Magic Johnson was named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player three times, in 1987, 1989, and 1990. Earvin “Magic” Johnson retired from pro basketball after announcing that he had the AIDS virus in November 1991.
In a 1992 Gallup Poll, 14 percent of Americans said they hated liver the most. Tied for second place in the worst foods list were spinach, fish, and seafood, each at 6 percent.
Four major “French and Indian Wars” were fought in colonial times by Britain and France for control of North America. Each was part of a larger struggle involving shifting alliances, fighting in Europe, and colonial battles in other parts of the world. The struggle ended in 1763 with Britain winning most of France’s American empire,…
Fans of Frank Sinatra rioted at the Paramount Theater on Columbus Day 1944, at the height of his popularity. Thirty thousand bobbysoxers rioted at the New York theater where Sinatra was performing. It was reported that cries of “Frankie, Frankie!” could be heard blocks away.
The sequence of 16 pamphlets The American Crisis, published 1776-83, was written by Revolutionary War patriot Thomas Paine. Who wrote The Present Crisis? The anti-slavery poem was written in 1844 by Massachusetts poet James Russell Lowell. Who wrote Six Crises? The 1962 memoir was written by former vice-president and future president Richard Nixon.
About 4.7 million Americans served in the armed forces in World War I. Over three times as many, 16.1 million, served in World War II.
The total American death count in World War I was 116,516, including 53,402 deaths in battle and 63,114 from other causes, mostly disease. An additional 204,002 soldiers received nonlethal wounds.
Carter had authorized a commando raid to free the American hostages held in Teheran since November 4, 1979. On the night of April 24, 1980, six U.S. C-130 cargo planes landed in the desert 300 miles southeast of Teheran. In the midst of a blinding sandstorm, three of the operation’s eight helicopters malfunctioned. The mission…
Diners Club, the first credit card for buying goods and services from more than one institution was invented in 1950 by Frank McNamara. McNamara, a loan company executive in New York, got the idea when he found himself short of money at a restaurant.
Publius was the pen name of the authors of The Federalist Papers (1787-88), Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay.
The amusement park Disneyland opened in Anaheim, California, on July 17, 1955. Its original size was 200 acres. Much bigger than Disneyland, Disney World opened near Orlando, Florida, on October 1, 1971. The acronym EPCOT stands for the third Walt Disney amusement center stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. It opened in 1982 as…
Only once has the U.S. national debt been fully paid off, in 1835 and 1836, during the presidency of Andrew Jackson. This was the only time any modern nation has eliminated its national debt.
Overall, the winter was fairly mild in 1777-78 when George Washington and his Continental Army were encamped at this site 22 miles northwest of Philadelphia. There was heavy snow and freezing weather in Christmas week but a thaw in January. What made conditions miserable was lack of adequate food, clothing, and shelter due to negligence…
The humorous fictional character Mr. Dooley was created by Chicago journalist Finley Peter Dunne was a saloon keeper. He was based on an actual person, Jim McGarry, a Chicago barkeep. He appeared in such satirical works as Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War (1898) and Mr. Dooley in the Hearts of His Countrymen (1899).
There were three articles recommended before Nixon’s resignation on August 8, 1974. Twenty-eight minutes after Nixon delivered his letter of resignation, Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as the new president.
The two commanders-in-chief Grant and Lee met at Appomattox Court House, but that was the name of a village in Virginia, not an actual courthouse. On April 9, 1865, Ulysses S. Grant accepted Robert E. Lee’s surrender in the front parlor of a private house owned by farmer Wilmer McLean.
Paul Revere didn’t ride from Boston to Concord on the night of April 18, 1775, with the news that the British were coming. Revere started on the journey, along with William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, but Dawes and Revere were stopped by a British patrol. Only Prescott actually made it to Concord.
It was the theory promoted by late 19th-century businessman Horace Fletcher that extensive chewing, or “mouth thoroughness,” would improve one’s health. In such books as Fletcherism: What It Is and The ABC of Nutrition, Fletcher said that every bite of food should be chewed 32 times to “give every tooth of mine a chance.” Among…
Henry Ford found the Ford Motor Company in 1903 in Detroit, Michigan.
Acquired in 1900, the group of islands south of Hawaii, known as the American Samoa, is an unincorporated territory of the U.S. administered by the Department of the Interior.
After a revolt on July 4, 1846, led by John C. Fremont against Mexico during the Mexican War, California was declared an independent country for a few days. During its brief independence, California flew the flag of a bear. The California grizzly bear is now the state animal.
