1954: first "Tonight" show

The Tonight Show is NBC's long-running late-night talk and variety show, now in its 52nd season. It's the second longest-running entertainment program in US television history (after soap opera Guiding Light). Its roots date back to a local New York program called Broadway Open House in the early 1950s.

"Tonight!" was originally hosted by Steve Allen in 1954. Allen’s regular side-kick was Ernie Kovacs. Kovacs became known as "the first commercial tonight show tv television artist." Ernie Kovacs alternated hosting the show with Steve Allen. However, it was Steve Allen who established many of the standards of late night television, introducing the desk and couch and an emphasis on conversations with guests.

While NBC executive Pat Weaver is credited as the Tonight Show creator (he created its morning companion, Today), Allen had already created much of the structure of Tonight with his local New York late-night Steve Allen Show, which premiered in 1953 on WNBT-TV, now WNBC-TV. The announcer was Gene Rayburn. The show's orchestra was first conducted by Bobby Byrne and then Skitch Henderson.

Among the regular features that became classics were Steve’s passionate readings of “Letters to the Editor,” adlib interviews of his audience, and mock Man-on-the-Street interviews. Regular characters included Tom Poston, Louis Nye, and Don Knotts.

Poston earned an Emmy award for his work with Paar, and played numerous characters, typically the befuddled common man on the street.

Nye primarily played urbane, wealthy bon vivant types (in contrast, his parents were both Yiddish speaking Jews born in Russia). His characterization of the delightfully pretentious country-club braggart Gordon Hathaway, his catchphrase, "Hi, ho, Steve-a-reeno," and Allen's inability to resist bursting into hysterical laughter at Nye's ad-libs during gags, made Nye one of the favorites on Allen's show.

Knotts always played a man obviously very nervous and breathing heavily about being on camera. The humor in the interviews would be increased when Knotts stated his occupation -- always one that wouldn't be appropriate for such a nervous, shaking person, such as a surgeon or explosives expert.

Crazy Shots was an original idea setting eccentric sight gags to music that later was used on such shows as Laugh-In.

Steve writes in his book, Hi-Ho Steverino!, "The program appealed to TV viewers tired of a diet of old Charlie Chan movies and the frenetic tempo of Broadway Open House, which it replaced, and it enjoyed popularity from the start. For the first time since coming to New York I felt completely in my element in television, partly because the new program was much like my old Hollywood radio show, only instead of a table I now sat at a desk. There was very little script, mostly ad-lib chatter, questions from the audience, guest and audience interviews, piano music, and songs from Steve and Eydie, the band and myself.”

"When we first started the show, I had no writers at all; none were needed. Occasionally I would write a comic monologue or a simple sketch for a guest and myself, but all I actually required on a typical night was a piano, a couple of amusing letters form viewers, a newspaper article that had caught my fancy, an unusual toy that a member of my staff had picked up, a guest or two to chat with, and an audience to interview."

He hosted other comedy and variety shows on various networks from the 1950s through the 1980s, and emceed the game show I've Got A Secret. From 1977-81 he wrote and starred in A Meeting of Minds, a fictional talk show starring famous figures from history. On film he played jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman in the 1955 movie The Benny Goodman Story. Allen also claimed to have composed more than 7900 songs; in one famous stunt he dashed off 400 quickie tunes in one day. His best-known song is probably This Could Be The Start of Something Big, and his Gravy Waltz won a 1963 Grammy as best jazz composition. He was the author of over 50 books, including The Talk Show Murders (1982). An autopsy after Allen's death revealed that his fatal heart failure was likely caused by a minor traffic accident earlier the same day.

Allen's second wife was the actress Jayne Meadows, sister of The Honeymooners star Audrey Meadows.

In 1957, Jack Paar took over as host from Steve Allen. "The Jack Paar Tonight Show" ran for almost five years and ended in 1962.

It was during Paar's stint as host that The Tonight Show became the entertainment juggernaut that it remained for the next five decades. No other host generated the degree of obsessive fascination in the press or the public that Paar did, partly because his version of the television talk show was so amazingly unpredictable, with memorable occurrences like a slurring drunk Judy Garland talking about her rival Marlene Dietrich. Both John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon appeared separately on the show when they were running against each other for president in 1960, and Robert F. Kennedy later granted Paar the first interview after his brother's assassination.

The Tonight focus was always on compelling conversation and Paar's guests tended to be literate raconteurs such as Peter Ustinov rather than actors promoting their current films, while Paar himself was a superb storyteller. Further, Paar surrounded himself with a memorable group of regulars and semi-regulars, including Cliff Arquette (as the homespun "Charlie Weaver"), author-illustrator Alexander King, Tedi Thurman (NBC's sultry "Miss Monitor") and comedy actresses Peggy Cass and Dody Goodman. In 1959, Paar's gagwriter Jack Douglas became a bestselling author (My Brother Was an Only Child, A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Grave: An Autobiography) after his regular appearances with Paar.

During this time, Paar also made occasional appearances on the television game shows Password and What's My Line? On episode 215 of the latter, Paar filled in as guest panelist for Steve Allen, his predecessor at The Tonight Show.

In 1959, Paar was criticized for his interview with Fidel Castro. Two years later, he broadcast his show from Berlin just as the Berlin Wall was going up. He also sustained numerous cancellations from sponsors of the show, when he would make ad-libs during live commercials for that sponsor's product, such as once describing a brand of men's underwear that sponsored his show as "fitting so tight, it's like being hugged by a midget." Paar also engaged in a number of public feuds, one of them with CBS luminary Ed Sullivan.

Paar was often unpredictable and emotional. The most salient example of this kind of on-screen behavior was demonstrated in 1960. One of his jokes was cut from a broadcast by studio censors. The joke in question involved a woman writing to a vacation resort and inquiring about the availability of a "W.C." The woman used that term to mean "water closet" (i.e., bathroom), but the gentleman who received the letter misunderstood "W.C." to mean "wayside chapel" (i.e., church). The full text of the joke reveals multiple double entendres that are tame by today's standards, but too much for the network to bear in 1960. NBC replaced that section of the show with news coverage and failed to inform Paar of their decision.

The decision to censor the joke so angered Paar that the next night, February 11, he announced on the air that he was leaving the show, saying "I've made a decision about what I'm going to do. I'm leaving The Tonight Show. There must be a better way to make a living than this, a way of entertaining people without being constantly involved in some form of controversy. I love NBC [...] But they let me down." After finishing this monologue, Paar abruptly walked offstage, leaving his flustered announcer Hugh Downs to finish the show for him.

Less than a month later, Paar was convinced to return; on March 7 he opened his monologue with the now-famous line, "As I was saying before I was interrupted...I believe the last thing I said was 'There must be a better way to make a living than this.' Well, I've looked...and there isn't." He then went on to explain his departure with typical frankness: "Leaving the show was a childish and perhaps emotional thing. I have been guilty of such action in the past and will perhaps be again. I'm totally unable to hide what I feel. It is not an asset in show business, but I shall do the best I can to amuse and entertain you and let other people speak freely, as I have in the past."

In 1962, Johnny Carson became the host of The Tonight Show.

Johnny began his career at age 14 with a magic act called "The Great Carsoni" in Norfolk, NE, where he grew up. As a Navy ensign aboard the USS Pennsylvania in 1945, he was the only officer to consciously entertain enlisted men during shows on the ship. While a student at the University of Nebraska, he was allowed to be late for his first class so that he could work at a local radio station, KFAB and then worked at WOW in Omaha, where he wrote comedy and announced commercials for a 15-minute program.

Deciding that his future was in California, he landed a job in 1950 as staff announcer for KNXT (now KCBS-TV) in Los Angeles, where he soon hosted his own program, "Carson's Cellar." It ran until mid 1953.

He temporarily stopped his on-camera appearances to write material for Red Skelton's TV program. One night, just before air time, Skelton ran into a break-away door and suffered a concussion. On short notice, Johnny went on in Red Skelton's place, opening the show with a monologue he had put together while driving to the studio. Jack Benny's reactions: "The kid is great, just great," and "You better watch that Carson kid."

At 29, Carson became host of his own network show, "Earn Your Vacation," while also appearing as a substitute host for Jack Paar, on CBS's "The Morning Show." Carson continued to appear on CBS until 1956.

In 1957 he moved to ABC as host of a new daytime game show, "Who Do You Trust?." It was his first teaming with his future "Tonight" announcer, Ed McMahon. In 1958 he was again asked to fill in for Paar, this time on NBC's "The Tonight Show." On October 1, 1962, Groucho Marx introduced Carson to the nation's late-night television audience as the new host of "The Tonight Show." Johnny's first words, reacting to applause as he walked onstage for the first time: "Boy, you would think it was Vice President Nixon."

