Author: Submitted Article

The nation’s telephone systems are humming with activity as holiday wishes by the millions crisscross the country. It was much different in 1876, when there were all of three telephones in the country. But Alexander Graham Bell’s startup proved a keeper, and a decade later there were 167,000 phones in the U.S. By the 50th anniversary year of the phone’s invention, there were nearly 18 million in the country. In 1926, a three-minute call from one of those phones in …

Friday, December 4th. Black Friday is behind us, but the holiday shopping season continues to build. People jamming the malls are rediscovering one of the travails of the season — finding a place to park. When the mall spaces are filled, many turn to commercial garages. One innovative solution opened this week in the nation’s capital in 1951. The Park-O-Mat garage was completely automated, and parked 72 cars in 18 levels of space just 25 by 40 feet. Without entering …

Colleges and universities with both male and female students are the norm today. But in 1833, only a few women went to college and the idea of coed classes was a social innovation. On this date that year, Oberlin College in Ohio opened its doors to both sexes. That first year, the school had 44 students — 29 men and 15 women. Now, Oberlin has a student body of close to 3,000 and boasts one of the most comprehensive libraries …

One of the most important technological breakthroughs was made on this date in 1942, one that would for good or ill change the course of world history. At the University of Chicago, a group of scientists led by physicist Enrico Fermi succeeded in producing the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. This first simple reactor, built in great secrecy under the stands of the university’s football stadium, helped provide the knowledge that led to the development of the first atomic …

On this date in 1913, what is today the Gulf Oil Company opened the nation’s first drive-in gas station. Located at the intersection of Baum Boulevard and St. Clair Street in Pittsburgh, the filling station was a simple but pleasing structure, with a cantilevered pagoda-style roof to shelter the pumps, cars and station attendants. Before this innovation, gasoline was dispensed from sometimes awkwardly located pumps at such places as grocery and hardware stores, and even some pharmacies. Yet in the …