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Progressive Era
 
Progressive Era (1890-1913)

The history of the United States of America. Stories from the Progressive Era (1890-1913).
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Time flies with Nelly Bly

January 25, 1890 - Nellie Bly Circled the Globe

How long does it take to travel all the way around the world? Reporter Nellie Bly found out. On January 25, 1890, police cleared a path through a cheering crowd as Bly stepped off a train in New York just 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes, and 14 seconds after setting sail to prove she could circle the globe in less than 80 days. Why and how did she do it?

Have you read the book Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne? The hero of the book, Phileas T. Fogg, travels around the globe in precisely 80 days. Bly, born Elizabeth Cochrane, said she could do it in less time. Bly traveled by ship, train, jinrikisha (a seat on wheels pulled by a man), sampan (a small riverboat), horse, and donkey to make it. Her newspaper carried daily articles about her journey and offered a trip to Europe to the person who could come closest to guessing her finish time. The paper received nearly 1 million entries and sold more copies than ever before.

Miss Bly was no stranger to taking risks. Once, pretending to be insane, she had herself committed to an asylum in New York for ten days so she could expose the horrible conditions there. Her report on the asylum, and later reports on slum life, inspired people to change these conditions. She also helped to pave the way for women in journalism. Have you ever thought of being a reporter? How long do you think it would take to go around the world today? How would you make your journey?
 
A Cyclone of a Pitch!

August 6, 1890 - Baseball Great Cy Young Pitched His First Professional Game

And here's the pitch. Steee-rike three! You're out!

Fans of the Cleveland Spiders from 1890 to 1901 heard that cry often when their talented pitcher, the great Cy Young, was on the mound. Young pitched his first professional game on August 6, 1890, leading his team to a win against the Chicago White Sox. That was the beginning of a great baseball career.

Over the course of his 22-year career, Young won at least 508 games (many say he won 511) and averaged about 23 victories a season! After his stint with the Spiders, Young played with the Boston Red Sox, and finally the Cleveland Indians, as seen in this popular trading card. His record put him into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937. Cy wasn't his real name. How do you think he came to be called that?

Born Denton True Young in Gilmore, Ohio, on March 29, 1867, Young earned his nickname when a bystander observed that he could throw the ball with the force of a cyclone. He was known as Cy from that moment on. Begun in 1956, the Cy Young Award is given each year to the best pitcher in both the American and National leagues. Do you know which pitchers won the Cy Young award last season?
 
The First Person

January 1, 1892 - The First Immigrant Landed on Ellis Island

When 15-year-old Annie Moore arrived here from Ireland on this day in 1892, she was the first person to enter the United States through Ellis Island. As the boat she was on drew closer to her new home, she must have seen the Statue of Liberty, whose torch rises 305 feet above the waters of the New York Harbor. The statue is on an island next to Ellis Island. Can you guess how many people entered the United States through Ellis Island?

More than 12 million people entered the United States through the Ellis Island immigration center from 1892 to 1954. For 62 years people came to Ellis Island from around the world because they wanted to become American citizens. After the boats docked, immigrants would disembark and walk into the Registry Room where they would see doctors who would check if they had any physical problems and officers who would look over their legal documents. Once they were given the OK to enter, the immigrants were allowed into the United States. Were there other ways to enter the U.S. at this time?

Nearly half of all Americans have ancestors who came here through Ellis Island, but this was only one of many ports of entry for ships; some others were Philadelphia, Boston and Baltimore. Ask someone in your family about how your grandparents or great-grandparents came to this country. If your ancestors came from Canada or Mexico, how would they have entered America?
 
America's Librarian

May 7, 1892 - Archibald MacLeish, Ninth Librarian of Congress, Was Born

Through this Web site, you have access to all kinds of materials in the Library of Congress, America's library. It's huge! You can learn about moments and people in history and actually see documents like Thomas Jefferson's rough draft of the Declaration of Independence. One man to thank for this is Archibald MacLeish, born on May 7, 1892, in Glencoe, Illinois. Poet, playwright, lawyer, public servant, and lover of books, he served as Librarian of Congress from 1939 to 1944.

While he was Librarian of Congress, MacLeish reorganized the Library and worked to "increase the use of the Library to its readers." With the start of World War II, he also kept the collection safe by sending important pieces, like the Declaration of Independence, to Fort Knox. He also kept the nation's Library open to U.S. military intelligence 24 hours a day for the war effort.