The five persons that are in line of succession to the presidency are: 1. Vice-President 2. Speaker of the House of Representatives 3. President Pro Tempore of the Senate 4. Secretary of State 5. Secretary of the Treasury
Instituted a century ago (in 1896) and named for businessmen Charles Dow and Edward Jones, the economic indicator the Dow Jones industrial average has set all three records within the last 25 years. It first closed higher than 1000 on Nov. 14, 1972. On January 8, 1987, it closed higher than 2000. Four years later,…
President Lyndon Johnson appointed Thurgood Marshall to fill the seat on the Supreme Court vacated by Thomas C. Clark, who resigned when his son, Ramsey Clark, was appointed as U.S. Attorney General. Marshall (190892), a noted civil rights lawyer, became the first African-American Supreme Court justice.
According to median income figures for 1990, women with four years of college make 72 percent of what their male counterparts make. Women who are high school graduates make 67 percent of what their male counterparts make.
Democratic candidate Walter Mondale and Republican candidate Robert Dole took part in the first vice-presidential debate during the 1976 Carter-Ford presidential contest.
The six wives of Henry VIII were: Catherine of Aragon. Married 1509, divorced 1533; mother of Mary Tudor. Anne Boleyn. Married 1533, beheaded 1536; mother of Elizabeth I, born 1533. Jane Seymour. Married 1536, died in childbirth 1537; mother of Edward VI, born 1537. Anne of Cleves. Married and divorced 1540. Catherine Howard. Married 1540,…
A six-cylinder Marmon Wasp, driven by Ray Harroun at an average speed of 74.59 miles per hour, won the first 500-mile race at the Indianapolis Speedway in 1911.
Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill were seventh cousins, once removed.
Swedish soprano Jenny Lind was called the “Swedish Nightingale”. She was brought to the U.S. by showman P. T. Barnum for a concert tour that lasted from 1850 to 1852. Her highly successful appearances helped to fix opera as a popular art in American culture.
Giovanni da Verrazano, an Italian explorer, first sighted Manhattan in 1524. However, English explorer Henry Hudson, who sailed into what is now known as the Hudson River in 1609, is credited as the island’s discoverer.
There have been four Madison Square Gardens, but only the first two were on Madison Square, at Madison Avenue and East Twenty-sixth Street. The first arena, originally a railroad depot, was given the name Madison Square Garden in 1879. The second was designed by Stanford White and built in 1890. The third, located between Forty-ninth…
The Allied leaders who forced Germany to accept the Versailles Treaty of 1919 at the end of World War I were: Woodrow Wilson (U.S.) Georges Clemenceau (France) David Lloyd George (Great Britain) Vittorio Orlando (Italy)
Mark Twain said, “Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to”.
In the year 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, which was the height of slavery, the slave population in the U.S. was 3,953,760.
Vermont in 1777, was the first American colony to abolish slavery. The first of the original 13 Colonies to abolish slavery was Pennsylvania in 1780.
At the outset of President George Washington’s first term (1789-93), they were: Thomas Jefferson—Secretary of State Alexander Hamilton—Secretary of the Treasury Henry Knox—Secretary of War Edmund Randolph—Attorney General
In 1846, the 29-year-old Henry David Thoreau was charged with nonpayment of a poll tax. Thoreau refused to pay because the tax was to be spent on the Mexican War, which he opposed. Thoreau’s friends paid the tax for him, after he spent the night of July 23, 1846, in jail. He described the experience…
Running from the Hudson River to Lake Erie in what is now New York State, the warpath was a trail about a foot wide and six inches deep. The Iroquois traveled single file down this forest path when invading enemy territory.
Joseph McCarthy represented Wisconsin in the Senate. The Republican senator, famous for his investigations of alleged communists, served in the Senate from 1946 to 1957.
Approximately 50,000 Americans were part of the Loyalist military support for the king. Few joined the British army and navy, but thousands served in provincial regiments under Loyalist officers. American Indians, mainly in Canada, on the frontier, and in the South, also fought for Britain.
Only two future presidents signed the Declaration of Independence, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. George Washington and James Madison were the only two to sign the Constitution.
The two Allied armies from America and Germany met on April 25, 1945, on the Elbe River at the town of Torgau. The Americans had been advancing from the west and the Russians from the east.
Although John F. Kennedy received 303 electoral votes to Nixon’s 219, the popular vote was very close. Kennedy won by 118,550 votes, which represented 2/10 of 1 percent of the popular vote.
