Yes, there really was a John Deere. In 1839, he invented the steel plow, which, along with Cyrus McCormick’s 1834 invention, the reaper, changed the face of American agriculture.
In the mid-1970s, the leading career choice for Harvard M.B.A. graduates was manufacturing. Ten years later, it was investment banking.
Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Maryland, was the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence. Born in 1737, he was 95 years old when he died in 1832.
About 4.7 million Americans served in the armed forces in World War I. Over three times as many, 16.1 million, served in World War II.
After experimenting with thousands of materials, Thomas Edison discovered in 1879 that a scorched cotton thread, the equivalent of a carbon wire, was the filament he needed. It was one that would glow for a long period without melting in an electric light bulb. Edison’s discovery ushered in the age of electric lighting.
Named for trader Jesse Chisholm, this nineteenth-century cattle route started south of San Antonio, Texas, passed through Oklahoma, and ended at Abilene, Kansas. In 1871, the trail’s busiest year-700,000 cattle were driven along the route by 5,000 cowboys.