The Panama Canal, which required ten years from start to finish, took two years longer to build than the Erie Canal. Excavation on the 51-mile long Panama Canal began in 1904; the first ship entered the waterway in 1914. The Erie Canal, linking Buffalo and Albany, New York, took from 1817 to 1825 to complete.
There are 10 federal legal public holidays in the U.S.: New Year’s Day Martin Luther King Day Washington’s Birthday (a.k.a. Presidents’ Day) Memorial Day Independence Day Labor Day Columbus Day Veterans’ Day Thanksgiving Christmas
The sharpshooter Annie Oakley who appeared in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in the late 19th century was born Phoebe Mozee. Her life was popularized on Broadway in the 1946 Irving Berlin musical Annie Get Your Gun, starring Ethel Merman.
The leader of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad, was born Elijah Poole in 1897 near Sandersville, Georgia. He took over leadership of the Muslim sect (founded in Detroit in 1930 and commonly known as the Black Muslims) in 1934, expanding its reach and advocating black separatism until his death in 1975.
New York City was named the capital of America in 1788 and remained so until 1800, when Washington, D.C. was so named.
Legendary frontiersman Daniel Boone was an old man when Davy Crockett was just starting his own career as a backwoodsman. Born in Pennsylvania, Boone (1734-1820) is best known for his exploration and settlement of Kentucky. Crockett (1786-1836) served as a U.S. representative from Tennessee and died defending the Alamo. Both men are remembered in folklore … Read more
France sent the first explorers to the region that is now New York state. Italian explorer Giovanni Verrazzano, sailing for France in 1524, discovered New York Bay. In 1609, French soldier and sailor Samuel de Champlain explored what is now northern New York and claimed it for France. However, the Dutch were the first to … Read more
Consisting of a belted tunic that reached just below the knees and baggy trousers gathered at the ankles, the garment known as bloomers was introduced in 1851 by American feminist Amelia Jenks Bloomer. She considered it a lighter, less confining costume for active women than the heavy hoop skirts of the day. Originally designed by … Read more
Beginning in 1955, Boss Richard J. Daley was elected for five terms as mayor of Chicago. He was serving as mayor when he died in 1976. Since 1989, his son, Richard M. Daley, Jr., has served as mayor of Chicago.
The Merrimac was not the ironclad ship fought the Monitor during the Civil War. The Union ship Merrimac had been renamed the Virginia by the Confederates. The Virginia fought the Union ironclad Monitor at Hampton Roads, Virginia, on March 9, 1862. The battle ended in a draw.
According to the U.S. Department of Defense, 58,135 Americans were killed and 153,303 wounded. It is estimated that 1.3 million Vietnamese lost their lives.
The emergency communications link, also called “hot line”, between Washington and Moscow was installed in 1963 to reduce the possibility of accidental nuclear war.
George Washington. Captain, Cloe, Forester, Lady, Mopsey, Rover, Taster, Tipler, etc. Abraham Lincoln. Jip Franklin D. Roosevelt. Fala and Tiny John F. Kennedy. Charley, Shannon, and Wolf
The poem that later became the “Star-Spangled Banner” was written by Francis Scott Key in 1814. It was written to commemorate the battle for Fort McHenry, Maryland, during the War of 1812, was called “Defence of Fort M’Henry.”
As of 1990, the magazine empire Time Warner was about twice as big, with $1.855 billion in magazine revenue to Hearst’s $993 million.
The 1982 law prohibiting federal support for the contra rebels in Nicaragua, the “Boland Amendment”, was introduced by Massachusetts representative Edward Boland. In 1987, Marine Colonel Oliver North and national security chief John Poindexter were accused of violating the Boland Amendment by diverting funds to the contras from the sale of arms to Iran.
Sixth Avenue was renamed Avenue of the Americas on October 2, 1945, by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia (1882-1947). He signed a bill officially changing the name to honor all the countries of the two continents.