MacLeish had other great accomplishments. As a young man, he practiced law for three years, and then he moved his family to Paris, where he wrote several volumes of poetry. Back in the U.S., he wrote a long story-poem called Conquistador about the Spanish conquest of Mexico. For this he won the 1933 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. (The Pulitzer Prize is given annually to poets and writers, as well as to others for achievements in music and journalism.) After his time as Librarian of Congress, he became assistant Secretary of State. In the 1950s, MacLeish wrote more poetry and a play, JB: A Play in Verse, based on the Book of Job in the Bible, which was awarded the 1959 Pulitzer Prize for drama.

You could call Archibald MacLeish a Renaissance man, meaning he had many interests and talents. Perhaps you are a Renaissance person too. What are your interests and talents?
A Fair Speech

January 2, 1893 - Frederick Douglass' Delivered Speech on Haiti at the World's Fair

We can learn a lot by studying or visiting countries other than our own. Frederick Douglass, a well-known writer, publisher, and abolitionist (anti-slavery activist), understood the history of Haiti because from 1891 to 1893 he was the country's United States minister and general consul. When he stood before the crowds to open the Haitian Pavilion at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago's Jackson Park on January 2, 1893, he delivered a powerful address.

In his speech, Douglass told about Haiti's evolution from slave colony to free and independent republic, and its relevance to African Americans. He encouraged the U.S. to improve its relationship with Haiti because the country had great potential for growth and it was rich in natural beauty and resources.

"We should not forget that the freedom you and I enjoy today," he said, "is largely due to the brave stand taken by the black sons of Haiti ninety years ago . . . striking for their freedom, they struck for the freedom of every black man in the world."

What do you or members of your family know about the country of Haiti or Frederick Douglass?
 
Gone to the Birds

May 4, 1894 - The First Bird Day

A hawk soars in the sky. A robin sings in a tree. What do you know about the birds around you? The public learned a lot more about birds starting on May 4, 1894, the first observed Bird Day. The superintendent of schools in Oil City, Pennsylvania, Charles A. Babcock, suggested the holiday. Often combined with Arbor Day (which celebrates trees), Bird Day was widely celebrated, encouraging conservation training and awareness of birds for all.

To help make bird education fun, ornithologists (bird scientists) Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliot Coues worked with artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes in 1897 to create the book Citizen Bird. They dedicated their colorful book to "All Boys and Girls Who Love Birds and Wish to Protect Them."

"Bluebirds have a call-note and a sweet warbling song," said the ornithologists. "Bluebirds are true blue, which is as rare a color among birds as it is among flowers." Conservation efforts continue today as songbirds in America, like the bluebird, become more rare. Can you imagine a world without birds? Keep your eyes and ears open and notice the variety of birds where you live.
 
When Harry Met Beatrice

June 22, 1894 - Harry Houdini Gets Married

You may have heard about the legendary magician Harry Houdini, but do you know the story of Harry Houdini and the beautiful Beatrice? It was magic at its best when Harry Houdini met Wilhelmina Beatrice Rahner. Harry was an unknown magician and Beatrice was singing and dancing as one of the Floral Sisters in West Brighton Beach, New York. Harry and Beatrice fell in love, and on June 22, 1894, the couple started a new act as husband and wife.

When the Houdinis married, Beatrice left the Floral Sisters and became her husband's stage assistant. With Beatrice at his side, Houdini advertised he had "escaped out of more handcuffs, manacles, and leg shackles than any other human being living." Four years later, Houdini the magician made a surprising change in his act. Do you know what it was?

After years as a magician, Houdini dropped his magic act from the show and concentrated on creating fantastic escapes. The couple left the United States and toured Europe, where Houdini was acclaimed as a brilliant "escapologist."

In 1914, Beatrice and Harry Houdini celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary on board the S.S. Imperator of the Hamburg-America Line, where they met fellow passenger Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt was so amazed by Houdini's performance, he invited Houdini to meet his grandchildren.

Extremely happy for more than 39 years, the Houdinis never attempted escape from the bonds of matrimony. Then, on October 31, 1926, Houdini died from peritonitis (inflammation of the lining of the abdominal cavity) caused from a stomach injury, bringing the story of Harry Houdini and the beautiful Beatrice to a sad and sudden end.
 
