lasted about two hours; Lincoln’s lasted two minutes. Everett wrote Lincoln: “I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as … Read more

The first educational aptitude test in America was developed in 1910 by German-American psychologist Hugo Munsterberg. This was done after he had been asked by William James to direct the psychological laboratory at Harvard University.

Eleven men stole $2.5 million in cash, checks, and securities from the headquarters of the Brink’s armored car company in the Brink’s robbery of 1950. The crime took place in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 17, 1950. After several years undercover, one of the robbers confessed to the police, and eight of the 11 men were … Read more

For 107 years, beginning in 1864, the mile-square Union Stock Yards stood at Halsted Street and Exchange Avenue. The Swift, Armour, and Wilson companies had plants there. The yards closed on July 31, 1971, and were demolished. Only the Union Stock Yards’ gate was preserved; it was named a Chicago landmark on February 24, 1972.

Common to many American Indian tribes, a sweat lodge is an enclosed steam bath in which steam is produced by pouring cold water over hot stones. Religious ceremonies performed in the sweat lodge are related to spiritual purification and communication with the divine.

What Peter Minuit gave the Manhattoe tribe was a package of trinkets and cloth valued at 60 guilders, roughly equivalent to $24.

Warren G. Harding was the first president to ride in an automobile to his inauguration, on March 4, 1921.

The Constitution, a 44-gun frigate that defeated two British warships in the War of 1812, was nicknamed “Old Ironsides”. It was memorialized as “Old Ironsides” in the 1830 poem of that name by Oliver Wendell Holmes, written to protest the proposed scrapping of the ship. The ship was saved and, in rebuilt form, is still … Read more

In the brief conflict called the Gulf War from January to March 1991, the U.S. suffered 148 combat deaths and 213 wounded. The number of Iraqi combat deaths, according to a Saudi Arabian estimate, was 80,000 to 100,000, though the exact figure is not known.

Born in upstate New York, Matthew Brady (c. 1823-96) worked in New York City as a clerk in the A. T. Stewart department store and as a manufacturer of jewelry cases. He opened his first daguerreotype portrait studio at the corner of Broadway and Fulton Street in 1844. He later became famous for the pictures … Read more

Redware were earthenware containers used in 18th and early 19th-century America for everyday household needs, such as stew-pots, mixing bowls, and chamber pots.

Willie O’Ree, who played one season for the Boston Bruins, 1960-61 was the first black professional hockey player.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, about 250,000 AIDS cases have been reported in the U.S. and its territories as of September 30, 1992. Of those people, 160,372 have died.

Martin Luther King Day was first observed as a federal legal public holiday on January 20, 1986.

The holiday Decoration Day, which was first widely celebrated on May 30, 1868, was originally meant to remind citizens to decorate with wreaths the graves of soldiers killed in the Civil War. The holiday has since been renamed Memorial Day and is observed on the last Monday in May to honor the dead of all … Read more

On September 14, 1847, during the Mexican War, U.S. troops under the command of General Winfield Scott occupied Mexico City. Mexico made peace with the U.S. in 1848.

The grandfather and namesake of 1950s Democratic Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson served as vice-president from 1893 to 1897 under Grover Cleveland.

National Airlines began the first domestic jet airliner passenger service in the U.S. on December 10, 1958, between New York and Miami.

The head of the Unification Church married 2,075 couples in a mass wedding at Madison Square Garden in New York City on July 1, 1982.