It was during the Lincoln administration in the middle of the Civil War that the first federal tax on income was levied by Congress, in the Internal Revenue Act of 1862. The rates ranged from 3 to 5 percent. Congress eliminated the tax in 1872.
Captain Robert L. Crippen and John W. Young flew the space shuttle Columbia on its maiden voyage April 12-14, 1981.
In 1789, George Washington was wealthy in land but short of cash. He borrowed £600 to travel from Mount Vernon to New York City, the site of his first inauguration.
The world’s largest employer of women is Avon Products, Inc., which, as of 1992, employed 1.5 million women throughout the world. Nearly all the women work as independent sales representatives, often known as Avon ladies. Founded in 1883 by David H. McConnell as the California Perfume Company, it became Avon Products, Inc. in 1939, a…
The Battle of Bunker Hill took place not on Bunker Hill but on Breed’s Hill, on June 17, 1775. The opposing forces were supposed to engage on Bunker Hill, but for unknown reasons the soldiers dug in on the smaller site, about 2,000 feet away. To straighten things out for visitors, Breed’s Hill was later…
The man who had been expelled from Harvard, William Randolph Hearst, bought or started 42 newspapers. Only a handful remained by the time of his death in 1951.