When Johnny started, the show was originating from New York and was taped on the same evening that it aired. Johnny was on all five nights and began his monologue when the show began at 11:15 pm.

In February 1965 the 11:15-11:30 pm. segment was turned over to Ed McMahon and Skitch Henderson. On January 2, 1967 this first fifteen minutes was dropped from the show, leaving the show at 90 minutes.

Recurring bits included "Stump the Band," "Carnac the Magnificent," with Carson as a bad psychic; "Aunt Blabby," with Carson as a gossiping little old lady; "The Mighty Carson Art Players," spoofing movies, commercials, TV shows, and events in the news; "Floyd R. Turbo," with Carson as a "not so bright" super-patriot; and "The Art Fern Tea Time Movie," with Carol Wayne as the original "Matinee Lady."

The show would remain at 90 minutes in length until 1980 when it was cut back to one hour.

In May 1972 the show permanently moved from New York to Burbank, California. It was then that Johnny began offering the Monday nights to a guest host. The most frequent guest hosts were:

Joey Bishop (177 times)
Joan Rivers (93 times)
Bob Newhart (87 times)
John Davidson (87 times)
David Brenner (70 times)
McLean Stevenson (58 times)
Jerry Lewis (52 times)
David Letterman (51 times)

Joan Rivers was the "permanent" guest host from September 1983 until 1986. The Tonight Show reverted to various guest hosts after Joan left, with Jay Leno the most frequent. Leno then became the exclusive guest host in the fall of 1987, a position he held for the remainder of Johnny's reign.

Johnny's final telecast on May 22 1992 was a national event. A quiet reminiscence about the show's golden moments over the past 30 years. Johnny avoided show business after leaving the show. He won six Emmy Awards, received the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' prestigious Governors' Award and a George Foster Peabody Award. In 1987 he was inducted into the ATAS Hall of Fame. And for his humanitarian efforts, the American Friends of Hebrew University honored him with the Scopus Award. In 1992, Johnny won the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the American Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1993 he received the Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Award. Johnny passed away peacefully January 23, 2005

Johnny was succeeded in 1992 by Jay Leno (after a sometimes-vicious competition with David Letterman). Leno has announced that he will step down as host in 2009, and has named current Late Night host Conan O'Brien as his successor. The studio in "beautiful downtown Burbank" (as Carson called it) will be sold in 2009, and the show will move to the Universal Studio outside of LA.

The Tonight Show became the first American television show to broadcast with stereo sound in 1984. On April 26, 1999, it became the first American nightly talk show to be shot in HD.

A kinescope film exists of the very first broadcast of The Tonight Show (then called simply, Tonight). Steve Allen welcomed viewers with the warning, "This show is going to last forever", referring to the running time. He has yet to be proven wrong. (info from JohnnyCarson.com, Steve Allen.com, About.com and Wikipedia) (photo from About.com shows Zsa Zsa Gabor with Steve Allen)

1977: US Supreme Court changes the phone business, and my life

Today, the telephone is just another consumer electronics product. It's not much different from a television or a PC or stereo system. You can choose from hundreds of models sold by thousands of dealers, buy it, open the box, plug it in, and use it.

It wasn't always that way.

For about a hundred years, people rented phones from their local phone companies.

Most Americans were served by AT&T-owned phone companies, and rented phones that were made in AT&T's Western Electric factories.

Many others were served by GT&E-owned phone companies, and rented phones made in GT&E's Automatic Electric factories.

Customers of smaller "independent" phone companies rented phones made by IT&T, Stromberg-Carlson, Northern Electric, and sometimes by GT&E or AT&T or tiny companies that are long gone.

A phone's rental fee included on-premises repairs, and phones were built to work for decades. Some 50-year-old phones still work fine.

Led by AT&T, the nation's phone companies had very restictive rules ("tarrifs") that dictated what customers could do and could not do. These tarrifs were approved by federal and state governments, and functioned like federal and state laws. Some tariffs made sense. Some didn't. Obfuscation was common, and tariffs were generally approved with little debate by the governing bodies.

For most people, the most annoying, restrictive, and costly tarrifs were those that prohibited "foreign attachments" to phone company property.

The phone companies tried to scare their customers with bogus warnings about dangers to the national communications network. They implied that if someone plugged an IT&T phone into an AT&T phone jack (or an AT&T phone into a GT&E phone jack), satellites would fall from the sky, radar would fail to sense incoming Russian bombers, and lineman would get electrocuted on the telephone poles. Theoretically, if you put a plastic cover on a phone book -- which was phone company property -- you could get arrested by a state trooper.

In reality, most phone equipment was quite safe, reliable, and compatible. Out of public view, AT&T phone companies bought central office switches from Northern Telecom, and GT&E supplied phones made by IT&T, and IT&T sold phone systems made by Fujitsu... and the phones kept ringing just fine. Lots of people used "illegal" phones without causing harm -- except to the phone companies' profits.

Gradually, the Feds forced the phone companies to be less restrictive.

Hush-a-Phone v. FCC was a ground-breaking ruling in telecommunications law, decided by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in 1956. Hush-a-Phone was a small, cup-like device which mounted over the transmitting end of a telephone handset, reducing the risk of conversations being overheard, and decreasing the transmission of noise.

AT&T, citing the Communications Act of 1934, claimed the right to forbid attachment to the telephone of any device not furnished by the telephone company. Initially, the FCC found that the device was a "foreign attachment" subject to AT&T control and that unrestricted use of the device could, in the commission's opinion, result in a general deterioration of the quality of telephone service.

The court's decision, which exonerated Hush-a-Phone Co. and prohibited further interference by AT&T toward Hush-a-Phone users, stated that AT&T's prohibition of the device was not "just, fair, and reasonable", as required under the Communications Act of 1934, as the device "does not physically impair any of the facilities of the telephone companies", nor did it "affect more than the conversation of the user".

In 1968, the FCC allowed the Carterfone to be connected directly to the AT&T network. The Carterphone provided a connection between two-way radio and telephone. When someone on the radio neededed to speak to someone on the "landline" phone, the station operator at the Carterfone base would dial the number. When callers on the radio and on the telephone were both in contact with the base station operator, the handset of the operator's telephone was placed on a cradle in the Carterfone to enable a conversation.

Later on, the Feds forced the telcos to allow businesses to connect actual phone systems -- not just gadgets --, but they had to be connected through a complex "registered protective coupler" that theoretically would keep a privately-owned phone system from damaging the public phone network, and causing the satellites to fall and allow Russian bombers to approach un-detected.

The couplers had to be rented from the local phone companies, at a cost of about $10 per line per month. This was not a big deal for a company with a large PBX system, with perhaps a hundred phones sharing a dozen phone lines, but it didn't make sense for small businesses and residential customers.

It was no good to buy three phones to save $9 in monthly phone rental, and then pay $10 per month to rent the coupler.

The coupler rental program was supported by the FCC, but on October 17, 1977, the US Supreme Court overruled the FCC and slammed the phone companies and changed my life.

Operating under the premise that any phone device that is privately beneficial without being publicly harmful, the Supremes dictated that people could connect phones directly to the network, without renting that stupid coupler, as long as the phones met certain technical standards (basically, the same AT&T-dictated standards that phones already met).

Phone equipment makers and refurbishers had to test their products, and label them to assure buyers and the phone companies that the equipment met the Federal standards. Each item had an FCC registration number, and consumers and phone installers had to contact the phone companies and tell them the registration numbers prior to plugging in.

A new bureaucracy appeared at the Bell companies -- the Centralized Operations Group ("COG") -- that handled installation requests from phone system sellers. These businesses were known as "interconnect companies," because they supplied products that interconnected with the public telephone network.

For several years, interconnect companies had to submit a notarized "notice of intent to interconnect," that detailed the equipment to be installed and the services needed from the telcos. By the mid-1980s, the COGs and notarized forms largely disappeared, and people plugged in whatever they wanted to. Some stupid rules lingered. At one time, New York Telephone (later NYNEX, Bell Atlantic, and Verizon) allowed connection of privately-owned one-line phones, or 29-line phones, but not 2-line phones.

At the time of the Supreme Court ruling, your humble editor was an advertising copywriter, with a long history of installing illegal phones. I hereby confess to my many crimes; but I'm proud to declare that my work never caused radar failure at the DEW Line ("Distant Early Warning" system). No Russian bombers reached the US because of a phone I installed, or because my mother put a vinyl cover on the phone book in our kitchen.

I sensed that the new legal environment provided a big business opportunity, and considered making the phone business my daytime job, and switching my writing to the dark hours. Starting a new business is risky, but my father told me that if I didn't try it, I could regret it for the rest of my life.

After 30 years, I'm still in the phone business during the day, and writing when it's dark out.

2007: first baby boomerapplies for Social Security

The nation's "first" baby boomer, a retired teacher from New Jersey, applied for Social Security retirement benefits Monday, signaling the start of an avalanche of applications from the post World War II generation.

