Category: Quick hits

Public education in the U.S. traces its birth to very early in the Colonial era. On this date in 1647, the Massachusetts Bay Colony authorities ordered that every township with 50 or more householders assign at least one person to teach children to read and write. The teachers would be paid by the children’s parents or the general village population. Towns of 100 or more householders were required to establish schools with headmasters and instruction to prepare children for still …

Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the opening in 1837 of the first American college for women — Mount Holyoke Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts. The new institution began instruction with 80 students, who paid annual tuition and boarding fees of $64. Receiving a collegiate charter in 1888, the school became Mount Holyoke College in 1893, and remains a prestigious liberal arts college for women. Among its prominent alumni are poet Emily Dickinson, and former Secretaries of Labor Frances Perkins and …

This is National American Indian Heritage Month, conceived almost a century ago but made official by a congressional resolution signed by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. The 2010 Census counted 5.2 million American Indians and Alaska Natives in the U.S., about 2 percent of the total population. By the year 2060, that percentage is projected to grow to 2.7 percent, or some 11 million people. California has long been home to the highest number of these populations, at over …

Much as been heard in recent years about national education policy, with an emphasis on encouraging more science, technology, engineering and math — or STEM — students. As far as engineering goes, the trail was broken on this date in 1824, with the founding of the Rensselaer School in Troy, New York. Now known as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, it was the nation’s first engineering school. Its first 10 students graduated with engineering degrees in 1826. In the years since, engineering …

November is designated every year as National Diabetes Month. The goal is to make the public more aware of the serious nature of the disease and how to detect and control it. When our bodies are unable to maintain a normal blood sugar level, many complications may follow, including kidney failure. The disease is also the leading cause of new cases of blindness. Diabetes in the U.S. is on the rise, and some public health experts even refer to it …

Today is Cliché Day — any way you slice it, a minor and obscure occasion. While the ostensible purpose is to encourage our verbal banalities, it might also be stretched to stereotypes. Such as the cliché that men in particular are enchanted by sandwiches. If true, then today has double meaning, as it’s National Sandwich Day. This date was chosen in honor of the birthday in 1718 of John Montagu, the fourht Earl of Sandwich, and the purported inventor of …

There’s an excellent chance that today is an occasion deeply revered by young children and the nation’s candy makers. According to ancient Celtic tradition, Halloween — the evening before All Saints Day — is a time of haunting by ghosts. Halloween has come a long way from pagan practices to “trick or treat!” Today’s prank and costume-filled observance goes back about a century in the U.K., and giving the disguised young visitors to the doorstep some candies has been a …

A technological breakthrough that has led to remarkable changes in American and global society occurred 45 years ago today … or yesterday, depending on your point of reference. While Americans in the Eastern and Central time zones entered October 30, 1969, it was around 10:30 p.m. Pacific time on October 29 that the first connection was made on what would become the Internet. The first two computers linked were at the University of California, Los Angeles and the Stanford Research …

The scene on this date in 1945 at Gimbel’s department store in New York City was shopping chaos. Big ads the day before had trumpeted the first sale in the U.S. of a new writing instrument that guaranteed it would write for two years without refilling — the ballpoint pen. By the end of the day, the store had sold its entire stock of 10,000 at $12.50 each. The idea of the ballpoint pen was first patented in 1888 by …

One of the nation’s enduring symbols, the Statue of Liberty, was dedicated on Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor on this date in 1886. A gift from France, the statue’s full name is “Liberty Enlightening the World,” and is the work of sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi. France also was the country of origin of a bit under 12,000 of the 334,000 immigrants arriving that year. The statue was the first glimpse of America for more than 20 million immigrants who …

One of the great engineering achievements of New York City began operation on this date 110 years ago. The city’s famous subway system was inaugurated amid speeches, bands, a ribbon cutting, and throngs of riders. The original line was just over nine miles long and connected City Hall to West 145th Street. Today, the system has 230 miles of routes. Each weekday, nearly 5.5 million people ride the subway. Among large cities of the world, the New York system is …

One of the nation’s most successful brand names went on sale for the first time this month in 1913–Camel cigarettes, the first pre-blended, packaged cigarettes. While machine-rolled cigarettes had been around since 1881, Camel was the first brand to become nationally popular. Coincidentally, Camels pioneered the now almost universal 20-cigarette pack. By 1919, with increasing advertising and product availability, cigarettes overtook pipe tobacco in the number of pounds consumed. Shortly after World War II, about 45 percent of Americans smoked. …