Category: Quick hits

Friday, April 15th. Today marks the 61st anniversary of the opening of a small hamburger restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois. It was the first of what would become one of the world’s best-recognized brand names — McDonald’s. The franchise shop belonged to Ray Kroc, whose main interest at the time was selling the machines that mixed milkshakes. The name came from two McDonald brothers who ran a hamburger shop in California. The first day’s revenue at the Illinois outlet was …

The distribution of political representation under the Constitution was authorized on this date in 1792. Based on the results of the 1790 Census, the House of Representatives was to be apportioned according to population, coming as near to equal populations in the districts as could be determined. That first census counted a resident population of over 3.9 million people in the soon to be 15 states. There were then 105 seats in the House of Representatives, and the Apportionment Act …

April is a significant month for the American printed word. In 1800, the Library of Congress was founded, and earlier this week, in 1828, Noah Webster published the first dictionary of American English. This is also the middle 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 collections, with the Library …

On this date in 1892, the first U.S. patent for a truly portable typewriter was issued to George C. Blickensderfer of Stamford, Connecticut. His “type writing machine” featured a revolving type-wheel, a precursor to the type-ball of 1970s typewriters. The wheel reduced the number of moving parts from 2,500 to 250, improving reliability and reducing the weight by one-fourth. The Blickensderfer Manufacturing Company eventually became one of the world’s largest typewriter manufacturers in a crowded field. In 1900, U.S. manufacturers …

On this date 48 years ago, the Civil Rights Act of 1968 became law. At the bill signing ceremony, President Lyndon Johnson said: “The proudest moments of my presidency have been times such as this when I have signed into law the promises of a century.” Putting the event into perspective, it occurred one week to the day after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Among its provisions, the Act protected civil rights workers, expanded the rights of …

Friday, April 8th. On this date 103 years ago, the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, establishing direct popular election of senators. Previously, members of the Senate were elected by each state’s legislature. As the voting franchise expanded after the Civil War and into the Progressive Era, growing sentiment held that senators ought to be popularly elected in the same manner as representatives. Because of such developments, at least 29 states by 1913 were nominating senators on a …

The years of Prohibition, from 1920 to 1933, were considered a noble experiment that failed, as the subsequent crime associated with bootlegging caused problems worse than the lone problem of drunkenness. The crumbling of the unpopular Volstead Act accelerated on this date in 1933 when Congress amended the act to permit beer of 3.2 percent alcohol to be brewed and sold. The beer permitted earlier under Prohibition contained only .05 percent. Called “near beer,” and much disdained, one humorist declared …

One of world’s foremost lifesaving medicines — insulin — became available this month in 1923 for treating 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 automatic death sentence; the next, people who were affected …

Today is Vitamin C Day, celebrated — if that’s the word — every April 4 on the anniversary of the isolation of this vitamin. The breakthrough was made in 1932 by two doctors at the University of Pittsburgh. Before then, people knew that eating citrus fruit and fresh greens warded off certain diseases, such as scurvy, but didn’t know why. Also known as ascorbic acid, vitamin C is required to sustain human life. Studies have shown that people with a …

Friday, April 1st. Broadcast advertising was confronted with a major downsizing on this date in 1970 as President Nixon signed a bill into law prohibiting cigarette advertising on the nation’s airwaves. The ban went into effect on January 1 of the following year — the first major step in the ongoing debate over the public health risk of smoking. Until then, names such as Lucky Strike, Chesterfield and Philip Morris had sponsored some of the most famous shows since the …

The 15th Amendment to the Constitution declared the right to vote “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” It was ratified on February 3, 1870. The new, affirmed civil right was first exercised on this date that year, though in a decidedly minor electoral matter. Thomas Peterson-Mundy, a former slave, was the first African-American to exercise the franchise, casting a vote in favor …

FM radio is 75 years old. In March 1941, the first commercial FM station went on the air — W47NV in Nashville, Tennessee. FM — standing for frequency modulation — was first proposed in a scientific paper written by Edwin Armstrong in 1922. By 1934, he was demonstrating to network officials how FM was unaffected by static, like all the radio stations then on the air, which used AM, or amplitude modulation. World War II interrupted the advance of FM …

One of the most successful brand names of all time got its start on this date in 1886. That’s when Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton brewed up the first batch of Coca-Cola — designed as a hangover cure. The product went on sale at Jacob’s pharmacy a few weeks later, and sold an average of nine servings a day at the start. Success followed quickly, and until 1905, contained extracts of cocaine, as well as the caffeine-rich kola nut. Today, the …

While openings of a major department store or a branch of a big-box chain are often welcomed by shoppers and communities, they are also the cause of some concern. Small local businesses face greater competition, yet those small businesses are an outsized engine of economic growth. Additionally, they are important distinguishing features in local communities. That’s why today is Mom and Pop Business Owners Day. In 2012, there were nearly 28 million business firms in the U.S., but only 5.4 …

Friday, March 25th. The fact that pencils have erasers is supposed to indicate that no one is perfect. But it’s doubtful that people were perfect before this month in 1858. That’s when Hyman Lipman was granted a patent for a pencil with an incorporated rubber eraser. Lipman’s eraser could be sharpened, as it protruded from the wood sheath at the end opposite the graphite. The familiar wood-encased pencil dates back to 1662, when they were mass-produced in Nuremberg, Germany. More …

A number of various causes are recognized in March. Two of these seem to go hand in hand, or hand to mouth — National Nutrition Month and National Frozen Food Month. The goal of the first is make consumers aware of just how easy it is to eat healthy meals. And one of the ways this is possible is because of frozen food. Developed by Clarence Birdseye, the first commercially available items were quick-frozen fish fillets in 1925. Frozen food …