With the Fire of Prophecy

September 18, 1895 - Booker T. Washington Speaks at the Cotton States and International Exposition

A reporter in the crowd listening to Booker T. Washington deliver this important speech on September 18, 1895, described the event this way: "His eyes and his whole face lit up with the fire of prophecy... It electrified the audience, and the response was as if it had come from the throat of a whirlwind." One of the most politically powerful African Americans in the country from 1895 to 1915, Booker T. Washington was the first African American man ever to address a racially mixed Southern audience. What did Washington tell his audience?

Washington used the opening of the Cotton States and International Exhibition in Atlanta, Georgia, to send his message of industry, patience, and tolerance. Tired of the violence and turbulence that the South experienced during Reconstruction after the Civil War, he talked to blacks about self-help, attaining economic security, and allowing political equality to happen over time. Some African-American leaders, including W.E.B. Du Bois, rejected Washington's emphasis on gradual economic and social advancement in favor of immediate political and intellectual empowerment. Du Bois formed an "anti-Bookerite" movement calling for immediate equality. What do you think of Washington's patient approach to gaining equality?

Booker T. Washington had traveled a long, hard road to his position of leadership by the time he delivered his speech. Described in his autobiography, Up From Slavery, Washington went from slavery to working in a coal mine in West Virginia to studies at the Hampton Institute and ultimately teaching. He established the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama in 1881, turning it into one of the finest African-American educational institutions in the country. Washington strongly believed that "in all things that are purely social we can be separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress." What do you think he meant? Do you agree with his idea?
Start Your Engines!

November 28, 1895 - The First American Automobile Race

Auto races of today, such as the Indianapolis 500, have sleek, colorful cars screeching around a racetrack at speeds so fast that some spin off into the sides of the track, flipping over as they go.

Back in 1895, auto racing was just beginning and it was a very different sort of sport. On November 28, 1895, six "motocycles" (a nickname for a horseless vehicle) left Chicago's Jackson Park at 8:55 a.m. for a 54-mile race to Evanston, Illinois, and back through the snow. The winner, Number 5, driven by inventor J. Frank Duryea, won the race in just over 10 hours with an average speed of 7.3 miles per hour!

The Chicago Times Herald sponsored that first race with $2,000 going to the winner and $500 to the fan who named the horseless vehicles "motocycles."

Two years earlier, the winners, J. Frank Duryea and his brother Charles, had built and driven what they claimed to be the first American gasoline-powered automobile. Yet by the time the Times Herald race came along, more than 70 entries were filed. This huge response prompted President Cleveland to ask the War Department to oversee the event. After their victory, the Duryeas made 13 copies of the Chicago car, and J. Frank Duryea developed the Stevens-Duryea, an expensive limousine that remained in production into the 1920s.

The Duryeas were not the only people inventing cars. The Stanley twins built a steam-powered vehicle, the "Stanley Steamer," in 1897. The vehicle achieved fame when F.E. Stanley did a mile in 2 minutes 11 seconds on a dirt track with a 30-degree incline. Eventually the "Stanley Steamer" became known as the "Locomobile." By the time Henry Ford incorporated the Ford Motor Company in 1903, the Stanley plant already employed 140 workers.

This is a photo of Samuel Holland's Repair Shop in Park River, North Dakota, where Holland, a native of Norway, built self-propelled motor vehicles in his spare time. In 1904, the local newspaper reported that he built an automobile and may have built as many as eight. One copy of his car is known to exist.
 
Put the Ball in the Peach Basket!

January 18, 1896 - First College Basketball Game

When you are out on the court playing basketball, or watching it on TV, have you ever wondered who invented the game? The first ever college basketball game with five players on each side was played on this day, January 18, 1896, when the University of Iowa invited student athletes from the new University of Chicago for an experimental game. Final score: Chicago 15, Iowa 12, a bit different from the hundred-point scores of today.

In December 1891, Canadian-born James Naismith, a physical education teacher at the YMCA (Young Men's Christian Association) training school, took a soccer ball and a peach basket and in the gym invented basketball. In 1893, he replaced the peach basket with iron hoops and a hammock-style basket. Ten years later came the open-ended nets of today. Before that, you had to retrieve your ball from the basket every time you scored.

