Friday, December 18th. The holiday season is mostly a time of cheer. But it’s also a time for winter’s most frequent misery — the common cold and the cough that often goes along with it. While science works to find a cure for colds, the rest of us can only try to reduce their symptoms. Before the middle of the 19th century, a restaurant owner in Poughkeepsie, New York, did something to make life a little easier for cold sufferers. James Smith cooked up the first batch of candy cough drops in 1847. By 1872, the popular “Smith Brothers” remedy was packed in boxes for distribution and sale, becoming America’s first factory-packaged candy. The nearly 40,000 drug stores in the country sell some $11.7 billion worth of cough drops, and other nonprescription medicines annually. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.
Saturday, December 19th. The satellite Atlas was launched from Cape Canaveral on this date in 1958. The spacecraft would make history the next day, beaming the first voice heard from space — a recording of President Eisenhower with a 58-word Christmas greeting. These words came at the height of the Cold War and early in the space race. Just 14½ months earlier, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite. Today, satellites daily perform vital functions — tracking the weather, relaying millions of telephone calls and computer links, as well as radio and television signals. Satellite telecommunications in the U.S. involves hundreds of establishments in a $6.6 billion a year business, and employs over 8,000 people. You can find more facts about America’s people, places and economy, from the American Community Survey, at <www.census.gov>.
Sunday, December 20th. Throughout history, bachelors have had to put up with a lot of pressure from friends, family and society in general. They tend to be stereotyped, and for years many television sitcoms have portrayed their supposedly dissolute lives. But no insult can rival that enacted in Missouri on this date 1820, when the legislature voted to tax bachelors between the ages of 21 and 50 $1 a year — just for being unmarried. Obviously, the tax did not stand the test of time or legality. Today, around 35 percent of males over age 15 have never been married, compared with over 28 percent of females. Together, they number around 80 million people, nearly a quarter of the total population of 322 million. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.