Written by Milton Ager and Jack Yellen, the Depression-era Democratic party theme song “Happy Days Are Here Again” first appeared in the 1930 MGM musical Chasing Rainbows, starring Bessie Love and Charles King.
The movie opened after the 1929 stock market crash and was a flop.
A boy named William, born in 1623 or 1624 in Jamestown, Virginia, was the first child of African parents born in England’s American colonies. His parents, Antony and Isabel, were among the first Africans shipped in bondage to the English colonies in 1619.
The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, founded in 1925 by A. Philip Randolph and other labor leaders, was the first African-American union. The Pullman Company, at first opposed to the Brotherhood, awarded the union its first contract in 1937. Later the Brotherhood became best known for its civil rights activism.
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.
The first American cookbook was the 1796 collection American Cookery by Amelia Simmons, whose pen name was “An American Orphan.” Four editions of the book appeared between 1796 and 1808.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame is at the National Football Museum in Canton, Ohio.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, with 1,560 games, is the NBA lifetime leader in most games played. Born Ferdinand Lewis (Lew) Alcindor in 1947, Abdul-Jabbar began playing for the Milwaukee Bucks in 1969 and the Los Angeles Lakers in 1975.