Kathleen Casey-Kirschling applied for benefits over the Internet at an event hosted by Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue.

Casey-Kirschling was born one second after midnight on Jan. 1, 1946, gaining her recognition as the first baby boomer — a generation of nearly 80 million born from 1946 to 1964.

Your humble editor is a proud member of the first cohort of the baby boom, born a few months after Kathleen. Other '46 boomers who can file for Social Security retirement money soon include Donny Trump, Billy Clinton, Georgie Bush, Laura Bush, Tricia Nixon, Ted Bundy, Howard Shrobe, Strobe Talbott, Uri Geller, Steven Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Dick Wolf, John Waters, Michael Ovitz, Jann Wenner, Karen Silkwood, Gianni Versace, Diane von Furstenberg, Bob Vila, Gene Siskel, Dolly Parton, Candy Bergen, Loni Anderson, Tommy Lee Jones, Liza Minnelli, Cher, Donovan, Billy Preston, Edgar Winter, Marianne Faithfull, Linda Ronstadt, Barry Gibb, Leslie Gore, Al Green, Mean Joe Greene, Danny Glover, Demond Wilson, Vincent Pastore, Tommy Lee Jones, Sylvester Stallone, Susan Lucci, Michael Tucci, Cheech Marin, Diane Keaton, Duane Allman, Patti Smith, Jimmy Buffett, Jimmy Webb, Freddy Mercury, Naiomi Judd, Deepak Chopra, Connie Chung, Patty Duke, Suzanne Somers, Susan Sarandon, Carrie Snodgress, Jill Eikenberry, Gilda Radner, Ed O'Neill, Talia Shire, Sally Field, Victoria Principal, Eugene Levy, Craig T. Nelson, Sandy Duncan, Emerson Fittipaldi, Andre The Giant, Ilie Nastase, Catfish Hunter and Reggie Jackson. (Yes, I know that a few of the '46ers above have died, and some are not Americans, but they are still part of the club.)

Casey-Kirschling will be eligible for benefits after she turns 62 next year. She taught seventh graders for 14 years at a school near Camden, N.J., before retiring and volunteering for the Red Cross in Gulf Coast areas hit by Hurricane Katrina.

An estimated 10,000 people a day will become eligible for Social Security benefits over the next two decades, Astrue said. The Social Security trust fund, if left alone, is projected to go broke in 2041.

But Astrue said he is optimistic that Congress will address the issue, perhaps after the 2008 presidential election. President Bush had proposed changes in Social Security to create private accounts, but the proposal went nowhere in Congress.

Last week, Bush's budget director called the growth in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid a "fiscal train wreck." The three entitlement programs make up nearly half of all federal spending, a share that is expected to grow.

A report issued last month by the Treasury Department said that some combination of benefit cuts and tax increases will need to be considered to permanently fix the Social Security shortfall. But White House officials stressed that Bush remains opposed to raising taxes.

Casey-Kirschling said her generation won't let Social Security fail.

"I think the baby boomers will want to get this fixed," she said. "They're going to want to take care of their children and their grandchildren." (info from The Associated Press)

1865: invention of petroleum jelly

The raw material for petroleum jelly (also known as petrolatum or soft paraffin) was discovered in 1859 in Titusville, Pennsylvania where it was stuck to some of the first oil rigs in the US. Oil workers disliked the goo because it caused oil rigs to jam, but they used it on cuts and burns because it hastened healing.

Robert Chesebrough, a young chemist whose previous work of distilling fuel from the oil of sperm whales had been rendered obsolete by petroleum, went to Titusville to see what new materials had commercial potential. Chesebrough took the unrefined black "rod wax", as the drillers called it, back to his laboratory to refine it and explore potential uses. In 1865, Chesebrough discovered that by distilling the lighter, thinner oil products from the rod wax, he could create a light-colored gel.

By 1870, Chesebrough was marketing his petroleum jelly product as Vaseline (claimed to be from the German word for water (wasser -- pronounced vahser), and the Greek word for oil (elaion), but this is unconfirmed). He patented the process in 1872.

Chesebrough traveled around New York State demonstrating the product to encourage sales by burning his skin with acid or an open flame, then spreading the ointment on his injuries and showing his past injuries healed, he claimed, by his miracle product. He opened his first factory in 1870 in Brooklyn, and within ten years, the product's increased exposure and popularity meant that almost every household in America had a jar of Vaseline.

Chesebrough expanded his business to Canada, the United Kingdom and British colonies around the world. New mothers used it as an absorbent shield for diaper rash. People working in extreme cold weather used it to relieve dry chapped skin. Commander Robert Peary took Vaseline with him when he became (as is generally accepted) the first man to reach the North Pole, because it wouldn't freeze.

By the late 1880s, Chesebrough was selling Vaseline nationwide at the rate of one jar per minute, and most medical professionals recognized Vaseline as the standard remedy for skin complaints.

By 1911, the company began opening operation plants and factories in Europe, Canada, and Africa in order to facilitate the manufacture and distribution of the product.

During the First World War, Vaseline had been used by US soldiers for cuts and bruises and to prevent sunburn. And many medical officers carried tubes of Vaseline® with them to treat minor cuts or burns. During the Second World War, Vaseline was commissioned to produce a sterile antiseptic wound dressing containing petroleum jelly.

In 1955, Chesebrough Manufacturing Co. merged with Pond's Extract Company (known for Pond’s cold cream) to form Chesebrough-Ponds, Inc. During the 1960s, the company continued to expand to locales such as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, and India.
1970 brought with it Vaseline®'s 100th Anniversary, and to mark the occasion, a major new product, Vaseline® Intensive Care Lotion. The brand was later extended to include hand and nail moisturizers and deodorants for men and women.

In 1987, Chesebrough-Ponds was purchased by consumer products giant Unilever, which began as soap maker Lever Bros. in the 1890s.

Chesebrough originally promoted Vaseline primarily as an ointment for scrapes, burns, and cuts, but physicians have shown that Vaseline has no medicinal effect or any effect on the blistering process, nor is it absorbed by the skin. Vaseline’s effectiveness in accelerating wound healing stems from its sealing effect on cuts and burns, which inhibits germs from getting into the wound and keeps the injured area supple by preventing the skin's moisture from evaporating.

However, after becoming a medicine chest staple, consumers began to use Vaseline for a myriad of ailments and cosmetic uses including chapped hands or lips, toenail fungus, nosebleeds, diaper rash, chest colds, and even to remove makeup or stains from furniture.

It is even used as trout bait.

There are uses for it for pets including stopping fungi from developing on aquatic turtles' shells and to keep cats from making messes when they cough up furballs.

In the early 20th century, petroleum jelly, either pure or as an ingredient, was popular as a hair pomade. When used in a 50/50 mixture with pure beeswax, it makes an effective mustache wax.

Petroleum jelly was formerly used to help pitch a spitball in baseball. Although the pitch was banned in 1920, pitchers sometimes throw "the spitter" surreptitiously.

It can also be used as tinder when coated on cotton balls. The combination can easily be ignited by a fire starter, burning hot and long, and the petroleum keeps the cotton from getting wet. Petroleum jelly is a useful addition to a survival kit: cotton balls saturated with petroleum jelly, packed into a plastic 35mm film canister make excellent fire-starters, taking a spark readily and burning fiercely for several minutes.

It can be used as a quick method of shining shoes, when spread evenly onto the surface to create a shiny layer.

Petroleum jelly is commonly used as a sex lubricant. (Not recommended)

Dangerous uses to avoid:

* It should not be used on fresh burns of any kind, including sunburn. It traps heat inside, worsening burns. After heat has dissipated, it can serve as a dressing for minor burns to soothe pain.

* Nasal congestion or dryness. It may immobilize the cilia in the nose, impeding its ability to clean incoming air. If small particles are inhaled, they may deposit in the lungs and lead to a form of pneumonia.

* Sex with latex condoms. Petroleum weakens latex, increasing the chance of rupture, and the chance of pregnancy, or spreading infections such as HIV.

(Info from Wikipedia and Unilever)

NEVER: last accounting by Feds on US Indian money

When the US government took control of Indians’ property rights in 1887, they were assured they would receive all the income from their land. They never did, and now they’re fighting for it.

According to accounts from whistle-blowers, money belonging to individual Indians was pilfered, skimmed, redirected, or thrown in with general government funds by the Department of the Interior or its representatives. Yet, the Interior Department has not accounted for or repaid losses of trust resources, proceeds, or royalties. After struggling for decades to receive a hearing, American Indian families went to federal court in 1996 to plead their case.

