Category: Quick hits

In the early days of the telephone, knowing who had one and what the number was quickly became a problem. The first telephone directory in the U.S. was published this week in 1878, in New Haven, Connecticut. It wasn’t a big list — there were only 50 subscribers. A little later, a directory also came out in San Francisco, with about 170 names. Now, there are over 21,000 retail establishments in the U.S. selling landline and cellular phones, with annual …

On this date in 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order requiring Japanese-Americans living along the Pacific Coast to be relocated inland. This order affected some 77,000 citizens and 43,000 resident aliens. The internment lasted throughout the war, and the camps closed by early 1946. The dislocation caused by the internment order singling out an ancestry group came to be widely regretted and led to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, formally apologizing for the action and offering financial …

Black History Month highlights not only past achievements, but continued progress in the African-American community. There are just under 2 million black-owned businesses, representing a gain of more than 60 percent in just 5 recent years. These businesses employed more than 920,000 people — a growth of more than one-fifth in the same period. Retail trade, health care and social assistance sectors account for 27 percent of black-owned business revenue, which totals more than $137 billion. Among cities, New York …

Black History Month stories often celebrate Thurgood Marshall, a successful attorney who became the first black appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967. The trail to that tribunal was broken over a century earlier. In 1865 African-American attorney John Rock was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court. Rock was an MD who practiced medicine and dentistry, as well as law. He died at the age of 41, just a year after being admitted to the bar of the …

While today may not be an official holiday, Valentine’s Day is one of the most popular in the year’s calendar. Its origins are a mix of legends involving two Christian martyrs, a Roman fertility rite, and the old notion that this is the time of year when the birds choose their mates. What is sure is that Esther Howland of Massachusetts began selling the first mass-produced valentines in the 1840s. Today’s occasion falls in the heart of February, which is …

This date marks the anniversary in 1635 of America’s first public school — the Boston Latin School — long before there was a United States. And this month in 1897, Phoebe Hearst and Alice Birney founded what is today known as the Parent Teacher Association, or PTA. Originally called the National Congress of Mothers, the organization now encourages both mothers and fathers to take part in school activities to improve the quality of their children’s education. Today, there are over …

One of the nation’s major civil rights organizations is 104 years old today — the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Founded to combat lynching and segregation, the NAACP continues to work towards greater opportunities for minorities. One of its most telling moments came with the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education, which desegregated the nation’s schools. The lawyer who argued that case, Thurgood Marshall, became the first African-American Supreme Court justice. When the …

Among his many achievements, Benjamin Franklin played a leading role in the founding of America’s first hospital. Together with Dr. Thomas Bond, he obtained a charter for a hospital to serve the poor, sick and insane in Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Hospital opened on this date in 1752 in a converted house. The hospital later developed at a location where a modern medical complex still serves the city. During its long history, the hospital’s doctors have made advances in many fields, …

Every time you step up to a photocopier, you can thank a man named Chester Carlson, born on this date in 1906. In 1938, he 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 a mimeograph machine for large numbers of copies. Both were messy. The first commercial copiers became …

It’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. Nearly 200 years ago, it was even better to light a gas lamp. On this date in 1817, America’s first gas streetlamp was lit in Baltimore, Maryland. The coal gas was supplied by the nation’s first incorporated gas company. Just like today, startups have their struggles, but by 1850, about 50 urban areas had gasworks for mostly municipal and business illumination, along with some private residences. While gas lamps …

On this date in 1899, the Senate ratified the Treaty of Paris, concluding the Spanish-American War of 1898. The treaty, negotiated in Paris the previous December, was opposed by 27 senators; not opposed to peace, but to the overseas territorial acquisitions. Spain ceded Puerto Rico, Guam, and — for a few years before independence — Cuba to the United States, along with selling the Philippines for $20 million. The Philippines became independent after World War II, but Puerto Rico and …

February is American Heart Month, dedicated to the serious matter of monitoring and taking care of our beating hearts. This is important because while heart disease has claimed fewer lives in recent years, it is still the nation’s number one killer — responsible for 616,000 deaths annually. However, almost as if to prove that no good intention goes unpunished, February is also National Snack Food Month. And America truly “hearts” its snack foods. In spite of the recent disappearance of …

Adding poignancy to Black History Month, today marks the centennial of the birth of Rosa Parks, a shy woman who became a symbol of the fight for civil equality. Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus to a white man. This sparked a boycott of the bus system by blacks, which greatly energized the ultimately successful civil rights movement. During her life, Rosa Parks championed the cause of increased opportunities for youth. …

February is Black History Month, a time to honor the many contributions to our nation’s history made by people of African descent. Started as a special week in 1926 by historian Carter G. Woodson, the observance is now a full month of activities across the country. African-Americans number nearly 42 million in the U.S., 13.1 percent of the total population. By 2050, this population is projected to reach nearly 57 million. Although New York has the largest number of blacks …