The first skyscraper was the 10-story Home Insurance Company Building in Chicago
It was designed by William Le Baron Jenney and completed in 1885.
The first tall building to be supported by an internal frame of iron and steel rather than by thick masonry walls, it was demolished in 1931.
The first woman to be commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp was the wife of the first president. This did not happen until the twentieth century. In 1901, Martha Washington was commemorated on the 8-cent stamp. In 1918, she was pictured on the 2-cent prepaid postcard; in 1920, on the 4-cent stamp; and in 1938,…
The first spacecraft to land on the moon was Luna 2, launched by the USSR on September 12, 1959. It crash-landed between the craters Archimedes and Autolycus in the Mare Imbrium on September 14. A successful landing was made by Luna 9 on February 3, 1966.
To assess voters’ preferences in the 1824 presidential election, citizens were asked whom they preferred. This was the first public opinion poll. The results, published in the Harrisburg Pennsylvanian on July 24, 1824, gave Andrew Jackson a commanding lead over John Quincy Adams and all others. However, Adams won the election.
A 1 carat diamond weighs 200 milligrams, or 3.086 grains troy. The measurement originally represented the weight of a seed of the carob tree.
Of the 2,200 persons quoted in the current edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations only 164 are women. This is an astronomical increase over the number quoted in the 1855 first edition of four.
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…