President Reagan fired all of the 11,600 air traffic controller strikers after they refused to obey a court order to return to work.
By decade’s end, there were 2,500 fewer air traffic controllers employed in the industry.
Meanwhile, U.S. air traffic had increased by a third and safety records had worsened.
Upton Sinclair said, “I aimed for the heart and by accident I hit the stomach instead”. He was discussing the national response to his 1906 novel The Jungle about the Chicago meatpacking industry. The book was meant to galvanize workers to socialism but instead led to the passage of the first nationwide food and drug…
Invented by Samuel F. B. Morse and completed in 1844, the telegraph line ran from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland. The first message, telegraphed on May 24, 1844, was, “What hath God wrought!”
The names of these two English political parties Whig and Tory were each invented by the respective party’s rival as a pejorative term. The Country Party, representing the merchants and middle class, called their opponents tories, a word for Irish plunderers. The Court Party, representing the aristocrats, squires, and Anglican clergy, called their opponents Whigs,…
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.
Democratic candidate Walter Mondale and Republican candidate Robert Dole took part in the first vice-presidential debate during the 1976 Carter-Ford presidential contest.
Merchant Richard Sears and watchmaker Alvah C. Roebuck began their collaboration in 1887 by selling mail-order watches advertised in newspapers. In 1889, Sears produced his first catalog of watches and other jewelry. By 1893, when the name Sears, Roebuck & Co. was first used, the business included clothing, furniture, baby carriages, and more. A century…