In 1963, college games were first broadcast on national TV, but it wasn't until the 1980s that sports fans ranked basketball up there with football and baseball. It's a popular neighborhood sport, too. The next time you shoot hoops with your family or friends, you can tell them how it all got started.
 
Splish, Splash, I was Taking a Bath!

March 14, 1896 - Sutro Baths Open in San Francisco

Do you like to splash around in water? You would have loved the turn-of-the-century Sutro Baths. Mayor Adolph Sutro made a big splash in San Francisco when he opened the popular Sutro Baths on March 14, 1896. Seven thousand people gathered at Ocean Beach, below the beautiful Cliff House Hotel, to celebrate the opening of the extravagant public bathhouse. What a big, fun place to visit!

Inside the enormous glass structure that housed the Sutro Baths were seven pools, more than 500 private dressing rooms, viewing galleries, restaurants, and natural history exhibits. Oh, and a giant slide that led into a pool of steam-heated seawater piped in from the Pacific. The Sutro Baths are now only ruins below a new Cliff House. But you can still visit there, walk along Ocean Beach, and imagine a frolicking day at the Sutro Baths. This old movie of Sutro should help; check it out. Is your public pool anything like it? Ask your parents or grandparents if they ever visited or heard of the Sutro Baths.
 
Separate But Equal

May 18, 1896 - Plessy v. Ferguson

For over 50 years, the states of the American South enforced a policy of separate accommodations for blacks and whites on buses and trains, and in hotels, theaters, and schools. On May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in the Plessy v. Ferguson law case that separate-but-equal facilities on trains were constitutional. One justice, John Marshall Harlan, disagreed with the ruling and argued that separating blacks from whites (called segregation) in public facilities created inequality and marked one race as inferior to another.

African American legislator Benjamin W. Arnett described a train ride in segregated Ohio in 1886: "I have traveled in this free country for 20 hours without anything to eat; not because I had no money to pay for it, but because I was colored. Other passengers of a lighter hue had breakfast, dinner and supper. In traveling we are thrown in [cars for blacks only], denied the privilege of buying a berth in the sleeping coach." How did this inequality by law finally change?

By the 1930s, the practice of racial segregation was still widespread. When devastating floods hit Arkansas in 1937, for example, white refugees and black refugees were cared for in separate relief facilities. Finally, after hearing arguments by NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall, the Supreme Court reversed the Plessy decision on May 17, 1954. In Brown v. the Board of Education, a unanimous Court agreed with what Justice Harlan had said 50 years ago, that segregation was unconstitutional. What do you know about laws that kept people separated and about later laws that disallowed this practice?
 
A Boy and His Fawn

August 8, 1896 - Short-story Writer and Novelist Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Was Born

There are some books that just about everybody reads in school such as Where the Red Fern Grows, The Hobbit, or the Harry Potter books. Years ago, students used to read The Yearling, written by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

Born on August 8, 1896, in Washington, D.C., Rawlings was a journalist, short story writer, and a novelist. She is best known for The Yearling, which was published in 1938 and won a Pulitzer prize, one of the most important prizes a writer can receive. The book is a coming-of-age story of a young boy who finds and raises a young fawn and then has to let it go back to the wild. The story takes place in the big scrub country, which is now the Ocala National Forest in Florida. The Yearling was also turned into a movie in 1946. Do you know a book that was turned into a movie? Which did you like better?

Working as a journalist in the 1920s, Rawlings was a trailblazer for women in that field. She worked for the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Rochester Journal, and the United Features Syndicate. In 1928, she settled at Cross Creek, near Gainesville, Florida, in order to write fiction. Cross Creek, published in 1942, tells of her enchantment with this part of rural Florida. Her association with Cross Creek continued until her death in 1953 at the age of 57.
 
The Legend of Chop Suey

August 29, 1896 - Chop Suey Was Invented, Fact or Fiction?

Have you ever eaten chop suey? The origin of this Chinese-American dish is a bit of a mystery. Legend has it that, while he was visiting New York City, Chinese ambassador Li Hung Chang's cooks invented the dish for his American guests at a dinner on August 29, 1896. Composed of celery, bean sprouts, and meat in a tasty sauce, the dish was supposedly created to satisfy both Chinese and American tastes. The Chinese diplomat was trying to create good relations with the U.S. And you know the old saying, "The way to a person's heart is through his or her stomach!" But is this legend true?

