Category: Open Lines

The nation’s first college for deaf students traces its beginning to this date in 1857, when Congress incorporated the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf, Dumb and Blind. In 1864, the school was federally chartered to confer degrees, the first three of which were awarded in 1869. Those diplomas were signed by President Ulysses S. Grant, and all subsequent diplomas awarded by the school bear the U.S. President’s signature. In 1954, the name of the institution was changed …

This date marks the anniversary in 1635 of the idea of America’s first public school — the Boston Latin School — long before there was a United States. Established in April that year, among its later students were Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams. And this month in 1897, Phoebe Hearst and Alice Birney founded what is today known as the Parent Teacher Association, or PTA. Originally called the National Congress of Mothers, the organization now encourages both mothers and fathers …

One of the nation’s major civil rights organizations is 106 years old today — the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Founded to combat lynching and segregation, the NAACP continues to work toward greater opportunities for minorities. One of its most telling moments came with the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education, which desegregated the nation’s schools. The lawyer who argued that case, Thurgood Marshall, became the first African-American Supreme Court justice. When the …

Among his very many achievements, Benjamin Franklin played a leading role in the founding of America’s first hospital, decades before the Declaration of Independence. Together with Dr. Thomas Bond, he obtained a charter for a hospital to serve the poor, sick and insane in Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Hospital opened on this date in 1752 in a converted house. The hospital later developed at a location where a modern medical complex still serves the city. During its long history, the hospital’s …

For well over a century, Americans have been smitten with motor vehicles, and new models have long been a point of interest. Our appetite for cars was put on a crash diet this date in 1942 when the manufacturing of private vehicles was shut down for the duration of World War II. The auto companies instead were retooled to build tanks and planes and — of course — jeeps for the GIs. Sedans, trucks and ambulances were also made for …

On this date in 1825, our most unusual presidential election was held, with the winner receiving just 13 votes to the runner-up’s seven, and four to the third-place finisher. The election held in November 1824 saw only 353,000 votes cast, out of a population of about 10 million residents. Andrew Jackson won a plurality of 43 percent in the four-way race, handily beating John Quincy Adams’s 30 percent. But Jackson received only 99 of the 131 electoral votes needed to …

On this date in 1899, the Senate ratified the Treaty of Paris, concluding the Spanish-American War of 1898. The treaty, negotiated in Paris the previous December, was opposed by 27 senators — not opposed to peace but to the overseas territorial acquisitions. Spain ceded Puerto Rico, Guam, and — for a few years before independence — Cuba to the United States, along with selling the Philippines for $20 million. The Philippines became independent after World War II, but Puerto Rico …

February is American Heart Month, dedicated to the serious matter of monitoring and taking care of our beating hearts. This is important because while heart disease has claimed fewer lives in recent years, it is still the nation’s number one killer — responsible for nearly 600,000 deaths annually. However, almost as if to prove that no good intention goes unpunished, February is also National Snack Food Month. And America truly “hearts” its snack foods. After the brief disappearance a couple …

Adding poignancy to Black History Month, today marks the birthday in 1913 of Rosa Parks, a shy woman who became a symbol of the fight for civil equality. Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus to a white man. This sparked a boycott of the bus system by blacks, which greatly energized the ultimately successful civil rights movement. During her life, Rosa Parks championed the cause of increased opportunities for youth. When …

It may be hard to credit, but there used to be a time when the public sphere wasn’t filled with squabbling about income tax rates. The familiar noise began 102 years ago today, when the 16th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, authorizing Congress to levy taxes on income. In its first two years, the tax was modest, affecting only a very few citizens and provided only a small part of the government’s total revenue. But the need to fund …

On this date in 1848, the United States and a defeated Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending their controversial war, which began in May 1846 after some mutual provocations. In the peace treaty, Mexico recognized America’s annexation of the Republic of Texas, with the Rio Grande being the border. In exchange for $15 million and other provisions, the U.S. obtained all or much of what are now six of our other southwestern states. Some 80,000 Mexicans were thereby …

Modern American election cycles engage campaign managers in almost all levels of political races. The man usually credited with being America’s first campaign director, John James Beckley, operated decades before the advent of the news cycle and social media. He directed campaigns on behalf of the Democratic-Republicans in the late 18th century. After Thomas Jefferson won the presidency in 1800, the Library of Congress was founded. Beckley was appointed the first librarian of that world-renowned institution this week in 1802. …

A social milestone was reached this date in 1907 when Congressman Charles Curtis of Kansas was seated in the U.S. Senate to complete the few weeks remaining in the term of a resigned senator. He was the first person with Native American blood to serve in the Senate, as his mother was descended from three tribes. He was elected to that office four times, serving for 20 years. He remained until March 3, 1929, when he left the Senate to …

As the Great Depression approached its worst, Wisconsin made the nation’s first governmental direct relief effort for the unemployed. On this date in 1932, it enacted unemployment insurance, soon followed by a half-dozen other states before the Social Security Act in middecade moved all states to adopt such programs by 1937. Wisconsin’s program issued its first unemployment check in August in the amount of $15. By 2011, states and local governments took in almost $88 billion from the payroll tax …

On this date 32 years ago, the infant personal computer was empowered to become something much greater than a glorified word processor with the release of the spreadsheet program Lotus 1-2-3. The popular program drew acclaim as the first PC “killer application.” Finance and accounting workers were thus freed from hunching over ledger books and switched to hunching before a computer screen. The name “1-2-3” stemmed from the product’s integration of three main capabilities — spreadsheet, charting and graphing, and …

An innovation in product packaging — and a staple of TV advertising — is having its 80th anniversary tomorrow. The first canned beer went on sale in 1935 as a marketing test in Richmond, Virginia, by the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company of Newark, New Jersey. Experiments with putting beer in cans had taken place as early as 1909 but the technology of the time couldn’t stop the beer from interacting negatively with the metal of the can. Prohibition delayed further …

Many sumptuous foods get their day — or month — in the sun by way of some commemoration. But January celebrates a very basic, traditional dish. This is Oatmeal Month, recognizing the long-term favorite for its up-to-date health characteristics — low fat, no sodium, and the ability to help lower the risk of heart disease. Oatmeal also fits today’s time pressures, since a bowl can be made in seconds in the microwave. And, of course, oatmeal cookies are among the …

You may think the debate about smoking is fairly recent, but the more things change, the more they resemble 1908. On this date that year, the New York City council passed an ordinance that made it illegal for women to smoke in public places. The ordinance was the result of a campaign by the National Anti-Cigarette League. At the time, a number of cities had banned smoking, along with the states of Arkansas, Iowa, Idaho, and Tennessee. All of these …

It’s purely coincidence, but nonetheless symbolic, that this date, the traditional presidential inauguration day, also happens to be the 232nd anniversary of the end of hostilities in the American Revolution. This 1783 cease-fire, while throwing off a monarch, started us on the way to electing our head of state. Along with creating the office of president, the ensuing constitution of the new republic was unique in world history for requiring a regular, periodic census. Letting bygones be bygones, census figures …

Being able to store and distribute food before it spoiled became easier in the young United States on this date in 1825. That’s when Ezra Daggett and Thomas Kensett were granted a patent for the tin can. Heating and sealing food in glass jars had started a few years before in France, and the British Royal Navy was being supplied with canned foods by 1820. Borrowing the practice, the U.S. became the eventual world leader in canning. Even though today …