Friday / Weekend Open Lines


One of the foundations of modern business and science– the accessibility of accurate calculations — was reinforced this month in 1887 when a patent was granted to Dorr Eugene Felt for the first adding machine known to be absolutely accurate at all times. Felt called his machine the “comptometer,” and some models were still in use a half-century later. The comptometer had the mechanical calculator market to itself until 1902. Adding machines — soon joined by punch cards — remained the core of numbers management for more than 60 years until replaced by calculators and computers. Today in the U.S., supplying offices with equipment such as adding machines is the pursuit of some 5,400 office equipment merchant wholesalers. You can find current data on the country’s economy by downloading the ‘America’s Economy’ mobile application at http://www.census.gov/mobile.

Saturday, October 18th. A great many Americans would name pizza high up among their favorite foods, month in and month out. But for the 31st time, October is designated as National Pizza Month. No one knows the exact origin of pizza, but ancient Mediterranean cultures enjoyed flatbreads with various toppings and seasonings. An Italian immigrant named Gennaro Lombardi opened the first pizzeria in the U.S. in New York City in 1905. American soldiers who served in Italy returned from World War II with a taste for pizza and helped its climb to nationwide popularity. Now, about 3 billion pizzas are sold annually. There are some 70,000 pizzerias across the U.S., among the country’s 216,000 limited service restaurants. You can find more facts about America’s people, places and economy, from the American Community Survey, at http://www.census.gov.

Sunday, October 19th. Throughout the decades since the oil embargo of 1973, increasing research and development has gone into renewable sources of energy. Some of the results are seen atop windswept hills across America — large electricity generating windmills. While the concept sounds very modern, the first practical wind turbine generator goes back 73 years. It was on this date in 1941 that Palmer Putnam of Vermont demonstrated his device. His wind turbine had blades 66 feet in length, and in over 700 hours of operation, produced almost 300,000 kilowatt hours. In the U.S. today, there are over 10,000 electric power generating establishments producing 4.1 million megawatt hours. Wind power provides just over 4 percent of the country’s electricity production. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau, online at www.census.gov