Whether or not the tale is entirely true, Li Hung Chang definitely influenced the creation of chop suey. When Li visited the U.S. in August 1896, cheering Americans lined the streets hoping to catch a glimpse of this important visitor and his famous yellow jacket. Children decorated their bicycles with yellow streamers to catch the ambassador's attention. As the guest of honor at grand feasts and elegant banquets, Li declined the fancy food and champagne that was offered to him and ate only meals specially prepared by his personal chefs. In reality, chop suey was probably not invented by Li Hung Chang's chefs, but America's fascination with this royal visitor from Asia and his team of personal chefs gave rise to new interest in Chinese cooking.

After 1896, Americans began to visit Chinese restaurants in large numbers for the first time. A chop suey fad swept big cities such as New York and San Francisco. Questioning the origins of the chop suey story, scholars suspect restaurant owners used the popular ambassador's name to inspire interest in a Chinese dish adapted for Americans. Newspaper owners used the same strategy to sell more papers. The New York Journal took advantage of Li Hung Chang's popularity to claim in an advertising poster, "Li Hung Chang Never Misses the Sunday Journal." What do you think is the real story behind chop suey?
 
Living the Life of The Great Gatsby

September 24, 1896 - Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald Was Born

Fiction writers are often asked, "How much of you is in your characters?" For writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, it was a lot. Born September 24, 1896, in St. Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald was famous for his depictions of the Jazz Age (the 1920s) in which he thrived. Named for his distant cousin, Francis Scott Key, author of "The Star-Spangled Banner," he was brought up as an American aristocrat in St. Paul, but he was also driven by a highly charged, romantic imagination.

After turbulent years of schooling, Fitzgerald joined the army. While stationed at Camp Sheridan, he met and fell in love with Zelda Sayre. To win her hand, he rewrote and published his first novel, This Side of Paradise, in 1920. The novel, reflecting his years at Princeton University, tells the story of a young man's quest for fulfillment in love and career. Over the course of the next decade and a half, while struggling to cope with the demons of his alcoholism and Zelda's emerging mental illness, the Fitzgeralds enjoyed a life of literary celebrity.

In 1925, Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby, considered his greatest work. Although it initially met with little commercial success, this novel about the American dream of material success has become one of the most popular, widely read, and critically acclaimed works of fiction in American literature. The life of the title character, Jay Gatsby, has been compared to Fitzgerald's life.

While living on the French Riviera, Zelda's illness became serious. She suddenly began to practice ballet, dancing night and day. After a second nervous breakdown, she was hospitalized for mental illness in Asheville, North Carolina. During the last years of his life, Fitzgerald lived in Hollywood, earning his living as a screenwriter. He died at the age of 44, leaving his final novel, The Last Tycoon (about life in Hollywood), only half done.
 
Thornton Hears a Who

April 17, 1897 - Playwright Thornton Wilder Was Born

So much of human experience is universal; people living a world away go through many of the same conflicts, emotions, and lessons that you do. Thornton Wilder sought to show this in his books and stage plays. Born April 17, 1897, in Madison, Wisconsin, Wilder is one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century. Author of seven novels, three plays, many essays, one-act plays, and articles, he is the only writer to win Pulitzer Prizes for both literature and drama.

Wilder's writing puts humankind under a magnifying glass. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Skin of Our Teeth (1943), he looks at war, disease, poverty, and the destruction caused by fire. His other prize-winning play, Our Town (1937), takes place in a fictional town called Grover's Corner, New Hampshire, perhaps much like the town in this photograph. The play again focuses on the universality of human experience. What human experiences can you think of that are universal? Ask your family if they have ever seen a play or read a novel by Thornton Wilder.
 
The Big Sneeze

August 31, 1897 - Thomas Edison Patented the Kinetoscope

When his assistant W.K.L. Dickson invented the motion picture viewer, Edison initially considered it an insignificant toy. However, it turned out to be an immediate success. Edison had hoped the invention would boost sales of his record player, the phonograph, but he was unable to match sound with pictures. Therefore, he directed the creation of the kinetoscope, a device for viewing moving pictures without sound. Edison patented this invention on August 31, 1897. Most of those early kinetoscope films disintegrated or burned because of the film's nitrate (acidic) base. But luckily, he had made paper copies of the film's individual frames, called "contact prints." So now you can view one of Edison's first-ever moving pictures, commonly called "Fred Ott's Sneeze."