The future mayor of New York City Fiorello La Guardia worked at the immigration center on Ellis Island as an interpreter while attending law school. The Manhattan-born son of an Austrian Jewish mother and Italian father, La Guardia (1882-1947) helped usher immigrants through the center, which served as a port of entry from 1892 to … Read more
There have been 538 members of the Electoral College since 1964, when, in keeping with the 23rd Amendment, the District of Columbia acquired three electors. In addition, each state chooses as many electors as it has senators and representatives in Congress. At present, 270 electoral votes are needed to win, a majority of the 538 … Read more
The principal founder of the Library of Congress was Thomas Jefferson, who believed that a democratic legislative body needed a source of information and scholarship on every subject. It was established by Congress on April 24, 1800. Originally based in the Capitol in Washington, D.C., it was moved into a separate building in 1897.
Wolfman Jack’s real name was Robert Weston Smith. Born in Brooklyn, the disc jockey began broadcasting as the “Wolfman” in 1960 at border station XERF in Via Cuncio, Mexico, just north of Del Rio, Texas. His raunchy, outlaw pronouncements were heard widely in the U.S. but remained beyond the jurisdiction of the FCC.
Roosevelt had polio in August 1921, when he was 39. By that time, he had been assistant secretary of the navy, a vice presidential nominee (in 1920), and a member of the New York State Senate.
The Miss Subways program, run by the New York Subway Advertising Company, started in May 1941 and ended in December 1976. Every month a Miss Subways, a woman over 17, not an actress or a model, was chosen. She was featured on signs and was given a $50 sterling silver charm with dangling subway tokens. … Read more
The first labor strike in the United States took place in 1776, in New York, when members of the Journeymen Printers Union struck against their local shops.
Technically, the first president of the United States was not George Washington, but John Hanson of Maryland. In 1781, Hanson began a one-year term as the first “president of the United States in Congress assembled” under the Articles of Confederation. Seven other men served as president before Washington, technically, the ninth president, took office in … Read more
The inoculation campaign that used the Salk polio vaccine during the polio epidemic first started in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1954. Dr. Jonas Salk, the developer of the vaccine, himself was involved in the first program of mass inoculation. The oral polio vaccine, developed in 1956 by Albert Sabin, became more widely used than inoculations.
The period known as Franklin Roosevelt’s Hundred Days, which represented the first session of the first New Deal Congress, lasted from March 9 to June 16, 1933. It was a time of intense legislative activity aimed at reversing the effects of the Great Depression.
The last veteran of the American Revolution died in 1867.
A Ghost Dance is a ceremonial spiritual dance related to the teachings of Wovoka, a Paiute medicine man of Nevada who foresaw the restoration of the American continent to the Indians. Wovoka’s revolutionary message, preached in the late 1880s, provoked repression from U.S. officials, culminating in the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890.
SDS stood for Students for a Democratic Society. The “New Left” movement for social and political change was organized at Port Huron, Michigan, in June 1962. Its manifesto was called the “Port Huron Statement.”
The first American land visited by Columbus was an island in the Bahamas that he named San Salvador. Historians have disagreed which island this really was. Wading Island and Samana Cay have both been suggested as possibilities. The landfall was first spotted on October 12, 1492, at about 2 A.M. by Rodrigo de Triana, the … Read more
The Persian Empire was about as large as the continental United States. Under its Achaemenid rulers, the Persian Empire encompassed not only Persia but Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and much of modern Afghanistan. The wars between Greece and Persia lasted from 499 to 479 B.C., ending in Greek victory.
Rosa Parks refuse to move from her seat in the white section of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama because of a combination of fatigue and principle. “I was quite tired after spending a full day working,” the seamstress explained about her action on Dec. 1, 1955, which touched off the famous bus boycott and ushered … Read more
During World War I (1917-18), Franklin Roosevelt was the assistant secretary of the Navy.
Ronald Reagan, at 69 in 1980 and at 73 in 1984, was the oldest man to be elected president.
