Many Americans drive on their vacations, and if they don’t stay with relatives they often stay at one of the nation’s many motels. The term motel came to have meaning only when the automobile started to dominate the landscape and the term “motor hotel” came into general use. The first motel opened on this date in 1925 in San Luis Obispo, California. It featured a sign with flashing lights that changed the first letter so that it alternated the words “hotel” and “motel. It had accommodations for 160 guests in individual chalets, each with bathroom, telephone, and a garage. Today, there are close to 50,000 hotels and motels across the U.S., employing almost 1.5 million people. With a total of 4.9 million rooms available, occupancy averages over 62 percent. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.
Saturday, December 13th. The important holiday business of viewing such classics as “It’s A Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas Story” from the comfort of home owes much to a technological advance this month 76 years ago. In December 1938, Russian-American engineer Vladimir Zworykin was awarded two patents for cathode ray tubes. One was for the iconoscope to capture video images. The other was for the kinescope, which displayed television and computer monitor images for decades until the advent of flat panel screens. Whatever the ills of TV programming, obviously the American people consider it an appliance for a wonderful life. More than 98 percent of U.S. households own at least one set, a percentage that has held steady for years. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.
Sunday, December 14th. Among other special observances being noted in December is Learn a Foreign Language Month, with the goal of getting people to broaden their outlook on the world by taking a course in another language. Increasingly, many different languages are heard across the nation. In the U.S., nearly 61 million people over age 5, or 21 percent, speak a language other than English at home. The leading non-English language is Spanish at nearly 37 million. It’s a long drop to second place, held by the several Chinese variants at 2.8 million. Other languages spoken in over 1 million households each are Korean, Tagalog, Vietnamese, French and German. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.