All the earliest movies were short because their creators, like Edison, didn't think people would stand the "flickers" for more than 10 minutes. The kinetoscope, which could only be viewed by one person at a time, was soon replaced by screen projectors, which showed the movie to a whole room of people at once.

Wanting to film a great number of motion pictures, Edison and his assistant W.K.L. Dickson designed the Black Maria, the first movie studio, completed in 1893. Its name is the slang for a police paddy wagon, which the studio was said to resemble. Could you watch the "flickers" for more than 10 minutes?

Edison produced between 200 and 300 films at the Black Maria. You can watch this film, "Three Acrobats," produced in the Black Maria in 1899. The motion picture industry has come a long way since these early films. What do you think Edison would say if he saw "Star Wars" or "Titanic"?
 
Faulkner's South

September 25, 1897 - Novelist William Faulkner Was Born

Novelist William Faulkner knew the South well. He spent most of his life there, and wrote with compassion about family, community, and the people he knew. Born in New Albany, Mississippi, on September 25, 1897, Faulkner created the legendary Yoknapatawpha County. Its fictitious population includes Southern white aristocrats, merchants, farmers, poor whites, and persecuted blacks. Faulkner told how the South is still affected by its past. "The past is never dead," he wrote. "It's not even past."

Faulkner earned two Pulitzer Prizes and the 1949 Nobel Prize for literature. For a brief period in 1925, he lived in New Orleans, Louisiana. There, fellow writer Sherwood Anderson encouraged Faulkner to write about the people and places he knew, and that is why Faulkner created his fictional country, Yoknapatawpha, which is the setting for most of his works.

Except for short stints in Europe and Hollywood, Faulkner spent the remainder of his life in Mississippi and Virginia, writing brilliantly and constantly. At first, no one would publish his work because of his experimental formats, but he was determined to continue writing anyway, for his own fulfillment. With the publication in 1929 of his fourth novel, The Sound and the Fury, his career took off. Much of the novel is told from the viewpoint of a retarded boy. Faulkner created many characters who confronted racial injustices while struggling to live with dignity.
 
America's Library

November 1, 1897 - The Library of Congress Opened Its Doors

How big do you think the Library of Congress is? It was originally in one room, the Congressional Reading Room in the Capitol in Washington, D.C. As the collection grew, America's Library needed a building of its own. The new Library of Congress building opened its doors to the public on November 1, 1897, and it was quite a sight!

In 1871 the Librarian of Congress, Ainsworth Rand Spofford, suggested the construction of a building designed with the dignity and magnitude befitting "America's National Library." Spofford "envisioned a circular, domed reading room at the Library's center, surrounded by ample space for the Library's various departments." Thomas Casey and Bernard Green of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began to focus on the interior of the building in 1888. They hoped to make it a showcase for the talents of American artists and artisans. When completed, it was the largest and costliest library building in the world and a grand showcase for knowledge and learning in America.

In 1980, the building was named the Thomas Jefferson Building in honor of the nation's third president. In 1815, Jefferson sold his personal collection of 6,487 books to the Library, helping to rebuild the holdings that had been destroyed when the British burned the Capitol during the War of 1812.

How big is the library today? Congress houses most of its collections in three buildings on Capitol Hill. In fact, if all the bookshelves in the library were laid end to end, they would stretch over 500 miles! Take a visit to your Library of Congress.
 
Who Sunk My Battleship?

February 15, 1898 - U.S.S. Maine Was Sunk

Have you ever played the game Battleship? To sink your opponent's ships you have to guess where the ships lie on a grid of numbers and letters. It isn't easy to sink a battleship just by guessing, even in a game.

Well, what if you already knew that your battleship had sunk, but had to guess who sank it? That is what happened to the United States on February 15, 1898, when an explosion sank the U.S.S. Maine in Havana, Cuba.

The U.S.S. Maine was one of the first American battleships and cost more than $2 million to build. The ship had been sent to Cuba after riots broke out in Havana. The Maine was sent to protect American interests there. Americans were shocked when the ship exploded and sank and 266 of the 354-crew members were killed.

After an official investigation, the U.S. Navy reported that the ship had been blown up by a mine. The Navy did not blame any person or country for the explosion. Who was to blame? Spain controlled Cuba at the time. So, was it Cuba, or Spain, or was it an accident? Many people in the United States blamed Spain (Today, however, many historians believe a malfunction in the ship caused the explosion). The relationship between Spain and the U.S. became so strained that they could no longer discuss the situation. By the end of April, the Spanish-American War had begun.
 