Timeline:

1887 – Passage of the General Allotment Act (the Dawes Act) which divided a great deal of tribal lands, especially in the Midwest, into parcels of 40, 80, or 160 acres which were conveyed in trust to individual Indians. The federal government retained management of all natural resources on those lands, and encouraged the Indians to take up farming. The rest of the lands were made available in 1889 for homesteading by settlers coming from the East. Prior to the Allotment Act, tribal land holdings totaled 138 million acres. By 1934, the American Indians had lost almost 90 million of those lands to non-Indian owners. Today, even with more money, tribes have been able to buy back only 8 percent of land they lost in 1887.

1915 – The Report of the Joint Commission of the Congress of the United States described the "great wealth in the form of Indian funds" [derived from lands held in trust] as "an inducement to fraud, corruption, and institutional incompetence almost beyond the possibility of comprehension."

1934 – The Indian Reorganization Act was passed. It stopped all further allotments of portions of tribal reservations to individual owners. It also made perpetual the special trust arrangements which had been created for the lands deeded or allotted to individual Indian owners.

1955 – A U.S. General Accounting Office report stated, "The deficiencies [in trust management] include disbursements of individual Indian moneys without adequate support, deficiencies in accounting for cash and bonds and in computation and distribution of interests income and other weaknesses in internal procedures."

1986 – David Henry, an accountant with BIA, became a prime whistle-blower on the fraud and mismanagement which he witnessed was taking place within the Bureau of Indian Affairs regarding funds held by BIA for tribes and individual Indian owners/allottees.

1990 – During oversight hearings, then-Rep. Albert Bustamante (TX) reportedly stated, "I have a tribe that I represent in my district, but throughout the years, most of these people have been abused by many, and you in the BIA ought to be the ones that really look after them. If this happened in Social Security, I tell you there would be a war. If we can manage Social Security, we ought to be able to manage this."

1991 – Secretary of the Interior's Annual Statement and Report to Congress stated, "The Bureau’s management of Individual Indian Monies (IIM) [accounts] and Tribal trust funds is inadequate to properly maintain and administer the $2 billion dollar fund for which it has responsibility. The BIA’s management of tribal and Individual Indian Trust Funds lacks effective management/internal controls, reliable systems and management information. Tribal and individual accounts lack credibility and have never been reconciled in the entire history of the trust fund."

1992 – The House Committee on Government Operations published its report entitled "Misplaced Trust: The Bureau of Indian Affairs' Mismanagement of the Indian Trust Fund." It contained serious accusations of malfeasance, and called for significant changes in the Department of Interior’s handling of IIM and tribal trust funds.

1994 – The Indian Trust Fund Management Reform Act of 1994 was enacted which made significant changes in the Department of Interior organization and its administration of the trust funds. Its passage came despite the vigorous opposition of the Department of Interior. Under the act, a Special Trustee was appointed to serve directly under the Secretary of Interior, and separate from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, in an effort to remedy the problems in both tribal accounts and IIM accounts.

June, 1996 – The Native American Rights Fund and attorney Dennis Gingold filed Cobell v. Babbitt in U.S. District Court on behalf of five named individual Indian account holders as a class action to compel an accounting and adjustment of accounts. It also sought to establish better policies for appropriate future management of the Indian trust funds.

June, 1996 – The BIA created a new officer, The Special Trustee, who testified to Senate Committee on Indian Affairs that the IIM account system was "as bad or worse" than the system used for tribal accounts. During the hearing, Sen. McCain (AZ) stated, "Trustees receive and disburse funds all the time for other Americans, and if they blow it they pay. In this case it's the Native Americans who are rightfully owed the money and the federal government who will be forced to compensate for their loss."

November, 1996 – The first of several judicial orders was entered in Cobell v. Babbitt requiring that the government produce and give to the plaintiffs’ attorneys all records of accounts relating to the five individual plaintiffs.

February, 1997 – The case was certified as a class action lawsuit by Judge Royce Lamberth, meaning all orders entered for the benefit of the five named plaintiffs (such as the order to produce records of account) would also relate to all members of the class. It was estimated at that time that 300,000 individual Indians and their descendants were members of that class, but that estimate has since been increased to about 500,000.

November 1998 – Judge Lamberth issued an important ruling, over strenuous objections of lawyers for Department of Interior, that in managing IIM accounts the federal government would be held to the same account management standards as any other trustee such as a bank, rather than to the less strict statutory governmental standards. One major consequence of this ruling is that the burden of proof (that there had been appropriate management of funds and proper payments from the accounts to the beneficiaries) became the responsibility of the Department of Interior, rather than that of the plaintiffs.

February, 1999 – Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, Assistant Secretary Kevin Gover, and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin were all found to be in contempt for failure to produce records as required by court orders.

May, 1999 – The government acknowledged in writing that while the case was pending, the Department of Treasury had destroyed 162 boxes of relevant documents.

June, 1999 – A seven-week trial was held. During his testimony, Secretary Babbitt admitted that the fiduciary responsibilities of the U.S. were "not being fulfilled."

Spring and summer, 1999 – Settlement discussions between the parties with the help of mediators were undertaken but were unsuccessful.

December, 1999 – Judge Lamberth held that the United States had breached its fiduciary duties and had "unreasonably delayed" trust reform efforts; and he ordered continued judicial oversight for at least five years. The government appealed this order.

November, 2000 – The Department of Treasury admitted destruction of substantial numbers of additional records which were under its control.

Early 2001 – The case became renamed Cobell v. Norton, to reflect the change of identity of the new Secretary of Interior.

February 2001– The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed the major findings of Judge Lamberth. "Not only does the 1994 Act plainly reaffirm the government’s preexisting duty to provide an accounting to IIM trust beneficiaries, but it is plain that such an obligation inheres in the trust relationship itself." At another point in the decision the court stated, "...the magnitude of the government’s malfeasance and potential prejudice to the plaintiff's class" justified great latitude in the judge’s continuing oversight.

June 2001 – The Senate Government Affairs Committee issued a report in which it described the handling of these funds as one of the 10 worst examples of federal government mismanagement, second only to the Big Dig in Boston.

October 2001 – Government lawyers revealed to the district court that Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs Neal McCaleb had erased his electronic communications relating to Indian trust funds for a period of 10 months, despite court orders and internal policy to the contrary. Those communications reportedly included figures on the amounts of money going in and out of Indian trust fund accounts.

November 2001 – Judge Lamberth ordered Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Assistant Secretary Neal McCaleb to stand trial for being in contempt of court. McCaleb resigned shortly thereafter, and as a consequence he did not have to stand trial. The hearing took place several months later, and Norton was found by the judge to be in contempt.

This pattern of battles in court between the parties has continued ever since then. The Department of Interior has appealed on three separate occasions to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. In every instance the appeals court has affirmed the important findings and legal rulings of the district court, but has also criticized the judge's orders as calling for inappropriately detailed court supervision of Interior's procedures. Also, the plaintiffs have on at least two occasions asked that access via the Internet to Department of Interior files be terminated because of concerns that hackers could access and alter existing records. At one point, all of Interior's computer access was ended by the judge, and at other points certain portions of Interior's operations were taken off-line in accordance with orders from the judge. Later, the judge required the government to notify any American Indian landowner before selling property from the trust it manages. (info from Friends Committee on National Legislation)

1935: last $10,000 bill printed

The denominations of US currency in production are $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100.

The largest denomination ever printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing was the $100,000 Series 1934 Gold Certificate featuring the portrait of President Woodrow Wilson. They were printed from December 18, 1934 through January 9, 1935 and were issued by the Treasurer of the United States to Federal Reserve Banks only against an equal amount of gold bullion held by the Treasury Department. The notes were used for official transactions between Federal Reserve Banks and were not circulated among the general public.

On July 14, 1969 the Federal Reserve Board announced they would immediately stop distributing currency in denominations of $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000. Production of these denominations stopped during World War II. Their main purpose was for bank transfer payments. With the arrival of more secure transfer technologies, however, they were no longer needed for that purpose. While these notes are legal tender and may still be found in circulation today, the Federal Reserve Banks remove them from circulation and destroy them as they are received.

The $2 bill has not been removed from circulation. The Federal Reserve System does not, however, request the printing of that denomination as often as the others. The Series 2003 $2 bill was the last printed, and bears the names of former Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snow and Treasurer Rosario Marin. As of April 30, 2007 there were $1,549,052,714 worth of $2 bills in circulation worldwide. (info from the US Treasury)

1995: first factory-equipped satellite radioin a motorcycle

XM Satellite Radio entered the motorcycle market with Harley-Davidson’s 2006 Screamin’ Eagle Ultra Classic Electra Glide (FLHTCUSE model), the first motorcycle ever equipped with a standard satellite radio. The XM-equipped Harley made its debut at the annual Sturgis Rally in South Dakota in August 2005, where 800,000 motorcycle enthusiasts converge every summer.

Since that time, Harley has offered XM on other models, and Kawasaki announced optional XM on their Vulcan 1600 Nomad touring bike. Sirius apparently is not a factory option on any motorcycles, but you can get it in a Winnebago or Aston-Marton.

