Category: Quick hits

The United States Congress met for the first time in the District of Columbia in late November 1800. Up until then, it did its squabbling, vituperating and, most importantly, legislating in Philadelphia. Ever since President George Washington laid the cornerstone for the Capitol in 1793, the District had been planned as the permanent home for the U.S. government. By 1800, enough of the Capitol had been completed for the members of the 6th Congress to move in. One senator found …

This is National American Indian Heritage Month, also called Native American Heritage Month. Either way, it’s observed with a wide variety of events across the country. The 2010 Census counted 5.2 million American Indians and Alaska Natives in the U.S., 1.7 percent of the total population. California is home to the highest number of these groups, at over 723,000, followed by Oklahoma at nearly 483,000. Los Angeles County leads all of the nation’s counties with the number of people in …

What is widely considered the most memorable speech in all American history was given 150 years ago this month when President Abraham Lincoln delivered what we know as “the Gettysburg Address.” The brief speech dedicated 17 acres of the Pennsylvania battlefield as a national cemetery and is recognized as one of the most concise in the English language. Gettysburg National Cemetery continues to draw thousands of visitors each year. The three-day battle in 1863 involved some160,000 Union and Confederate soldiers …

November is 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. Some 26 million Americans suffer from diabetes and another 79 million adults have prediabetes, a condition that increases their chances 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 44 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 new pens were invented by two Hungarian brothers who set up …

One of the nation’s enduring symbols, the Statue of Liberty, was dedicated on Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor on this day 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. The statue was the first glimpse of America for more than 20 million immigrants who came through nearby Ellis Island, chiefly from Ireland, Germany, Italy, and Poland. In 1910, the year of the greatest …

A melted candy bar led to the invention of one of today’s most-used kitchen appliances. Percy Spencer was working on a military radar device in the mid-1940s when he noticed that his chocolate snack had gotten soft. Intrigued, he experimented with irradiating some kernels of popcorn, which promptly burst. Spencer’s work led to the first microwave ovens, which cost only a little less than a new car. On this date in 1955, the first consumer models were introduced, but they …

A big news story last month was the epic 110-mile swim of 64-year-old Diana Nyad from Cuba to Key West. It seems there’s just something about ladies in their 60s and aquatic adventures. On this date in 1901, 63-year-old former school teacher Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and survive. In a custom-made barrel padded inside with a mattress, she went over the horseshoe falls, a drop of 170 feet. Taylor …

This is Spinach Lovers Month — perhaps the only vegetable made famous by a comic strip. The spinach-eating sailor Popeye first appeared in January 1929 — and soon spinach was the third favorite children’s food — after turkey and ice cream. Several towns proclaim they are the “spinach capital of the world”; among them is Crystal City, Texas, which has a statue of Popeye in front of its city hall and an annual spinach festival. Spinach is now a common …

“10 – 22 – 38 Astoria.” That cryptic sequence indicating date and place was the very first photocopied image, created on this date in 1938 in Astoria, New York. A man named Chester Carlson developed a method of making dry copies of documents on plain paper, known as xerography — which we take for granted in using photocopiers today. Before his invention, copies were made either by using carbon paper when typing or by a mimeograph machine for large numbers …

An invention was demonstrated on this date in 1879 that lit the way for a dramatic change in the rhythm of Americans’ daily lives. At his Menlo Park, New Jersey laboratory, Thomas Edison set up the first incandescent light bulb, which burned for almost 14 hours. Within a few years, some cities had installed electric street lights. The number of homes across the U.S. with electricity grew steadily, but even in 1940, more than one-in-five houses was without power. The …

One of the nation’s longest-running and most prestigious magazines printed its first issue this month in 1888 — the National Geographic, the publication of the National Geographic Society, founded earlier that year. One-hundred-twenty-five years ago, the magazine was a scholarly journal with fewer than a thousand subscribers. As it matured, it added photographic and map departments that boosted its circulation into the millions. The money generated was used to finance major explorations around the world. There are some 8,000 periodical …