Category: Quick hits

Everyone who loves convenience in shopping can thank Edward Delk and J.C. Nichols. It was they who conceived, designed and built the first shopping mall in the U.S. The Country Club Plaza, on the outskirts of Kansas City, opened this month in 1923 to wide acclaim. It was the first shopping area to have stores facing inward toward a promenade, rather than facing out toward a road. The mall had 150 stores, a 2,000 seat auditorium, and parking for 5,500 …

Ask many Americans where their food comes from, and they’ll answer the supermarket, while clothing comes from the mall. That’s why this is National Agriculture Week — an annual program focused on students across the nation, the consumers of tomorrow. They’ll learn that from pizzas to cosmetics, from clothing to orange juice, agriculture gives us what we eat each day and much of what we wear and use. In 1920, there were nearly 6.5 million farms in the U.S., and …

Today marks the birthday in 1899 of Dorothy Stratton, who left her position as Dean of Women at Purdue University in 1942 to take a commission in the Navy. Transferred to the Coast Guard, she organized and directed that service’s women’s reserve, which she named the SPARS. After the Second World War, Stratton was an official at the International Monetary Fund, and then was executive director of the Girl Scouts for 10 years. She died at the age of 107. …

Today marks the birthday in 1910 of one of the major figures of the American wine industry — Julio Gallo. When Prohibition ended, he and his brother Ernest started making wine in humble surroundings — a rented California warehouse, with equipment bought on credit. Over years of hard work saw their winery became the largest in the U.S., and their creative marketing techniques helped shape the nation’s drinking tastes. Now, the Gallo establishment is joined by some 1,950 other wineries …

One of the most distinctive and near universal American colloquialisms — the affirmation “OK” — appeared in public for the first time this month in 1839. There have been claims that “OK” derives from languages as diverse as Greek and Choctaw and that it appeared in earlier American documents, but it was first published in a Boston Morning Post story, with a brief definition. While “ok” took off around the country and eventually the world, time KO’d the Boston Post, …

Banks had operated in America for about a half century before someone tried to make an unauthorized withdrawal. On this date in 1831, Edward Smith committed the first bank robbery in the U.S. — hitting the City Bank on New York’s Wall Street. He entered the bank after it closed, using a duplicate set of keys, and got away with $245,000 — a huge sum at the time. But he was caught, convicted and spent five years in New York’s …

Two young women, who were the first Americans of their gender to enter their professions, are highlighted during this Women’s History Month. Lucy Hobbs Taylor was the first to receive a degree in dentistry, graduating from the Ohio College of Dental Surgery in 1866. And this month in 1883, Susan Hayhurst became the nation’s first woman pharmacist when she graduated from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. She’s further distinguished by obtaining that degree while already being a physician. Now there …

This is a day when people of all ethnicities are cheerfully encouraged to wear something green. It is St. Patrick’s Day, a rare national holiday observed outside its native land. The day honors Bishop Patrick, born in England, who brought Christianity to Ireland in the fifth century, using a shamrock to illustrate divinity. The celebration here goes back to colonial times. New York City’s parade has taken place every year since 1762, and today is the largest such event in …

One of the most noted crime-fighting tools started because of a conversation at a card game between J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI and a newspaper reporter. The reporter wanted to profile some of the most wanted criminals the FBI was searching for. The resulting article caused a sensation, leading to the publication of the first “Ten Most Wanted” list by the FBI on this date in 1950. In the years since, 500 men and women have appeared on the …

The first state college for women was created this month in 1884 in Mississippi. Known as the Mississippi Industrial Institute and College, classes opened in the fall of the next year on the campus of a former college in Columbus. Now called the Mississippi University for Women, it has been ranked as one of the top schools in the annual list of “America’s Best Colleges.” Now coed, the school has many of the buildings on its imposing campus on the …

One of the most famous department stores in America opened in Philadelphia on this date in 1877. Wanamaker’s, now absorbed into the Macy’s family of department stores, opened in a converted train station and is now a national historic landmark. The store was among the first in the country to make the experience of shopping as much a draw as the merchandise itself, pioneered the use of the price tag, and was the first to install a restaurant on the …

One of the most devastating public health crises in history hit the U.S. on this date 95 years ago — and experts are still studying it, hoping to head off a similar global pandemic. The first cases were reported among soldiers at Fort Riley, Kansas. By October, the worst month, 195,000 Americans perished. By 1920, nearly one-in-four Americans had suffered from this strain of the flu, killing about 575,000. Worldwide, estimates put the death toll between 30 million to 50 …

For many Americans, trying to envision life without our various telephones would be like trying to live without indoor plumbing. The telephone is 138 years old today. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Over a wire to his assistant in the next room, Bell said, “Mister Watson, come here; I want to see you.” Only when Bell improved his invention to carry a voice for several miles did the public discover a need …

As if to prove there is nothing new under the sun, Massachusetts acted on this date in far-off 1801 to register voters. At that time, the franchise was limited to men — usually those of local repute and owning property. Town assessors drew up publicly posted lists of voters. If any voter was omitted, documents proving eligibility were accepted. The practice caught on very slowly. Only after the Civil War did voter registration become widespread. Today, North Dakota is the …