While the fire did begin in a cow barn behind the cottage of Patrick O’Leary, there is no evidence that a cow was responsible. In fact, a reporter, Michael Ahern, later admitted he created the legend in order to make a better story. The fire lasted 27 hours, killing 250 people and destroying 17,450 buildings.
The reward for the capture of Harriet Tubman (c. 1820-1913), an ex-slave who became famous for helping southern slaves escape to freedom in Canada, went as high as $40,000. Even so, she eluded bounty hunters, returning 19 times to the South and bringing over 300 slaves to freedom on what was called the Underground Railroad. … Read more
After escaping from slavery in 1838, the abolitionist and black leader Frederick Douglass (c. 1817-95) took the name “Douglass” from a character in Sir Walter Scott’s narrative poem The Lady of the Lake (1810).
Thomas Jefferson said, “A little rebellion now and then is a good thing”, writing from Paris on hearing of Shays’s Rebellion, an uprising of poor farmers against the Massachusetts state government in 1786. Jefferson added, “God forbid that we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.”
The first American musical radio broadcast was a broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City in 1910.
Tippecanoe is located in Indiana. In 1811, William Henry Harrison led a regiment to victory over Indians, led by Tecumseh. Harrison was elected president (with running mate John Tyler) in 1840, using the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!”
Dennis Barrie, director of the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, was indicted by a local grand jury for exhibiting photographs by the late Robert Mapplethorpe, but acquitted on October 5, 1990.
The score at the end of the game in “Casey at the Bat” was two to four, with the “Mudville nine” losing to an anonymous team thanks to “Mighty Casey” striking out in the ninth inning. Written by Ernest Lawrence Thayer (1863-1940), the poem was first published pseudonymously in the San Francisco Examiner on June … Read more
Richard and Maurice McDonald opened their original drive-in stand that would be known as McDonald’s in San Bernardino, California, in 1940. Beginning in 1948, they switched to a new streamlined system, with a limited menu, low prices, fast service, and disposable wrappings. In 1954, milkshake machine salesman Ray Kroc became the franchising agent for the … Read more
Ten McDonald’s hamburgers are made per pound of beef, apportioned by a computer formula.
Ratified in January 1964, the 24th Amendment made it illegal to deny a citizen the right to vote in a federal election for failure to pay a poll tax. This device had been used by Southern states since Reconstruction to prevent blacks from voting.
George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, premiered in 1924 by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra was billed as “An Experiment in Modern Music”. The piece fused symphonic and jazz styles, reflecting Gershwin’s background as a popular songwriter.
The names of these two English political parties Whig and Tory were each invented by the respective party’s rival as a pejorative term. The Country Party, representing the merchants and middle class, called their opponents tories, a word for Irish plunderers. The Court Party, representing the aristocrats, squires, and Anglican clergy, called their opponents Whigs, … Read more
Caspar Weinberger, who went on to become Ronald Reagan’s secretary of defense (1981-87), served as secretary of health, education, and welfare (1973-75) under both Nixon and Ford.
The pledge was uttered by Nez Perce chief Joseph (c. 1840–1904) in 1877. It was part of a larger statement made when his fugitive tribe surrendered to the U.S. Army following a long, grueling journey as they attempted to flee to Canada. The exact quote is, “Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired; my heart … Read more
Seven members serve on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, founded in 1913. All are appointed to 14-year terms by the president. The Federal Reserve System, which includes all national banks and many state banks, helps to maintain the country’s economic health through such means as fixing reserve deposit requirements and establishing … Read more
This 1817 exchange of notes between U.S. Secretary of State Richard Rush and British Minister Charles Bagot, also known as the Rush-Bagot convention, provided for disarmament of the U.S-Canada frontier. It laid the basis for keeping the boundary undefended to this day.