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1924: first facial tissue

Kimberly, Clark and Co. was founded in 1872 by John A. Kimberly, Havilah Babcock, Charles B. Clark, and Frank C. Shattuck in Neenah, Wisconsin with $30,000 capitalization. Their first business was running paper mills.

In 1914 the company developed cellu-cotton, a cotton substitute used by the US Army for gas mask filters during World War I. Army nurses used cellu-cotton pads as disposable sanitary napkins, and six years later the company introduced Kotex, the first disposable feminine hygiene product.

Kleenex, the first throwaway handkerchief, followed in 1924, originally marketed to remove cold cream. A few years after the introduction of Kleenex, the company began receiving a large number of letters from customers suggesting its use for colds and hay fever. By the 1930s, Kleenex was being marketed with the slogan “Don’t Carry a Cold in Your Pocket” and its utilization as a disposable handkerchief replacement became important.

The popularity of the product has led to the use of its name to refer to any facial tissue, regardless of the brand. (info from Wikipedia)

1991: first website

Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee is one of the inventers of the World Wide Web, and created the first Website.

Tim Berners-Lee was born in London in 1955, the son of mathematicians who helped build the Manchester Mark I, one of the earliest computers. They taught Berners-Lee to use mathematics everywhere, even at the dinner table.

He is an alumnus Oxford where he played tiddlywinks against rival Cambridge. While at Oxford, Berners-Lee built a computer using an old television. During his time at Oxford, he was caught hacking and was banned from using the university computer. He graduated in 1976 with a degree in physics.

In 1980, while at CERN (the world's largest particle physics laboratory based in Switzerland) Berners-Lee proposed a project based on the concept of hypertext, to facilitate sharing and updating information among researchers. He built a prototype system named ENQUIRE.

In 1989, CERN was the largest Internet node in Europe, and Berners-Lee saw an opportunity to join hypertext with the Internet: "I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the TCP and DNS ideas and — ta-da! — the World Wide Web."

He wrote his initial proposal in March of 1989, and in 1990, with the help of Robert Cailliau, produced a revision which was accepted by his manager, Mike Sendall. He used similar ideas to those underlying the Enquire system to create the World Wide Web, for which he designed and built the first web browser and editor (called WorldWideWeb and developed on NEXTSTEP) and the first Web server called httpd (short for HyperText Transfer Protocol daemon).

The first Website built was at CERN, put online on August 6, 1991. It provided an explanation about what the World Wide Web was, how one could own a browser and how to set up a Web server. It was also the world's first Web directory, since Berners-Lee maintained a list of other Websites apart from his own.

In 1994, Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at MIT. It included several companies that were willing to create standards and recommendations to improve the quality of the Web. The World Wide Web Consortium decided that their standards must be based on royalty-free technology, so they can be easily adopted by anyone.

1875: first private pension plan in the US

Pensions, originally thought of as charity, are now viewed as an essential part of the social responsibility of employers or of the government.

In the Roman Empire there was a well-established pension system to care for soldiers who were disabled or had grown old. In the early 19th century, the French and British governments made provisions to aid elderly public servants.

In the United States, pensions in various forms have been given to veterans of all wars since the Revolution; military pensions are now covered by the Servicemen's and Veterans' Survivor Benefits Act (1957). Retired servicemen and servicewomen receive, after 20 years of service, 50% of their base pay at time of retirement, with automatic increases as indicated by the Consumer Price Index.

The first non-government pension plan in the United States was created by the American Express Company in 1875. A few labor unions and state and local governments began to offer pension plans shortly thereafter, and by 1935 governments in half the states and many businesses were offering pension plans. In 1997 about half of all U.S. workers had pension plans.

Civil-service pensions were developed later in the United States than in Western Europe. Old-age pension plans were drawn up by cities for certain groups of public employees—firefighters, police officers, and teachers—which provided for compulsory contributions from the employee. Pensions for federal employees were authorized in 1920.

The idea of extending such protection to all citizens also appeared earlier in Europe (notably in Germany) than in the United States, where it was a 20th-century development (see social security). Many corporations and groups (such as labor unions, professional associations, and colleges) had made provision for pensions before the social security legislation was passed in 1935, and many groups now have pension plans that supplement social security.

Until the 1940s, pension plans in private industry were set up primarily on the initiative of the employer. As workers gained the right to submit pension plans to collective bargaining, the number of people covered in the United States by pensions grew from 4.1 million in 1940 to 65.6 million in 1999, about 44% of all workers. With more than $6.9 trillion in assets in 1997 (up from only $2.4 billion in 1940), these plans exert a major impact on the economy because the money is invested in stocks, bonds, and real estate. At the same time, the financial health of pension plans can be adversely affected by drops in the value of their investments, as happened after the late 1990s stock market bubble burst. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (1974) established regulations to protect pensions from mismanagement and created a federal agency, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, to insure them.

During the 1990s there was a shift in the type of pension plan that employees were covered by. The number of people covered by defined benefit pension plans leveled off as companies attempted to reduce costs by forcing employees to contribute to their own plans, such as 401(k) plans (defined contribution plans), or by terminating the plans. Under a defined-contribution plan, contributions are made to an account for an individual employee, but no specific income is guaranteed at retirement. In a 401(k) plan, the most common type of defined contribution plan, income that would have been paid to the employee is deposited pretax in an account and invested; it may be matched to some degree by a contribution from the employer. Such plans also differ from traditional defined benefit plans in that the contributions are voluntary, and as a result employees are only covered if they choose to contribute to an account. Under a 401(k) plan employees also may be allowed some degree of control over how the contributions are invested. (info from answers.com)

1970: first strike by US postal workers

The American Postal Workers Union is the world's largest postal union, representing approximately 330,000 employees of the US Postal Service.

Postal unions date back to the 19th Century, but early unions had essentially no bargaining rights. They existed largely as lobbying organizations that otherwise had no say about their working conditions. Wage increases depended on the whim of Congress.

As a result, postal workers were chronically underpaid. In March 1970, full-time employees earned about $6,200 to start, and workers with 21 years of service averaged only $8,440 — barely enough to make ends meet at that time. In fact, many postal workers qualified for food stamps.

The sporadic raises they did receive never seemed to amount to much, particularly in high-cost urban areas. From 1967 to 1969, postal wages were not increased at all, although Congress did raise its own pay 41 percent during that time.

In 1968, the Kappel Commission, a special panel that had been studying postal reform during President Johnson's administration, concluded that postal workers deserved the same collective bargaining rights afforded to private-sector workers under the National Labor Relations Act. Congress failed to act on the commission's recommendation.

Workers grew increasingly frustrated with Congress's inaction, and on March 18, 1970, thousands of New York City postal workers walked off the job. Within days, they were joined by 200,000 others in 30 major cities. President Nixon appeared on national television and ordered the employees back to work, but his address only stiffened the resolve of the existing strikers and angered workers in 671 other locations in other cities into walking out as well. Workers in other government agencies also announced they would strike if Nixon pursued legal action against the postal employees.

Mail service ground to a halt and the plight of postal workers was brought to the public's attention. Nixon spoke to the nation again and ordered 24,000 Army, Army National Guard, Army Reserve, Air National Guard, Navy Reserve, Air Force Reserve, and Marine Corps Reserve forces to begin distributing the mail and break the strike. The military proved ineffective at the task, and the strike was soon settled, with Congress approving a 6 percent wage increase, retroactive to the previous December.

The strike served as an impetus for the enactment of the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, which granted unions the right to negotiate with management over their wages, benefits and working conditions. In lieu of the right to strike, a binding arbitration process was established for resolving contract disputes. The law granted postal workers an additional 8 percent raise and enabled them to advance more quickly to higher-paying positions.

In the first contract, a starting postal worker's salary was raised to $8,488: slightly more than a 21-year veteran of the Post Office Department had been getting just three years earlier. (info from APWU and Wikipedia)

1975: end of 5-cent fare on Staten Island Ferry1997: end of 50-cent fare

The Staten Island Ferry is a passenger ferry operated by the New York City Department of Transportation between Whitehall Street at the southernmost tip of Manhattan and St. George Ferry Terminal in Staten Island. The ride takes about 25 minutes each way.

For most of the 20th century, the ferry was famed as the biggest bargain in New York City. It charged the same five cent fare as the New York Subway but the ferry fare remained a nickel when the subway fare increased to 10 cents in 1948. In 1970, then-Mayor John V. Lindsay proposed that the fare be raised to 25 cents, pointing out that the cost for each ride was 50 cents, or ten times what the fare brought in. On August 4, 1975, the nickel fare ended and the charge became 25 cents for a round trip, the quarter being collected in one direction only.

