Meals had long been offered in taverns, cook-shops, and coffeehouses.
The first place known as a restaurant was the Champ d’Oiseau, which opened in Paris in 1765.
At the entrance was the Latin motto Venite ad me, omn e qui stomacho laboratis, et ego restaurabo vos, or “Come to me, anybody whose stomach groans, and I will restore you.”
The first black U.S. general was Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. (1877-1970). He was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the U.S. Army in 1940.
The first person to die in the gas chamber was Gee Jon. He was convicted of assassinating a member of a rival Chinese tong and died in a gas chamber in Nevada State Prison in Carson City on February 8, 1924. The idea of the gas chamber was introduced by Major D. A. Turner of…
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 stolen car was a Peugeot owned by Baron de Zuylen of France It was stolen in June 1896 by a mechanic from the manufacturer’s plant in Paris, where it had been taken for repairs.
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.
On June 26, 1896, the 400-seat Vitascope Hall was opened at the corner of Canal Street and Exchange Place in New Orleans by William T. Rock. For 10 cents, viewers could peer into the projection room; for another 10 cents, they could see the Edison Vitascope projector. A popular film of the time was May…