The fabled district “Storyville” of New Orleans got its name from Alderman Sidney Story. In 1897, he moved the city’s illegal activities, such as gambling and prostitution, into a restricted district along Basin Street, next to the French Quarter. Storyville flourished until 1917, when the secretary of the Navy had it closed down to protect … Read more
The New Year’s Day football game was first played between the University of Michigan and Stanford University in Pasadena, California, in 1902. Michigan won 49-0.
In the 1860s, Karl Marx wrote about politics in Europe for the U.S. periodical the New York Tribune.
Malcolm X was shot dead on February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem where he was preparing to speak. It is widely alleged that his assassins were members of the Nation of Islam.
Harold Stassen ran for the presidency three times, though it seems like more. Born in 1907, Harold Edward Stassen, governor of Minnesota from 1938 to 1945, tried unsuccessfully to win the Republican nomination in 1948, 1964, and 1968. He has gone on trying in the comedy routines of others ever since.
Sargent Shriver, husband of President Kennedy’s sister Eunice and, in 1972, the running mate of unsuccessful presidential candidate George McGovern, was the first director of the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps, a volunteer organization to help Third World countries, was founded by Kennedy’s executive order on March 1, 1961.
The first nuclear reactor in the U.S. in a squash court at the University of Chicago. There, using a uranium-235-based reactor, Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi achieved the first sustained nuclear chain reaction on December 2, 1942. It was a crucial step in the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear power.
The score of years described by Jane Addams in Twenty Years at Hull-House began in 1889 when Addams (1860-1935) and her friend Ellen Starr moved into an old mansion in a poor neighborhood of Chicago. Hull-House became a center for social and political activism. In 1910, Addams published her autobiography, Twenty Years at Hull-House. She … Read more
In the U.S., British general Charles Cornwallis’s main claim to fame was his surrender to the Americans and French at Yorktown, Virginia, on October 19, 1781, a turning point that effectively ended the war. But Cornwallis’s career of enforcing British imperial rule was far from over. He went on to become Governor General of India … Read more
Known as an artist and writer as well as an inventor, Samuel F. B Morse wrote a series of highly popular newspaper articles denouncing the immigration of Catholics to the U.S. These were published under the pen name “Brutus.” Gathered into book form in 1835, they helped create an American tradition of anti-immigration sentiment.
The four-year post-World War II economic recovery plan for Europe, known as the Marshall Plan, cost $13 billion. The plan, enacted 1948-51, was named for its chief architect, U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall.
The Brownshirts in the Nazi army were the ordinary soldiers. The Black-shirts were members of the army chosen to be bodyguards for high-ranking officials and supervisors of concentration camps. The latter were also known as the SS, short for Schutzstaffel, or elite guard.
Dwight D. Eisenhower changed the name Shangri-La to Camp David in 1953, naming it after his grandson.
According to the 1783 Treaty of Paris, in which Great Britain acknowledged American independence, the new nation’s boundaries were the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River, the state of Florida and the latitude line of 31° North.
The first Jews in the 13 Colonies settled in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam (New York) in 1654. Descendants of Jews forced to leave Spain and Portugal during persecutions in the late 15th century, they had settled in the Dutch colony of Recife in Brazil. When that colony was conquered by the Portuguese, the … Read more
Sponsored by a nonprofit youth organization called Environmental Action, Inc., Earth Day was first celebrated on April 20, 1970, to draw attention to the pollution of the nation’s environment. The nationwide action involved more than 2,000 college campuses, 2,000 community groups, and 10,000 schools. Over 20 U.S. Senators spoke against pollution. Earth Day continues to … Read more
The first college to be founded in America north of Mexico was a college for young men founded by French Jesuits at Quebec in 1635. Harvard, the first college in the British colonies, was founded in 1636.
Erected in June 1892 on a nine-story building near Broadway and Twenty-third Street, the first electric sign in New York measured 60 by 68 feet and read: Buy Homes On Long Island Swept By Ocean Breezes Manhattan Beach Oriental Hotel Manhattan Hotel Gilmore’s Band Brock’s Fireworks
A Cherokee named Sequoyah finished the system of writing in Cherokee in Arkansas in 1821. Sequoyah neither spoke nor wrote English, but he had an idea of the power of writing: “I thought that would be like catching a wild animal and taming it.” His alphabet had a character for each of 86 Cherokee syllables. … Read more
The English explorer Sir Francis Drake gave the name Nova Albion (Latin for “New England”) to California in 1579. The place near San Francisco where he anchored is still called Drake’s Bay.