The round trip increased to 50 cents in 1990, but then was eliminated altogether in 1997. Riders must disembark at each terminal and reenter through the terminal building for a round trip. Bicycles may also be taken on the lowest deck of the ferry without charge. In the past, ferries were equipped for vehicle transport, at a charge of $3 per automobile. Vehicles have not been allowed on the ferry since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The ferry ride is a favorite of tourists as it provides excellent views of the Lower Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty. (Info and photo from Wikipedia. Photo taken by Kmf164 on July 26, 2004.)

1957: first artificial earth satellite

The Sputnik program was a series of unmanned space missions by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s to demonstrate the viability of artificial satellites. It included Sputnik 1, the first man-made object to orbit earth. The Russian name "Спутник" means literally "co-traveler" or "traveling companion" or "satellite".

Sputnik 1 was launched on October 4, 1957. The satellite was about 24 inches in diameter and weighed approximately 184 lbs. Each of its elliptical orbits around the Earth took about 96 minutes.

The surprise launch of Sputnik 1, coupled with the spectacular failure of the United States' first two Project Vanguard launch attempts, shocked the United States, which responded with a number of early satellite launches, including Explorer I, Project SCORE, and Courier 1B. The Sputnik crisis also led to the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency and NASA, and to major increases in US government spending on scientific research and education. (info from Wikipedia)

On vacation

We'll be away for a bit of relaxation and recharging. New posts will resume in the first week of October (unless I discover something really important before then).

If you miss me, you can read all of the old posts on all of my blogs

1947: last horse cab license in London

A Hansom cab is a type of horse-drawn carriage first designed and patented in 1834 by English architect Joseph Hansom. Originally known as the Hansom Safety Cab, its purpose was to combine speed with safety, with a low center of gravity for safe cornering.

Cab is a shortening of cabriolet, reflecting the design of the carriage. It replaced the hackney carriage as a vehicle for hire. With the introduction of mechanical taximeters to measure fares, the name became taxicab.

Hansom cabs enjoyed immense popularity as they were fast, light enough to be pulled by a single horse, (making the journey cheaper than travelling in a larger four-wheel coach) and were agile enough to steer around horse-drawn vehicles in the notorious traffic jams of nineteenth-century London. They were always seen as rather 'racy' and were not used by respectable ladies on their own.

The cab sat two passengers (three if squeezed in) and a driver who sat on a sprung seat behind the vehicle, and used a long whip to rech the horse over the roof of the cab. Passengers gave instructions to the driver through a trap door near the rear of the roof. They could also pay the driver through this hatch and he would then operate a lever to release the doors so they could get out.

The passengers were protected from the elements by the cab itself, as well as by folding wooden doors which enclosed their feet and legs, protecting clothes from splashing mud. Later versions also had a glass window above the doors to complete the enclosure. A curved fender mounted forward of the doors protected passengers from the stones thrown up by the flying hooves of the horse.

There were up to 3000 Hansom Cabs in use at the height of their popularity and they quickly spread to other cities in the United Kingdom, as well as continental European cities. The cab was introduced to the United States during the late 19th century, and was most commonly used in New York City. They were also used in Sydney, Cairo, and Hong Kong.

The cab enjoyed popularity in the United Kingdom until the 1920's, when cheap automobile transport and the construction of reliable mass-transport systems led to a decline in usage. The last license for a horse-drawn cab in London was issued in 1947. (info from Wikipedia) (photo from Haydn Webb Carriages)

1864: first ship sunk by a submarine

Horace Lawson Hunley (1823 - 1863), was a Confederate marine engineer during the American Civil War. He developed early, hand-powered submarines, the most famous of which was named for him, H. L. Hunley.

Although he was born in Tennessee, his family eventually relocated to New Orleans. He served in the Louisiana State Legislature and became a famous lawyer in New Orleans. In 1861, after the start of the War, Hunley joined James R. McClintock and Baxter Watson in building the submarine Pioneer. The Pioneer was promising, but in order to prevent capture by the Union, it had to be scuttled when New Orleans fell to Union forces.

After an unsuccessful attempt at another submarine with McClintock and Watson which ended in the vessel's sinking in Mobile Bay, Alabama, Hunley personally funded a third sub named in his honor: H. L. Hunley.

Five men from the first crew died during early tests of the human-powered vessel, when open hatches were flooded by the wake of a passing ship; four men managed to escape. A second crew was assembled in Charleston Harbor. The harbor was blockaded by Yankee ships that stopped deliveries of needed goods to the city.

On October 15, 1863, though he was not really part of the second crew, Hunley decided to take control as captain during a routine exercise. But the vessel again sank, and this time all eight crewmembers were killed, including Hunley himself.

Horace L. Hunley was buried with full military honors at Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston, South Carolina on November 8, 1863.

After the failure of the second crew, the Hunley submarine was again recovered and with a third crew, became the first submarine in the history of naval warfare to attack and sink a ship (USS Housatonic).

The Hunley silently approached the Housatonic on the night of February 17, 1864. By the time crewmen aboard Housatonic determined that the Hunley was not a log, porpoise, or other harmless object, the submarine closed the gap and the Union vessel's heavy guns could not be aimed low enough to defend itself.

As the Housatonic's crew slipped the anchor chain and backed the engine in an attempt to avert the attack, H.L. Hunley rammed an explosive charge into the Housatonic's starboard side. Within moments, the charge exploded; five minutes later, Housatonic lay completely submerged. As the Union blockader slipped beneath the waves, five of its crewmen perished, either as a result of the blast or by drowning. The remainder of its crew scrambled to the relative safety of the vessel's rigging.

The Hunley sank for the third time shortly after the Housatonic attack and was lost for more than 130 years until it was recovered in the early 2000s. The final crew was reburied in April 2004. (Info from History Channel, US Navy, Wikipedia) (Picture from Hunley.org)

1971: astronauts prove Galileo's gravity theory

In the 1600s, famed Italian astronomer Galileo suggested that two objects of different weight would fall at the same speed.

A possibly apocryphal story says that he stood on the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa with a feather and a stone in each hand and released them simultaneously.

Because the feather's structure slowed its descent like a parachute, the stone reached Earth first, so Galileo's theory was not proven.

It was not until Astronauts David Scott and Jim Irwin conducted Galileo's experiment on the Moon during their Apollo 15 mission in 1971, that the experiment could be duplicated properly. Without air to interfere, both objects made their lunar landings at the same time. (info & photo from NASA)

1907: Neiman Marcus opens for business

When Herbert Marcus, his sister Carrie Marcus Neiman, and her husband, A.L. ("Al") Neiman, opened a store in downtown Dallas on Sept. 10, 1907, they had one goal in mind: bring luxury to Texas.

During a two-year stint in Atlanta, the three partners did promotional work for Coca-Cola that netted them the $25,000 used to open the store. Their refusal of a Coca-Cola franchise in lieu of payment is still a source of familial chuckling. "They weren't going to be taken in by this novelty drink," says Lawrence Marcus, 90, Herbert Marcus' last surviving child. "They wanted cash."

The store idea was refined by Lawrence's brother, Stanley, who started working at the store a year after it opened. He was eight.

"Mr. Stanley," as he became known — distinguishing him from other brothers around the store — created an aura unheard of then in retailing. The store gave fashion awards to Coco Chanel and Grace Kelly, developed over-the-top "His and Hers" Christmas gifts (including expensive cars and airplanes) and instilled the notion that the customer is always right.

"If you sell satisfaction, people will come back to you," Stanley said.

Elyse Lanier, the wife of former Houston Mayor Bob Lanier, remembers Stanley Marcus well. While a student at the University of Houston in the 1960s, she worked part-time at the Houston store, then located downtown. (It moved to the then-distant suburban Galleria location in 1969.) Whenever Mr. Stanley visited, she snuck into the couture department to hear his staff pep talks. "I would hang onto his every word because so much of what he said applied to life," Lanier recalled.

She also learned a valuable lesson about sales. When Houston Symphony conductor Andre Previn came into the store looking for a scarf, she first showed him all the scarves she liked. "He hated every one," she recalled. "So I showed him every scarf I hated, and he bought all of them."

Marcus once said he doubted the store's remarkable success could have happened anywhere but Texas, where the oil business created instant millionaires with the hunger for luxury goods. He aimed to raise the taste level of the new rich. He delighted in telling the story of a girl in a cotton smock who came in straight off the farm and spent $10,000 to outfit herself, including shoes for her bare feet, because Daddy had just struck oil.

Dallas fashion executive Bud Knight reports that during his tenure as the store's coat buyer, women asked to have their Neiman Marcus labels sewn in upside down so when they placed their coats on their chairs, people across the room could read them.

