The origins of the humble hamburger are unclear, but a precursor traces back as far as the fifth century in Imperial Rome. There are several claimants for the distinction of serving the first recognizable, made in the USA hamburger. One of them was Oscar Weber Bilby of Oklahoma. He is supposed to have served the first burgers at his Fourth of July cookout in 1891. Some forms of ground or chopped beef had previously been served on or between slices …
Category: Open Lines
Monday Open Line
Today is the signature American holiday, celebrating the date in 1776 when the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence. Ours was the first successful colonial independence movement against a European power. Recognition of our nationhood came with the Peace Treaty of 1783. From sea to shining sea, there will be parades, concerts, barbecues, and, of course, fireworks. Among the celebrations is the Boston Pops fireworks spectacular, featuring Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture.” In the U.S. of 1812, the population of …
Friday / Weekend Open Lines
Friday, July 1st. “America runs on Bulova time.” That declaration was the entire audio portion of the first advertisement appearing on a commercial television station. The rather subdued ad was broadcast on New York station WBNT on this date in 1941, the first TV ad with the sanction of the Federal Communications Commission. The 10-second spot appeared in a Brooklyn Dodgers game against the Philadelphia Phillies. Consisting of nothing more than the image of a ticking clock, the ad cost …
Thursday Open Line
On this date 45 years ago, the sun set on our old concept of coming of age. The 26th amendment to the Constitution became law effective July 1, lowering the age requirement for voting in national elections from 21 to 18 years old. In 1972, the amendment added some 11 million voters to the electorate. Today, there are over 14.5 million young Americans age 18 to 20. In the last presidential election, more than 37 percent of them went to …
Wednesday Open Line
On June 28, 1969, the first National Hollerin’ Contest was held in Spivey’s Corner in Sampson County. The contest is the product of the farm culture of the Sandhills region. Before the advent of the telephone, yelling loudly, or hollering, was the primary way farmers and neighbors communicated in rural North Carolina. As new technologies made communication easier, the practice began to disappear. The idea for the contest grew out of a conversation on a local radio program. The contest’s two …
Tuesday Open Line
America’s first commercial oil refinery was put in operation this month in 1860. It was built in Titusville, Pennsylvania, on the banks of Oil Creek. That town was the site of the country’s first productive oil well in 1859, and these developments made the area some 100 miles north of Pittsburgh the cradle of America’s oil industry. The first refinery was focused on extracting kerosene from the crude oil. Any gasoline by-product was dumped into the creek. With today’s regulations …
Monday Open Lines
Consumers’ options for managing their finances were greatly broadened this week in 1934, after President Roosevelt signed the Federal Credit Union Act the day before, promoting the nationwide formation of credit unions. These differ from banks by being member-owned and controlled. Credit unions are nonprofit institutions where groups of people can save, borrow, and obtain other financial services. There are nearly 18,500 credit unions in the U.S., employing more than a quarter million people. These establishments range from a small …
Friday / Weekend Open Lines
Friday, June 24th. In the past, hot summer days meant that some enterprising youngsters in the neighborhood would set up a lemonade stand or the family would share a pitcher of iced tea on the front porch to cool off. In recent times, we usually resort to something in a bottle or can to slake our thirst year-round. The drink of choice is often a soft drink, usually carbonated. As a result, fizzy soft drink manufacturing is a $34 billion …
Thursday Open Line
On this date in 1868, Christopher Sholes of Milwaukee, Wisconsin received a patent for the first practical typewriter. Produced in 1873, the Sholes machine even coined the term “type-writer.” It also featured today’s familiar but awkward placement of keys. The arrangement was specifically designed to slow down typing by widely spreading the most common letters, in the hope of preventing the keys from jamming. In the middle of the last century, about a quarter of all high school students were …
Wednesday Open Line
A musical instrument requiring much skill to play, but with few popular outlets for performing, is the spurned accordion. During June, fans of this neglected musical instrument have been celebrating National Accordion Awareness Month, with the idea of increasing its popularity beyond polka bands. The earliest ancestors of the accordion are traced to China of some 5,000 years ago, while the modern instrument had its beginnings in Germany in the 1820s. Older Americans might recall that the accordion was featured …
