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.
American Nintendo Company employees took the name “Mario” for Super Mario Brothers from the landlord of their building. The Nintendo system first appeared in the U.S. in 1986.
The Panama Canal, which required ten years from start to finish, took two years longer to build than the Erie Canal. Excavation on the 51-mile long Panama Canal began in 1904; the first ship entered the waterway in 1914. The Erie Canal, linking Buffalo and Albany, New York, took from 1817 to 1825 to complete.
Central Park in New York first opened to the public in October 1858.
Gerald R. Ford was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., in 1913. His parents divorced when he was an infant; his mother then married Gerald R. Ford, Sr., who adopted the future president and gave him his name.
The federal government founded the National Rail Passenger Corporation Amtrak in 1970 to prevent the imminent extinction of passenger railroads in the U.S. Unable to compete with airlines, the commercial railroads had been eliminating most of their passenger service and concentrating on freight. Railroad passenger-miles traveled in a single year had declined from a height…