After experimenting with thousands of materials, Thomas Edison discovered in 1879 that a scorched cotton thread, the equivalent of a carbon wire, was the filament he needed. It was one that would glow for a long period without melting in an electric light bulb. Edison’s discovery ushered in the age of electric lighting.

It wasn’t only John D. Rockefeller who founded the Standard Oil Company. What would become the country’s largest oil company was founded in 1867 by four people, Rockefeller, Henry M. Flagler, S. V. Harkness, and Rockefeller’s brother William.

James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) sued John Ruskin for libel after Ruskin vilified the painter’s Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket (1877), accusing Whistler of “flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.” Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, Whistler had lived in Europe since 1855 and had become a fixture of London art circles. … Read more

Newspaper columnist Bob Greene is credited with first writing the term “yuppie” in a column in March 1983. The derisive term for “young urban professionals” became widespread by 1984.

The first major conflict against Indians in New England was the Pequot War against the Pequot Indians of Connecticut in 1637. In the bloodiest encounter of the war, English colonists burned a Pequot village near Long Island Sound, killing hundreds of Indian men, women, and children.

Partial use of English was introduced to the U.S. liturgy on November 29, 1964. Latin was not completely phased out of the liturgy until Easter 1970.

William Johnson (1715-74) was an Irishman who settled in the Mohawk Valley of New York in 1738, at the age of 23. He became a wealthy landowner and trader and treated his Mohawk neighbors with fairness and respect. The Mohawks adopted him as a blood brother, and he took a Mohawk wife, Molly Brant. Johnson’s … Read more

Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay negotiated for the United States in a treaty that ended the Revolutionary War. The Treaty of Paris, ending the war and recognizing American independence, was signed on February 3, 1783.

The term “POSSLQ”, which refers to “Persons of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters,” was coined in the 1970s by the U.S. Census Bureau in response to the tripling of the number of unmarried persons sharing households between 1970 and 1980.

The Spanish Inquisition lasted about 350 years. It was begun in 1478 by Queen Isabella of Castile to search out converted Jews secretly practicing their original faith. In 1483, it was broadened as a means of persecuting any and all heretics. The Spanish Inquisition was not completely abolished until 1834.

Yale University students appear to have begun the Frisbee in the 1920s, when they threw around metal pie tins from the Frisbie Bakery of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Middlebury College in Vermont has also taken credit for inventing the game. As a commercial venture, however, Frisbee began with a saucer-shaped toy invented by Walter Frederick Morrison in … Read more

The man who had been expelled from Harvard, William Randolph Hearst, bought or started 42 newspapers. Only a handful remained by the time of his death in 1951.

Approximately 5,000 people appeared at the dedication of the Civil War battlefield cemetery on November 19, 1863.

According to the 1860 census, only 4 percent of the white population of the South owned plantations large enough to be farmed by 20 or more slaves. About 1 percent owned plantations needing 50 or more slaves. Seventy-five percent of white families owned no slaves.

The series of trials in Massachusetts in 1692-93, known as the Salem witch trials, resulted in 27 convictions. Of those, 20 were executed: 19 were hanged, one was crushed to death. In 1693, Massachusetts governor William Phips created a new court, with stricter guidelines for evidence. Through it, remaining prisoners were either acquitted or set … Read more

The Viennese founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud visited the U.S. only once, to receive an honorary doctor of law degree from Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1909. Freud got sick eating American food and was unimpressed by U.S. culture. He later said, “Yes, America is gigantic, but a gigantic mistake.”

Henry Lee, a fellow officer in the Revolutionary War and the father of Civil War general Robert E. Lee called George Washington “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen”.

Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, six days after Nagasaki was bombed on August 9 and nine days after Hiroshima was bombed on August 6.

Confederate general Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson died of a battle wound, but it was not inflicted by a Union soldier. One of his own men accidentally shot him in the arm during the Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia, May 1-3, 1863. Although the battle was a Confederate victory, Jackson’s arm had to be amputated. The general contracted … Read more

Harry Truman didn’t attend college. He was the only president in the 20th century without a college education.

In 1939, a night at the Essex House on Central Park South cost $6. Today, a night in the same hotel starts at $185.

In 1948, some Democratic leaders looked for a more popular candidate than the controversial Harry Truman. Before eventually nominating Truman, they approached Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas and former Supreme Allied Commander Eisenhower.

Precursor of the modern machine gun, the rapid-firing weapon the Gatling gun saw limited action during the Civil War, specifically in the Petersburg Campaign in 1864. The hand-crank-operated gun, capable of firing hundreds of rounds a minute, was patented by Richard J. Gatling in 1862.

The first meeting of the U.S. Supreme Court was on February 2,1790, in New York City. John Jay presided as the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1789 to 1795.

Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, a French explorer and administrator, founded Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit in 1701. The Cadillac automobile is named for him.