James K. Polk, who served as Speaker of the House from 1835 to 1839, was sworn in as president in 1845. Polk served one term, leaving office in 1849.
The U.S. government first adopt daylight saving time in 1918, during World War I. During daylight saving time, which currently extends from the first Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October, clocks are set ahead one hour to extend daylight hours into the late afternoon and evening.
In colonial New England, “hiving out” meant leaving a town when the rules or the neighbors were not to one’s liking and settling somewhere else.
Alaska became the 49th U.S. state in 1958, Hawaii the 50th in 1959.
Orville made the first flight in the airplane built by him and his brother Wilbur, on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The 12-horsepower biplane covered 120 feet in 12 seconds.
In 1916, the rebel leader Pancho Villa raided Columbus, New Mexico, and killed 18 people. Villa opposed U.S. influence in Mexico and was seeking to overthrow the Mexican government. In response, President Woodrow Wilson sent General John Pershing and 6,000 troops into northern Mexico on a mission to find Villa. Pershing’s expedition clashed with Mexican … Read more
In a 1961 speech, Newton Minow, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, announced that television was a “vast wasteland” because it was a “procession” of formulaic and violent programs and endless commercials.
In the 1896 decision that established the grounds for “separate but equal” public facilities, Homer Plessy was an octoroon (mixed race) who was arrested in Louisiana when he sat in a “white” car on a train. John H. Ferguson was the New Orleans criminal court judge who convicted him.
The hero of the Meuse-Argonne offensive, Sergeant Alvin York, launched on September 26, 1918, killed 25 Germans and captured 132, along with 35 machine guns in World War I. The Tennessee sharpshooter, who had petitioned unsuccessfully for exemption as a conscientious objector, was lionized for his exploits and awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and … Read more
Louis Armstrong’s first recordings were with the Creole Jazz Band of Joseph “King” Oliver in Chicago in 1923. Armstrong played second clarinet to Oliver.
The 1928 novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover by British writer D. H. Lawrence was one of the top-selling novels of 1959, the year the ban on its publication in the U.S. was lifted.
At first, it seemed that the U.S. had won the Olympic basketball final in 1972 50-49 . But it was ruled that the clock was wrong, and there were three seconds left to play. When the teams resumed the game, the U.S.S.R. scored a basket to win 51-50. It was the first U.S. basketball title … Read more
The League of Women Voters was founded in Chicago in 1920 by Carrie Chapman Catt, along with other leaders of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Its aim was to strengthen the political power of women following passage of the 19th Amendment (granting women the vote). Since then, the organization’s aims broadened to general advocacy … Read more
Manhattan is 13.4 miles long, 2.3 miles across at its widest point, and 22.5 square miles in area.
The People’s (or Populist) Party nominated James Baird Weaver, a Union general from Iowa, as their presidential candidate at their first national convention on July 4, 1892. His running mate was James C. Field, a Confederate general from Virginia. The party was supported by farmers and workers discontented with the dominant parties.
Thomas Jefferson said, “I am not among those who fear the people; they, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom”.
The date of the first human migration to the Americas is still in dispute. It may be as early as 35,000 years ago or, according to some archeologists, no more than 12,000 years ago. Whichever date turns out to be correct, it is believed that the first Americans migrated from northeastern Siberia across the Bering … Read more
Shays’s Rebellion (with the apostrophe after Shays) was named for army veteran Daniel Shays, who led an uprising against the Massachusetts state government in 1786. This action was one of a series of protests in 1786-87 by American farmers and workers throughout the young nation against state and local enforcement of tax collection and judgments … Read more