The most famous burlesque star of the Depression, "Fan Dancer" Sally Rand, was no shy customer. "Sally was appearing at the State Fair," says Lawrence Marcus. "She had these fans that she would pass in front of her body in misty light, and you sat on the edge of your seat hoping you'd see some of her treasure." In a store dressing room, she breezily showed Stanley Marcus all of her "treasure" as she tried on dresses, standing naked "without her fans," he says. "It was my wildest dream come true."

The burlesque arts found Neiman's again when Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters had a hit with "Pistol Packin' Mama." A lingerie buyer ordered a shipment of garters equipped with toy pistols. When Stanley Marcus saw the garters, he said, "Burn them."

Robert Sakowitz, whose family's store went head to head against Neiman Marcus from the mid-1950s until 1990, said the Dallas location was a big boost.

"The whole city is known as a marketing city compared to Houston, which is a production city," Sakowitz said. "Dallas was an extremely proud supporter (of Neiman Marcus). It worked to their advantage to a great degree. Stanley was brilliant in his marketing of the city along with his store."

Even after Neiman Marcus merged with Carter Hawley Hale in 1969 and was acquired by Boston-based General Cinema in 1987, its headquarters remained in Dallas. The new owners provided financing for expansion. Neiman's opened its first store outside Texas in Bal Harbor, Fla., in 1971; there are now 39 across the US. But its corporate owners had the good sense to leave the stores alone, letting Marcus and his brothers work their magic. Marcus retired in 1975 but remained as a consultant until his death in 2002. The company went private in 2005.

While many retailers believe New York is the center of the fashion universe, staying put in Dallas gave Neiman Marcus a strong sense of place and helped the retailer retain its focus.

"So many other retailers blow with the shifting wind. They clearly communicated a taste level and point of view," said David Wolfe, creative director for the Doneger Group, a New York-based fashion-trend-forecasting firm.

Wolfe believes staying in Dallas gave the luxury retailer a terrific mystique and identity. "There's something to be said for someone who sticks to their guns — especially in fashion, which by its very definition is changeable."

The store has always championed new designers, but it has never veered to the outer fringes of fashion. "The idea of being half a heartbeat ahead of fashion is the perfect pace," Wolfe said. "They never went so far to the cutting edge that they frightened their customer. They have always understood the whole point of fashion is to make a woman beautiful."

Dallas investor Pat Patterson was a newly minted Smith graduate in Neiman's customer relations when she got a 7:30 a.m. phone call from the loading dock. "Miss Patterson, could you please tell me what to do with this baby elephant?" the voice asked. "Mr. Stanley [Marcus] had ordered it for the Far East Fortnight and it arrived six months late," Patterson says. "We called the zoo."

As president and later chairman, Stanley Marcus burnished the store's reputation of meeting any request. But when an elderly woman wrote asking Neiman's to find her a man, Mr. Stanley demurred. "The risk to us is too great, particularly when you specify that you're looking for a companion between 70 and 75 who is completely and absolutely finished with sex," he wrote. "Frankly, I wouldn't know where or how to search for such a man, nor do I think I would believe him if I found him, nor would I recommend that you put too much faith in any man who claims to answer your specifications."

Because of its top-of-the-line merchandise, the store is known as "Needless Markup" in some circles. But you rarely hear that complaint from well-heeled, regular customers. A Neiman Marcus box or shopping bag signals that they have arrived.

"(Neiman Marcus) understood the aspirations of the American dream, and they sought to define it materially. So if you have an aspiration to be wealthy, this is what you would wear, this is what up would have, this is what is good taste," Sakowitz said.

He said Neiman Marcus Group Inc. president and CEO Burt Tansky once proudly told him that the store no longer carried any men's suit that cost less than $1,000. "I remember thinking what an extraordinarily gutsy thing that was. But, in point of fact, it had become such a small percentage of their business anyway, it didn't make a difference," Sakowitz recalled. "It takes that kind of conviction to be at the absolute pinnacle."

All four of the Marcus sons, Herbert Jr., Stanley, Edward and Lawrence, worked at the store with varying specialties. Stanley was the retailing prodigy. Herbert Jr. opened the men's area, while Lawrence ran women's apparel and ladies shoes. Edward was the most adept with numbers.

"Eddie went to Harvard for a few months and learned to play bridge," says Lawrence affectionately, "and was not asked back... Then he went to the University of Texas and taught bridge and was not asked back... Then he came back to the store. He was very, very good with figures."

Stanley proved to be the family Nostradamus. In a 1966 speech at Indiana University, he predicted something he called "phonovision."

"The mass use of color phonovision will introduce a completely new dimension to remote buying and selling," he said. Customers will be able to "see the articles over the monitor that will interest them right in the comfort of their own living rooms."

Today, neimanmarcus.com has larger sales than any of Neiman's brick-and-mortar stores.

To commemorate its 100th anniversary, Neiman Marcus is featuring a wide array of special limited edition merchandise — including clothing, jewelry and more, from major designers.

Yesterday, shoppers received free samples of the store's famous chocolate chip cookies. Legend has it that a shopper who once asked for the recipe was told it would cost "three ninety-five." He charged to his bill, thinking they meant $3.95. When the bill came for $395, he published the recipe out of spite.

Officials insist the story has no merit and are serving the cookies as a playful riff on the urban myth. The recipe is available for free on the Neiman Marcus Website.

All 39 stores are also asking customers to bring in treasured pieces of Neiman Marcus memorabilia on Wednesday from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. The entries will be photographed and forwarded to Dallas for final judging. One lucky winner will receive 1 million points in the store's customer-loyalty program. (info from the Houston Chronicle & Dallas Morning News)

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Although your humble editor's full name is Michael Neuman Marcus, he is not related to the store's founders. Darn!

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1992: Catholic Church apologizes to Galileo, who died in 1642

In 1610, Century Italian astronomer/mathematician/inventor Galileo Galilei used a a telescope he built to observe the solar system, and deduced that the planets orbit the sun, not the earth.

This contradicted Church teachings, and some of the clergy accused Galileo of heresy. One friar went to the Inquisition, the Church court that investigated charges of heresy, and formally accused Galileo. (In 1600, a man named Giordano Bruno was convicted of being a heretic for believing that the earth moved around the Sun, and that there were many planets throughout the universe where life existed. Bruno was burnt to death.)

Galileo moved on to other projects. He started writing about ocean tides, but instead of writing a scientific paper, he found it much more interesting to have an imaginary conversation among three fictional characters. One character, who would support Galileo's side of the argument, was brilliant. Another character would be open to either side of the argument. The final character, named Simplicio, was dogmatic and foolish, representing all of Galileo's enemies who ignored any evidence that Galileo was right. Soon, Galileo wrote up a similar dialogue called "Dialogue on the Two Great Systems of the World." This book talked about the Copernican system.

"Dialogue" was an immediate hit with the public, but not, of course, with the Church. The pope suspected that he was the model for Simplicio. He ordered the book banned, and also ordered Galileo to appear before the Inquisition in Rome for the crime of teaching the Copernican theory after being ordered not to do so.

Galileo was 68 years old and sick. Threatened with torture, he publicly confessed that he had been wrong to have said that the Earth moves around the Sun. Legend then has it that after his confession, Galileo quietly whispered "And yet, it moves."

Unlike many less famous prisoners, Galileo was allowed to live under house arrest. Until his death in 1642, he continued to investigate science, and even published a book on force and motion after he had become blind.

The Church eventually lifted the ban on Galileo's Dialogue in 1822, when it was common knowledge that the Earth was not the center of the Universe. Still later, there were statements by the Vatican Council in the early 1960's and in 1979 that implied that Galileo was pardoned, and that he had suffered at the hands of the Church. Finally, in 1992, three years after Galileo Galilei's namesake spacecraft had been launched on its way to Jupiter, the Vatican formally and publicly cleared Galileo of any wrongdoing.

(info from NASA and the History Channel) (portrait by Justus Sustermans painted in 1636)

2006: first horse racetrack in Israel

Angry demonstrators and rabbis as well as a ban on gambling failed to stop the opening of Israel's first horse racetrack, as thousands of fans cheered the four-legged competitors in October, 2006.

It was just a collection of collapsible tents with a makeshift grandstand in the middle of a field in northern Israel -- but as the horses turned the final corner before the finish line on Wednesday, it looked, sounded and smelled like the real thing. That's what bothers the detractors.

A few animal rights activists broke onto the track, charging that race horses are abused, and were dragged off by police. Five were arrested. One of Israel's chief rabbis condemned the event as frivolous. And a large sign overlooking the new track reminded spectators that horse race gambling is illegal in Israel.

Even so, organizers of the event and investors called the turnout a success and said they it demonstrated the need to legalize gambling and build up a permanent horse racing industry.

"The fact that people are running here into the stadium, it testifies that it's a need and that they want to support it and they want it to happen," said Danny Atar, head of the Gilboa Regional Council, who is leading the push to have the sport legitimized.

