The first transatlantic flight was made by Albert C. (“Putty”) Read and crew aboard the Lame Duck, May 16 to 27, 1919. They flew, with stops, from Trespassey Bay, Canada, to Plymouth, England. The first nonstop flight was that of John William Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, June 14 to 15, 1919. Charles Lindbergh’s 1927…
The first showboat was William Chapman’s Floating Theatre, built at Pittsburgh in 1831. It traveled the system of waterways dominated by the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, bringing entertainment to America’s river frontier. Once the river frontier closed and other entertainments beckoned, showboats declined. The last authentic showboat in operation was the Golden Rod in 1943.
The first woman in space was Valentina V. Tereshkova of the USSR. She made 48 orbits of the earth in a three-day mission in Vostok 6, June 16 to 19, 1963.
The first personal ad might well have been a matrimonial advertisement that appeared in a British publication called the Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade on July 19, 1695. The ad read: A Gentleman about 30 Years of Age, that says he has a Very Good Estate, would willingly Match Himself to some…
The term witch hazel is the common name for the Hamamelis plant. The witch of the plant’s name comes from wice, an Anglo-Saxon word for a plant with flexible branches. It is unclear who first used the leaves and bark of witch hazel in toiletries and tonics. Some believe it was the Anglo-Saxons; others think…
In 1848, the Marble Dry Goods Palace opened on Broadway in New York City. Its proprietor and developer was Alexander Turney Stewart, formerly a schoolmaster in Ireland. By the time of his death in 1876, the blocklong store yielded annual earnings of $70 million.