James Naismith was teaching at The YMCA Training College, now Springfield College, in Springfield, Massachusetts when he invented basketball. Naismith invented the game for his students in the winter of 1891-92 to provide indoor exercise between the football and baseball seasons.
The colorful, demagogic Huey Long (1893-1935), nicknamed the “Kingfish,” governed Louisiana from 1928 to 1932, when he resigned to enter the U.S. Senate. Elected in 1930, he deferred his entry into the Senate until 1932. He stayed there until he was killed by an assassin’s bullet in 1935. His wife finished his term.
Yarn was produced at the first American factory. It was produced at Samuel Slater’s Mill, founded in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1790. Workers at the spinning machines lived in company housing and worked for wages paid in credit at the company store. Cloth itself was not produced at the mill: The yarn was woven into…
Forty-two percent of Americans classify themselves as politically moderate, according to a 1992 New York Times/CBS News Poll.
The seven bond drives during World War II, often led by top movie celebrities, yielded $61 billion. Among the more popular celebrity bond spokespersons were Bob Hope and Marlene Dietrich.
The Soviet port Yalta in the Crimea (now part of Ukraine) was the site of the February 1945 meeting of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin.
Falwell disbanded the conservative Christian movement in 1989, ten years after founding it. After fighting for such positions as prayer in public schools and a ban on abortions, the organization ended about the same time as Ronald Reagan’s presidency, which its influence had helped bring about.
The first game on record played by English colonists in America was a game of bowls played in the streets of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1611.
The bulge was a break in the Allied lines caused by a German advance in the Ardennes forest in Luxembourg and Belgium, beginning on December 16, 1944. The Germans advanced 50 miles on a 50-mile-long front. On December 26, the Allies began to push the Germans back, and by the end of January 1945, the…
Seoul was occupied by the North Koreans twice during the Korean War. The capital of South Korea fell to invaders from North Korea in June 1950, inciting President Harry Truman to commit American troops as part of United Nations forces sent to repel the invasion. U.N. forces recaptured Seoul on September 26, only to be…
The government-owned land known as Teapot Dome, rich in oil, was located in Wyoming. The scandal began when a Senate investigating committee discovered that the Teapot Dome and Elk Hills, California, reserves had been secretly leased by Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall to private oil companies in 1922. Fall was eventually convicted of…
Founded as a secret social fraternity in Pulaski, Tennessee, about 1866, the Ku Klux Klan took the first two syllables of its name from the Greek “kuklos,” meaning circle. Through intimidation, terror, and violence, the ex-Confederates who founded the Ku Klux Klan sought to keep African-Americans in a subservient position.
Major league baseball is the most popular spectator sport in the U.S., with about 56.6 million fans in attendance in 1990. Thoroughbred racing is close behind, with attendance of about 56.2 million. Basketball and football are far behind, with only about 16 million fans attending games in 1990.
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Josephine Baker (1906-75) first danced bare-breasted in La revue negre in Paris in 1925. She later joined the Folies Bergere. She became a French citizen in 1937.
The warning “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal” appeared in the 1968 report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, which was headed by Illinois governor Otto Kerner. President Johnson appointed Kerner to investigate the causes of over 100 ghetto riots that took place in the…
Both Tin Lizzie and The Flivver were nicknames for the Model T, introduced by Henry Ford in 1908.
The U.S. took military control of the bankrupt republic Haiti in 1915. Two decades later, in 1934, after instituting public works and financial reform, both civilian and military forces were removed.
The Nazi anti-Jewish demonstrations of November 9 and 10, 1938, also known as Kristallnacht destroyed 815 shops and 29 warehouses. Fires were set to 171 dwellings and 191 synagogues, with 76 other buildings completely destroyed by fire.
Filene’s Automatic Bargain Basement opened in the Boston flagship store Filene’s Basemen in 1909. It followed the first example of bargain basements, the “Bargain Room” at Wanamaker’s in Philadelphia.
Aside from the female representations of Justice and Liberty, only three women have been so commemorated: Martha Washington, on the face of the 1886 and 1891 $1 silver certificates and on the reverse of the 1896 silver certificate; Pocahontas, on the back of the 1875 $20 bill; and women’s suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony, on…
Long Island, New York British August 27, 1776 White Plains, New York British October 28, 1776 Bennington, Vermont Americans August 16, 1777 Monmouth, New Jersey British June 28, 1778 Cowpens, South Carolina Americans January 17, 1781
The Pledge of Allegiance was written by Francis Bellamy, editor of the children’s magazine The Youth’s Companion. It was written for its September 8, 1892, issue, to commemorate Columbus Day. It originally read: “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”…
Presidential candidates Richard Nixon in 1972 and Ronald Reagan in 1984 are tied for the honor, with 49 states each in a general election.