The debate over horse racing dates to 2004, when Israel's parliament passed a law allowing construction of race tracks. Animal rights activists with a group called "Hakol Chai" filed an appeal with the Israeli Supreme Court against the law.

The opponents gained a key ally when Rabbi Shlomo Amar issued a religious ruling against horse racing, calling it frivolous activity and noting its association with gambling and allegations of cruelty to animals. Some experts dispute the cruelty charge, claiming that the valuable race horses are among the best kept animals in the world.

Just as the ban on gambling does not deter Israelis from placing millions of dollars in bets on Internet gambling sites and illegal casinos in Israel, gambling was part of the horse race. Fans said they knew of bets placed in secret among groups and friends.

"Gambling is the main starter and the main economic way to make the race track succeed," said Atar, who said he did not know that illegal gambling was taking place. He hoped that in three to four months the Israeli government would approve horse race gambling.

Israeli businessman Ronen Kristal, who invested the first $700,000 in the track, said other investors are waiting for gambling to become legal. He said it would cost about $14 million to finish the project, which is expected to create about 3,500 jobs. (info from The Associated Press & Reuters, photo from Reuters)

1523: first bed pillow

Pillows were used for decoration, and comfort on hard seating surfaces, as far back as ancient Egypt; but pillows that raise the head above the sleeping surface are a relatively recent development.

In 1523, London physician Sir Lester Maimonides was treating a male patient for what might now be considered sleep apnea -- a loss of the ability to breath during sleep.

The doctor thought the problem could be caused by his patient sleeping face-down, and partially inhaling the loose bed sheet, which blocked his nasal passages.

Maimonides constructed a U-shaped pillow by padding a section cut from an ale barrel, to cradle the patient's head face-up, and installed restraining straps to keep the patient from rotating.

The patient's sleep-breathing problem was instantly solved, but unfortunately, he died just a few weeks later from pneumonia. After his death, his daughter slept in his bed, without the straps, and loved using the special head cushion. She claimed she never slept better, and told friends and relatives, who clamored for "head-raisers" of their own.

Dr. Maimonides discontinued his medical practice, and became a full-time pillow maker. He even supplied the royal family, and was knighted for his invention.

1957: first black tennis champ

Althea Gibson (1927 – 2003) was an American sportswoman who, on August 22, 1950, became the first African-American woman to be a competitor on the world tennis tour and the first to win a 'grand slam' title in 1957. She is sometimes referred to as "the Jackie Robinson of tennis" for breaking the color barrier.

A pioneer in both amateur tennis and professional golf, Gibson paved the way for the likes of Venus Williams and Tiger Woods. She not only broke barriers in tennis, but she was also the first black woman on the LPGA tour.

Born in Silver, South Carolina, Gibson was the daughter of sharecroppers and was raised in Harlem, New York City. She and her family were on welfare. Gibson had trouble in school. She ran away from home quite frequently. She excelled in horsemanship but also competed in golf, basketball, and paddle tennis. Her talent for and love of paddle tennis led her to win tournaments sponsored by the Police Athletic League and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Musician Buddy Walker noticed her playing ping-pong and introduced her to tennis at the Harlem River Tennis Courts. Dr. Walter Johnson, a Lynchburg, Virginia, physician who was active in the black tennis community, helped with her training.

With the assistance of a sponsor, Gibson moved to Wilmington, North Carolina in 1946 for tennis training, and in 1947 at the age of 20, she won the first of 10 consecutive national championships run by the American Tennis Association, the then-governing body for black tournaments.

Forced to play in what was basically a segregated sport, at age 23 Gibson was finally given the opportunity to participate in the 1950 US Championships after Alice Marble had written an editorial for the July 1, 1950, edition of American Lawn Tennis Magazine. Marble said, "Miss Gibson is over a very cunningly wrought barrel, and I can only hope to loosen a few of its staves with one lone opinion. If tennis is a game for ladies and gentlemen, it's also time we acted a little more like gentlepeople and less like sanctimonious hypocrites.... If Althea Gibson represents a challenge to the present crop of women players, it's only fair that they should meet that challenge on the courts."

Marble said that if Gibson were not given the opportunity to compete, "then there is an uneradicable mark against a game to which I have devoted most of my life, and I would be bitterly ashamed."

Gibson continued to improve her tennis game while pursuing an education. In 1953, she graduated from Florida A&M University on a tennis and basketball scholarship and moved to Jefferson City, Missouri to work as an athletic instructor at Lincoln University.

Gibson was now able to compete against the best players from around the world because the color barrier had been broken. Gibson's game improved to where she won the 1955 Italian Championships. The following year, she won her first Grand Slam titles, capturing the French Championships in singles and in doubles with her partner, Jewish Englishwoman Angela Buxton.

Buxton had run into discrimination from other players and the tennis establishment along the same lines as those experienced by Gibson, so the two joined forces and achieved great success. Buxton was the first Jewish champion at Wimbledon, and Gibson was the first champion of African descent. An English newspaper reported their victory at Wimbledon under the headline "Minorities Win."

She followed up by becoming the first black person to win a title at Wimbledon, again capturing the doubles title with Buxton. At the US Championships that year, she reached the singles final where she lost to Shirley Fry Irvin.

In 1957, Gibson lost in the singles final of the Australian Championships, again to Irvin. The two women, however, teamed to capture the doubles title, as Buxton had retired prematurely at the age of 22 due to a serious hand injury.

At Wimbledon, Gibson won her first of two consecutive singles championships and, upon returning to the United States, was given a ticker-tape parade in New York City and an official welcome at New York City Hall. She responded by winning the US Championships. For her accomplishments that year, Gibson earned the No. 1 ranking in the world and was named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year.

In 1958, after successfully defending her Wimbledon singles title and winning her third consecutive Wimbledon women's doubles title, Gibson again won the singles title at the US Championships. She was named the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year for the second consecutive year. That year, Gibson retired from amateur tennis.

Before the open era began, there was no prize money, other than an expense allowance, and no endorsement deals. To begin earning prize money, tennis players had to give up their amateur status. As there was no professional tour for women, Gibson was limited to playing in a series of exhibition tours.

In retirement, Gibson wrote her autobiography and in 1959 recorded an album, Althea Gibson Sings, as well as appearing in the motion picture, The Horse Soldiers. In 1964, she became the first African-American woman to play in the Ladies Professional Golf Association. However, she was too old to be successful and only played for a few years.

In 1971, Gibson was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, and in 1975, she was appointed the New Jersey state commissioner of athletics. After 10 years on the job, she went on to work in other public service positions, including serving on the governor's council on physical fitness.

Tennis players made no money in the ‘50s, and Gibson’s finances worsened over the years. In 1992, she suffered a stroke. A few years later, Gibson called Buxton and told her she was on the brink of suicide. Gibson was living on welfare, and unable to pay for rent or medication. Buxton arranged for a letter to appear in a tennis magazine. Buxton told Gibson nothing about the letter, but Gibson figured it out when her mailbox started to bulge with envelopes full of checks from around the world. Eventually nearly $1 million came in.

The title of her autobiography, written in 1958, is "I Always Wanted to Be Somebody." To tennis fans, she always will be somebody very special. Though she didn't go looking for the role of pioneer, she was one. "If it hadn't been for her," says Billie Jean King, winner of 12 Grand Slam singles titles, "it wouldn't have been so easy for Arthur (Ashe) or the ones who followed."

In 2003, at the age of 76, Gibson died in East Orange, New Jersey due to respiratory failure.

In August 2007, on the opening night of the US Open, the 50th anniversary of Gibson's victory at the US National Championships in 1957, Gibson was inducted into US Open Court of Champions. (info from Wikipedia & AltheaGibson.com. Photo from AltheaGibson.com)

2007: new record for fliegel-fressing(chicken wing eating)

Competitive eater Sonya ("The Black Widow") Thomas weighs just 105 pounds, but she scarfed down 5.17 pounds of chicken wings in 12 minutes Saturday night to win the wing-eating contest at the National Buffalo Wing Festival.

Thomas devoured 173 wings, beating 12 bigger-bellied competitors.

The contest is an annual Labor Day weekend event in Buffalo, NY, the city where Buffalo wings were born. Thomas, from Alexandria, VA, also held the festival's previous record of 161 wings in 12 minutes, set in 2004.

Thomas has set numerous records in competitive eating events, including 37 hot dogs in 12 minutes; 35 bratwursts in 10 minutes; 11 pounds of cheesecake in 9 minutes; 44 lobsters in 12 minutes; and 250 Tater Tots in 5 minutes.

She is ranked No. 5 by the International Federation of Competitive Eating. According to the federation's Website, No. 1-ranked Joey Chestnut holds the 12-minute record for chicken wings, downing 7.5 pounds of them May 21, but apparently didn't do it in Buffalo. (info from the Associated Press, photo from sonyatheblackwidow.com)