Who Sank the Maine?

June 10, 1898 - U.S. Marines Land at Guantanamo Bay

Have you ever been to Miami, Florida? If you have, you may have eaten Cuban food or heard Cuban music. Located just 90 miles off the coast of Florida, Cuba is an island of Spanish-speaking people, palm trees, and white-sand beaches. Like many other European nations, Spain once had an empire of colonies that spread beyond its current borders. About 100 years ago, Cuba was one of those colonies.

In 1898, an independence movement in Cuba led to conflict between Cubans and their Spanish rulers. The U.S. demanded that Spain withdraw from Cuba and allow the islanders to rule themselves, but Spain refused and declared war on the U.S. This war would result in the end of Spanish colonial rule in the Western Hemisphere.

In February 1898, the U.S.S. Maine sank off the coast of Cuba. Four months later, on June 10, U.S. Marines landed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and joined Cuban rebels to fight a land war against Spanish soldiers. Unprepared to fight a battle so far from home, Spain surrendered to the U.S. at Santiago about five weeks later.
 
Rough Riders on the Attack

July 1, 1898 - Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders

Before becoming President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He resigned in 1898 to organize the Rough Riders, the first voluntary cavalry in the Spanish-American War. The U.S. was fighting against Spain over Spain's colonial policies with Cuba. Roosevelt recruited a diverse group of cowboys, miners, law enforcement officials, and Native Americans to join the Rough Riders. They participated in the capture of Kettle Hill, and then charged across a valley to assist in the seizure of San Juan Ridge, the highest point of which is San Juan Hill.

The Rough Riders are best remembered for their charge up San Juan Hill on July 1, 1898.

Roosevelt and his Rough Riders were a colorful group of characters. During the war, they received the most publicity of any unit in the army. Have you seen any of those old Westerns where the posse rides after the bad guys in a cloud of dust? That's pretty much how the Rough Riders were portrayed. Of course, the reality was that the Rough Riders didn't win the war on their own. There were many soldiers and cavalry units who fought and died in the war.

A few days after the Rough Riders' charge up San Juan Hill, the Spanish fleet fled Cuba. It was just a matter of weeks before the war had ended and the U.S. was victorious.
 
Good-Bye Spain, Hello America

October 18, 1898 - U.S. Raised the Flag in Puerto Rico

Did you know that Puerto Rico is a commonwealth territory of the United States, even today? On October 18, 1898, American troops fighting the Spanish-American War raised the United States flag in Puerto Rico, and the U.S. officially took control of the former Spanish colony.

Puerto Rico has a long history of invasions. Spanish exploration of the island began in 1493, when Christopher Columbus visited there. In 1508, the Spanish established their first settlement in the town of Caparra.

Carib Indians frequently raided Puerto Rico; later, French, British, and Dutch pirates did the same. In 1533, the Spanish began construction of El Morro, a walled fort that would protect the narrow entrance to the harbor of San Juan. After 1830, sugar, coffee, and tobacco plantations flourished in the colony. The island's population jumped from just 45,000 in 1765 to 155,426 in 1800; some 13,000 of these people were slaves. By 1900, nearly a million people lived on the 3,435 square miles of Puerto Rico.

Puerto Ricans had reached their goal of independence from Spain just a year before the United States arrived. Puerto Ricans gained full U.S. citizenship in 1917, when the island became a U.S. territory. Much of the population moved from rural areas to the cities, as the importance of industry grew. Starting in the 1920s, Puerto Ricans began traveling to cities such as New York looking for employment.

Currently, the future of Puerto Rico is hotly debated. Will it become a state? Gain independence? Remain a commonwealth? What do you think is the best option for Puerto Rico?
 
The Rainier Time Machine

March 2, 1899 - Mount Rainier in Central Washington Became a National Park

Do you recognize this beautiful natural landmark? This is Mount Rainier in central Washington, a 14,410-foot volcanic peak, surrounded by pristine forests and spectacular alpine scenery. It is also, in a way, a timepiece. It looks very much as it did 200 years ago. On March 2, 1899, President William McKinley signed legislation creating Mount Rainier National Park. It was the fifth national park designated by Congress. Do you know who made the area near the mountain their home 200 years ago?