Tuesday Open Line
One man’s devotion to classical music led to a major advance in the music recording industry. Dr. Peter Goldmark of CBS Labs was fed up with the frequent record disc flips and swaps required to play a symphony in the then-current 78-rpm format, which held only three to five minutes per side. So he developed the 33 1/3 rpm long-playing record — first shown to the public on this date in 1948, and the standard for decades to follow. A …
Monday Open Line
This week 50 years ago, the Beatles’ song “Paperback Writer” topped the pop music charts in America. This ode to middlebrow writing aspirations followed by 106 years the introduction of paperback books by some earlier Beadles — the brothers Erastus and Irwin Beadle. In early June 1860, the New York City publishers issued the first paperback, called Malaeska, the Indian Wife of the White Hunter. Termed a “dime novel” for its price, the title seems to foreshadow two common subjects …
Friday / Weekend Open Lines
Friday, June 17th. America’s first accident insurance company was chartered on this date in 1863 in Hartford, Connecticut. It was the Travelers Insurance Company — still with us today as the Travelers Companies — and its first policies insured against loss during periods of travel only. In 1864, the charter was amended to cover all manner of accidents. The first such rider, sealed with a handshake, was to insure James Bolter of Hartford for $5,000 against accidents on his walk …
Thursday Open Line
For centuries, the month of June has been the most popular choice for weddings. One of the purported reasons was that some hundreds of years ago, this time was just after May’s annual bath, so the happy couple and the guests were about as clean as could be hoped. With the ensuing advances in plumbing and overall hygiene, dressy weddings are readily staged year round, from simple civil ceremonies and backyard or back-to-nature vows, to elaborate church functions. Each year, …
Wednesday Open Line
With summer and school vacation almost here, children will be urging their parents to take them to the nearest amusement park. Long among the most popular features of these parks are ever more thrilling roller coasters, which trace their roots back to 17th century ice slides in Russia. In the U.S., the first roller coaster opened this month in 1884 at Coney Island, New York. It was built by LaMarcus Thompson and was called the “Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway.” The …
Tuesday Open Line
On this date 65 years ago, it can be assumed that computer technicians and engineers at the Census Bureau were a bit nervous at the start of the workday. The first commercial computer, the 13-ton UNIVAC I, was about to begin its 12 year — or 73,000-hour — career of number crunching for the bureau. The successful start-up was used to process data from the 1950 Census of Population and was among the most important milestones leading to the modern …
Monday Open Line
The American dream of owning — and keeping — a home got a lifeline on this date in 1933 with passage of the Homeowners Loan Act. The act provided emergency relief in the depths of the Great Depression, helping homeowners ward off foreclosure. The act also created a system of federal savings associations to facilitate home construction, consumer savings, and affordable mortgage lending. At the time, less than half of the country’s homes were owner-occupied. Today, owners live in nearly …
Friday / Weekend Open Lines
Friday, June 10th. This year’s Cereal City Festival kicks off this evening with a parade in downtown Battle Creek, Michigan. But the highlight of the festival, in the city that bills itself as the Cereal Capital of the World, is the world’s longest breakfast table. On Saturday morning, hundreds of volunteers will be serving breakfast in shifts to perhaps 70,000 people — greater than Battle Creek’s population of about 52,000. Our first enduring breakfast cereal is Shredded Wheat, created around …
Thursday Open Line
A home entertainment revolution began on this date in 1975 when the videocassette recorder was introduced. It was Sony’s Betamax format recorder, which in a very few years was superseded by the rival VHS format. Although Betamax was technically superior, VHS gained its dominance by being the first cassette to offer extended recording times. At its peak, some 9-out-of-10 households across the country had a VCR. Then, the DVD was introduced in 1997, and quickly eclipsed videocassettes. Now, the rising …
Wednesday Open Line
One of the joys of summer and sins of consumption goes back to this date in 1786 when commercially made ice cream was first advertised in New York City. Until then, ice cream was a privately prepared treat. But the New York Post Boy announcement stated that anyone “may be supplied with ice cream every day at the City tavern by their humble servant, Joseph Cowe.” However, the supply was as limited as the technology of the age, and ice …