The road used by migrants moving westward in the mid-19th century, known as the Oregon Trail, ran about 2,000 miles from Independence or Westport, Missouri, to Oregon’s Willamette Valley. It took about six months for wagon trains to cover the distance. The Oregon Trail was in use from the 1840s until the advent of the…
Instituted in 1897 and celebrated on June 14, Flag Day marks the day in 1777 that the Continental Congress adopted the “Stars and Stripes” as the American flag.
Benedict Arnold (1741-1801) demanded £20,000 from the British but received only £6,315. In exchange, he revealed American battle plans, tried (but failed) to deliver West Point, and crossed over to the British army. Although Arnold was given 13,400 acres of land in Canada after the war, he lived the rest of his life in England.
Charles Lindbergh launched The Spirit of St. Louis from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, on May 20, 1927, becoming the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic. He landed at Le Bourget Field outside Paris, on May 21.
The symbols of the theme of the 1939 New York World’s Fair, “The World of Tomorrow,” were massive: The Trylon, a tapering three-sided shaft, was 750 feet high; the Perisphere was a globe 200 feet in diameter. The two objects were built at a cost of $1.7 million.
In 1789, George Washington was wealthy in land but short of cash. He borrowed £600 to travel from Mount Vernon to New York City, the site of his first inauguration.
The Palestine Liberation Organization or PLO now claims to represent 4 million Palestinians. It was founded in 1964 to unify splintered Palestinian organizations.
The Irving Berlin song “God Bless America” (1918) appeared 24 years before “White Christmas” (1942). “God Bless America” was written for, but discarded from, the Broadway musical, Yip, Yip, Yaphank. “White Christmas” made its introduction in the 1942 film musical Holiday Inn, starring Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby. Irving Berlin wrote the 1918 song “Oh,…
The Marshall Plan was named for U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall and was formally known as the European Recovery Program. The Marshall Plan expended $12.5 billion in U.S. loans and grants to help rebuild Europe after World War II. Payments were made in the fiscal years 1949 through 1952.
The British fort, captured by the French in 1757 during the French and Indian War, was located in New York near Lake George. Where was Fort McHenry? The fort that withstood British bombardment during the War of 1812 was on the Patapsco River in Baltimore, Maryland. Where was Fort Henry? The Confederate stronghold captured by…
Founded in 1947, the CIA was born about the same time as the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. An offshoot of World War Il’s Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the agency was established to gather foreign intelligence, carry out counterintelligence, and perform covert operations.
In 1800, the national debt was $83 million. In 1988, it was $2.6 trillion.
Virginia Dare, born in 1587 to English settlers of the “lost colony” of Roanoke Island. The entire colony disappeared; Dare’s death date is unknown.
In the 1973 match between the former Wimbledon men’s champion and the then-current Wimbledon women’s champion, the 30-year old King defeated the 55-year old Riggs in three straight sets-6-4, 6-3, 6-3. Riggs had challenged King to a “Battle of the Sexes,” claiming that despite their age difference he could beat King because she was a…
About 15 million Model Ts were sold when the iconic car was being produced.
Just one U.S. president has registered patents Abraham Lincoln. He secured patent 6469 for a plan to buoy steamboats over shoals.
The sheep at the White House were part of the war effort. In 1917, during World War I, President Wilson arranged for a small flock of sheep to graze on the White House lawn, thus freeing up the regular gardeners for military service. Although the sheep began eating more of the White House grounds than…
Once common in U.S. skies and hunted widely as cheap food, the last known passenger pigeon died in the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914.
Richard Nixon was the first U.S. president to visit the Soviet capital of Moscow while in office in 1972.
President Nixon first mentioned the term the “Silent Majority” in a speech about the Vietnam War in November 1969. He used the term to refer to Americans who quietly supported his policies and practices in contrast to his vocal opposition.
Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal took the picture of marines raising the flag on Mount Suribachi at Iwo Jima. The island of Iwo Jima spanned only eight square miles, but was strategically important for its closeness to Japan and hence its value as an air base. About 6,800 marines were killed and more than 18,200…
The seven original astronauts in the American space program were: M. Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., John H. Glenn, Jr., Virgil I. Grissom, Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Alan B. Shepard, Jr., and Donald K. Slayton.
The eighth president, Martin Van Buren (1836-1844), was born on December 5, 1782, after the United States declared its independence.