Category: Quick hits

This is National Nurses Day — kicking off a week honoring the outstanding efforts of nurses in helping to keep Americans healthy. The observance ends next Saturday, the birthday of Florence Nightingale, who established the world’s first nursing school in England in the 19th century. In the U.S., there were some 12,000 registered nurses by 1900. Today, that figure is over 2.6 million. As their numbers have grown, so have nurses’ responsibilities, keeping up with increasingly complex medical technology. They …

One of the key sporting events of each spring is the Kentucky Derby, and tomorrow’s running will be the 139th in the race’s long history. The first event was held in 1875, won by a horse named Aristides. Patterned after the English Derby, the race was a mile and a half long until shortened to a mile and a quarter in 1896, where it remains. Some of the famous horses to win the Run for the Roses include War Admiral, …

One of the most influential motion pictures ever made was released this week 72 years ago –“Citizen Kane,” starring and directed by Orson Welles. He was already renowned for his 1938 Halloween radio broadcast of “War of the Worlds,” when he was just 23 years old. But his lasting legacy is “Citizen Kane,” which did not do well financially, although it was nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning for best screen play. Many critics now consider it the best American …

Construction began on this date in 1884 in Chicago for a radical new building design — destined to be America’s first skyscraper. It was the Home Insurance Company headquarters, designed by engineer William Jenney. Jenney’s building used a metal frame for support, with the exterior walls hung like curtains on the frame. Previously, thick outer walls supported buildings, limiting the height that could be safely reached. Soon, skyscrapers using Jenney’s method thrust up across the country and today dominate city …

This is the anniversary of the one of greatest real estate deals in history — one that doubled the size of the U.S. and put the nation in position to become a world power. The year was 1803, and the deal was the Louisiana Purchase. The young U.S. under President Thomas Jefferson bought nearly 830,000 square miles from France at the cost of four cents an acre. The land stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from …

Health insurance and its affordability has been a topic of political contention mostly in the past two decades, the social need was recognized much earlier. On this date in 1942, Rhode Island became the first state to set up a health or temporary disability insurance program for its working citizens unemployed because of sickness. The covered workers — and not employers — funded the program with a 1 percent tax on wages of less than $3,000 a year. Today, health …

Everyone knows that a clean car seems to run better — possibly because someone who cares what their car looks like also tends to its mechanical needs. April is one of two National Car Care months this year, the other is in October. This month was chosen to make sure the ravages of winter have not compromised the safety of your car — and October is to look your car over so it’s ready for next winter. The goal is …

Many automobile license plates proclaim glories of the issuing states; others spell out something dear to the drivers. Those plates and the basic ones handed out by motor vehicle departments are requirements to drive on public roads. New York was the first state to require license plates on motor vehicles on this date in 1901. At the time, there were just under 15,000 sputtering automobiles in the entire country, traveling over muddy, rudimentary roads without a license for the driver …

Early America certainly was a simpler society than that which we have today, but some of today’s familiar institutions were part of the national experience over 200 years ago. On this date in 1795, the city of Baltimore set up a permanent, elected board of health, successor to the nation’s first such appointed agency. The first board was created by Maryland’s governor to cope with yellow fever epidemics beginning in 1792. At one point the city of Baltimore quarantined or …

Tomorrow is Administrative Professionals Day, a time to recognize a job well done and to promote the growth and training required by today’s fast-changing and highly technical workplace. For years, the observance was known as Secretaries’ Day. The change in name reflects the change in the nature of these jobs. These positions were once thought of mainly as message takers, typists, and coffee makers, rewarded once a year with lunch and a humorous greeting card. The job of an administrative …

One of world’s most important medicines — insulin –became available for general use this month in 1923, saving the lives of millions of people suffering from diabetes. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas, and is critical in the processing of carbohydrates in the human body. It was first isolated the year before by a Canadian team led by Dr. Frederick Banting at the University of Toronto. The effect was like a miracle. One year, the disease was an …

The first all-news radio format in the U.S. debuted on this date in 1965, as WINS AM in New York City switched from rock and roll to rip and read. Almost 20 years earlier, the station had notched another first, by broadcasting every New York Yankee game live, both home and away. The station shut off the music — its last record was the Shangri-La’s “Out in the Streets” — and became “all news, all the time.” The format has …

For urban dwellers, the hassle — or at least the expense — of doing their laundry began to ease on this date in 1934, when the first public, self-operated laundry in the U.S. opened its doors in Fort Worth, Texas. The first name was “Washateria,” eventually replaced with the now familiar “Laundromat.” Early facilities were not necessarily coin-operated, and there was always an attendant on duty. The automatic washing machine came along in 1937, and by the late 1940s, the …

April is an important month in the world of books. In 1800, one of the world’s greatest libraries, the Library of Congress, was founded, and Noah Webster published the first dictionary of American English in 1826. This is also the fourth day of National Library Week, celebrating libraries, those who staff them and the billions of materials they circulate. While computers and electronic media are of increasing importance in the services libraries offer, books remain at the core of their …