Did You Know – Early American History
If you are a regular reader you do. St. Augustine Florida is the oldest continuous settlement in the United States. It was originally a Spanish settlement as well as its oldest port. St. Augustine was founded by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés on September 8, 1565. The first English child born in America was Virgina Dare [...]
The First United States Census – 1790
The first United States Census began on Monday, August 2,1790 using that date as the ‘as of’ of the census. President George Washington had taken office the year before and the country wished to have a count of its population. The Congress assigned responsibility for the 1790 census to the marshals of the U.S. judicial [...]
Other Beatles
It was on June 1960 that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stu Sutcliffe and Tommy Moore performed for the first time under the name The Beatles. Actually it was the Silver Beetles. They dropped the Silver and changed the second “e” to an “a” a couple of months later. Thomas (Tommy) Moore played drums [...]
Established: 1960
Motel 6 Motel 6 was founded in 1960 in Santa Barbara, California by building contractors, William Becker and Paul Greene. Their plan was to build motels that could offer rooms a a bargain price. After calculating the all cost it was decided that a room would have a nightly cost of $6, hence the company [...]
Titanic
On the night of April 14, 1912, the RMS Titantic, a ship considered virtually unsinkable was struck by an Iceberg and sank. The ship carried the minimum number of lifeboats which could only carry about 1000 people. In 1898, the novel ‘Futility’ written by Morgan Robertson was published. It’s a story about a giant ship, [...]
Did You Know? – Easter
Easter occurs on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. The first full moon after the Spring Equinox is also the date of the Jewish Holiday of Passover and is the first full moon of their year. It will also fall between March 22nd and April 25th. The name “Easter” [...]
Did You Know? – American Geographical Oddities
On March 29, 1848 Niagara Falls stopped. For thirty hours the water of the falls ran at a trickle then just as suddenly as they stopped they started again. High winds caused the ice fields of Lake Erie to move the millions of tons of ice towards the source of the river. The ice blocked [...]
The First of the Year
In ancient Rome the first month of the new year was the same one in which spring began. That month was called Martius after the God of War, Mars. Today we call the month March. Spring would seem a natural time for the new year to begin, since that’s when the climate changes and the [...]
The Truths of Washington
George Washington, the leader of the Continental Army and later the first President of the United States, thought of February 22nd as his birthday. He was born on February 11, 1731 under the Julian Calendar. The Julian Calendar was used in England, in which Virginia was a colony in 1731, but the Gregorian Calendar was [...]
The Rings of Color
Ever wonder why there are five rings, each of a different color on w white background in the Olympic Flag? Pierre baron de Coubertin, who was the Olympic Committee President form 1896 to 1925 said upon its introduction that the five rings represented each of the five “the five parts of the world won over [...]
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