Category: Open Lines

Friday, January 15th. The contemporary habit of adjusting TV viewing to your own convenience got its sputtering start 50 years ago. The Sony Corporation began marketing its open-reel videotape recorder in 1966 to individual consumers. The black and white system didn’t make much of an impression. But the Japanese company did far better in 1975 with the introduction of the Betamax VCR for home recording and playback. Although Betamax quickly lost out in the market to the competing VHS format, …

January is Financial Wellness Month, appropriately timed to the confluence of New Year’s resolutions and holiday bills. It’s a time to set new goals for financial freedom and moderation in spending; for people to understand the benefits of “paying yourself first.” A financial adviser can help shape money management goals, pointing out the power of compound interest to work for you in savings and against you in debt. Americans have a per capita income average of just over $28,000 and …

Couch potatoes can trace their roots to this date in 1928 when three experimental television sets were installed in private homes in Schenectady, New York. Not that there was much to see, the test broadcast by General Electric and RCA being of a person smoking, followed by a man playing a ukulele. The first home receivers’ screens were only 1½ inches square; a far cry from today’s theater-sized flat screens. And in another departure from 1928’s lonely three, the number …

Protests by college students in America have a long pedigree. In fact, this year marks the 250th anniversary of the first such action. In 1766, there were just seven colleges in Colonial America.  The students at Harvard—the first college– were unhappy with on-campus dining, specifically, the rancid butter. The so-called Butter Rebellion began with the cry “Behold, our butter stinketh!”  About half the student body supported the complaint, and they found safe spaces for dining in nearby taverns. The administration …

In the depths of winter, many Americans find soothing warmth in a cup of hot tea, be it herbal, ginseng, black, green or some exotic specialty blend. Lumped together, this appreciation of the brew underlies January’s National Hot Tea Month. Tea is the only beverage commonly served either hot or iced and in any season. While tea has been consumed for thousands of years, Americans made two important contributions — inventing tea bags and iced tea — both in 1904. …

Friday, January 8th. The nation’s telephone service options changed forever on this date 34 years ago when AT&T complied with a Justice Department mandate to give up its local Bell System companies. The action came as the result of what has been termed the most significant antitrust suit since the breakup of Standard Oil in 1911. From the late 19th century, the virtual monopoly of what had come to be known as “Ma Bell” controlled America’s telephone equipment and lines. …

During the Revolutionary War, the rebelling colonies and the Continental Congress were anything but too big to fail. To the contrary, finances were very spotty and precarious. To help put affairs in order and make credit available, the first commercial bank in the U.S. opened on this date in 1782, just a week after being chartered by Congress. Called the Bank of North America, it was capitalized at $400,000, which roughly would be around $7.5 billion today. The names of …

Today, when a home is damaged or destroyed by fire, there usually is no question that it was insured against such a common danger. The first fire insurance company in Colonial America was the Friendly Society for the Mutual Insurance of Houses Against Fire. Organized in 1734 in Charleston, South Carolina, it began receiving subscriptions in January 1735. The company was apparently bankrupted by claims after a disastrous citywide fire in 1740. The first full-time, professional firefighting company was formed …

The business world was confronted with a new idea on this date in 1914, when Henry Ford announced that he would reduce the workday from nine to eight hours and pay his factory assembly line workers a minimum wage of $5 a day, which is more than $118 in current dollars. The idea eventually gained general acceptance, and in 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law a federally mandated minimum wage of 25 cents an hour. Currently, the hourly …

Early this month in 1790, President George Washington addressed a joint session of Congress to deliver the first State of the Union report, as called for the in the still young Constitution. The requirement didn’t demand a speech, and after delivering just one, President Thomas Jefferson began reporting in writing, feeling a speech was too magisterial. The spoken presentation was revived over a century later by Woodrow Wilson. Washington’s address has echoes to this day, as he stated “the terms …

Friday, January 1st. The place where many of our ancestors first stepped ashore when they came to America seeking a new life opened on this date in 1892 — Ellis Island in New York Harbor. The very first immigrant processed at the new facility was a 15-year-old Irish girl named Annie Moore. Over the course of more than 60 years, some 12 million people flowed through the center. Some sources say the number is considerably higher. The peak year was …

On this New Year’s Eve, some 322 million Americans of all ages and backgrounds are ready to greet the year 2015. A hundred years ago, the U.S. population was just over 100 million. Fifty years ago, it was around 194 million. The 2010 Census counted just under 309 million people. To show how the nation is growing, New Year’s Day will be the birthday of about 10,800 newborns, the first of whom will be reported in the media. These new …

As a year draws to a close, it is common to reflect on the passage of time. Two hundred years ago, the Senate ratified the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812. A week later, Congress declared war on Algiers. One hundred years ago, America’s first Jewish governor took office in Idaho, and AT&T became the first traded company with over a million shareholders. Fifty years ago, President Johnson proclaimed the “Great Society” and later signed the bill creating …

During the course of recorded history going back to ancient Egypt, men have felt cultural pressures to shave their facial hair. For centuries, their only recourse was the straight razor, which provided a close shave but had to be handled carefully to avoid cuts. Early this month in 1901, an American named King Camp Gillette applied for a patent for a safety razor with disposable blades. He began production in 1903, and received his patent in 1904. The electric razor …

The month of December has given Americans a lot to chew on, beyond holiday cookies, fruitcakes and candies. In December 1869, chewing gum was patented by Ohio dentist William Semple, who hoped that the flavored gum would help people keep their teeth clean. And the first bubble gum, created by Walter Deemer of the Fleer chewing gum company, was sold in a single Philadelphia location the day after Christmas in 1928. Both gum varieties have spread globally, which unfortunately includes …

Friday, December 25th. Today is Christmas Day — a joyous religious observance for many, but for almost everyone, one of the happiest days of the year. Outside or indoors, whether in balmy or snowbound climates, children are busy trying out their shiny new treasures, ranging from traditional bikes to the latest high tech toys. Inside, others are busy with video games and other electronic marvels. Many will have attended church services to honor the day. And in many of the …

This is Christmas Eve, a time of gathering families close together and to wind down from the hectic weeks of shopping and mailing. But it also is a night of wrapping presents, especially. Some parents will discover to their dismay that some treasure has been overlooked, and head out into the cold, hoping to find an open store with the right solutions. Santa’s elves get plenty of help from U.S. toy makers. There are 545 enterprises across the country producing …

An institution that has been in the news a lot these past few years, and which has come in for its share of criticism during the nation’s stubborn economic problems, observes the anniversary of its founding today. The Federal Reserve System, known simply as “the Fed,” came into being on this date in 1913, with the job of keeping the nation’s complex financial system in tune. Acting as the nation’s central bank, “the Fed” influences the lending and investing activities …

One of the most important inventions of modern times dates to this week in 1947. Three Bell Laboratory scientists successfully tested what would become the junction transistor, vital to our information age. The three shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1956. The transistor replaced bulky, fragile vacuum tubes, which generated a lot of heat as they amplified a signal. As a Bell colleague who coined the term “transistor” said, “nature abhors the vacuum tube.” The first application that caught …

This month in 1823, Georgia became the first state to enact a birth registration law. It required county clerks to record in a book the dates of birth of all new Georgians upon obtaining satisfactory proof by way of affidavit or sworn oaths. Enumerations of people go back to antiquity, but births were little noted outside of family and church records, and the memory of neighbors. This informal method held true until Georgia’s action in 1823, which by 1919 were …