Generations of Northwest Native Americans made their home at the base of Rainier. They called their mountain Tacoma (or Tahoma) and viewed it as a symbol of power. English explorer George Vancouver saw the huge mountain when he sailed into Puget Sound in 1792. He named it Rainier to honor his friend, Rear Admiral Peter Rainier. The famed naturalist John Muir visited the Rainier region more than a century later. He first recommended that the area be preserved as a park.

Muir was particularly impressed with the magnificent, colorful wildflowers that blanket the mountain during the warm months. The park today encompasses 400 square miles around Mount Rainier, which is actually an active volcano. It was one of the first parks to have nature guides, park rangers, a museum, and designated "roadless areas." Rich in resources of all kinds, the rocks, glaciers, water, plants, and animals have come to mean so much--beauty, challenge, renewal, and enjoyment. In 1899, 200 people visited Mount Rainier National Park. Today, nearly 2 million visit each year. Would you like to be one of them?
 
St. Louis Super Hero

March 28, 1899 - August Anheuser Busch Was Born

In 1953, St. Louis baseball fans almost lost their beloved team to Milwaukee or Houston. The Cardinals would have moved to either of those cities if a man, better known for beer than for baseball, had not rescued the team. Born on March 28, 1899, August Anheuser Busch Jr. rode in and saved the day by purchasing the St. Louis Cardinals. Although he didn't really ride in behind a team of horses on that day, he would later on.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, August Anheuser Busch Jr. was the Chairman of the Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. and may well have been a St. Louis Cardinals fan from childhood; the Cardinals began playing in the National League the same year he was born. After he became the owner of the St. Louis Cardinals, Busch liked to ride into the Busch Memorial stadium behind a team of his brewing company's famous Clydesdale horses. Even if you weren't a St. Louis Cardinals fan, it would have been hard not to cheer at the sight.
 
Going to the movies in 1899

April 28, 1899 - "Billy" Bitzer films Stealing a Dinner

If you wanted to see a movie back in 1899, you could go see the short film Stealing a Dinner, filmed on this day, April 28, 1899 by cameraman G.W. "Billy" Bitzer. The comedy featured Professor Leonidas and his troupe of dogs and cats. This is the story:

One of the dogs steals Professor Leonidas's dinner from the table when he leaves. In order to cover up his crime, the dog places a cat on the table. The professor finds the cat and in a rage shoots her (not for real, of course), but is promptly arrested by a large dog dressed in policeman's clothes.

This short comedy was one of the first motion pictures filmed by Bitzer for the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. The mutoscope was a peephole motion picture device run by hand. The frames for the mutoscope were on cards (instead of film)-mounted on a rotating drum. When turned very quickly, it created the illusion of movement. Have you ever drawn pictures on the corner of a pad of paper and flipped through it quickly? The pictures seem to move! That was the basis of these early movies, until the projector came along and changed everything.
 
Parading Police!

June 1, 1899 - New York City Police Parade

On June 1, 1899, a cameraman filmed New York City police officers marching through the city's streets during their annual parade. The parade was a celebration of the officers and their hard work dealing with crime in the growing metropolis. At the turn of the 20th century, the city was growing rapidly, and New York's police department had to grow to match the surging population.

By the time this parade took place, the department had hired its first woman officers and had opened up to ethnic minorities. Have you ever been to New York? You probably know that it's America's largest city and one of the world's biggest cities. Even back in 1899, when women wore long skirts, men wore hats whenever they went outdoors, and horses were the main method of transportation, New York was made up of people from all over the world.

More than most cities, police in New York have needed to be able to speak lots of languages and work with many different kinds of people. Do police in your city ever ride horses? Do they speak more than one language? Serving the public in New York has for many years meant serving a diverse population.
 
The Old Man and the Sea

July 21, 1899 - Ernest Hemingway Was Born

There are some books--considered classics--that just about everyone reads in school. Sometimes a book is so good it becomes a classic almost as soon as it's written. One such book is The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. When Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, his father, Dr. Clarence Hemingway, must have known he had a special son because he stepped out onto the porch of their home in Oak Park, Illinois, and blew his cornet.

Ernest Hemingway grew up to become one of America's most respected writers, known for his sense of adventure as well as his unique writing style--spare dialogue and short, simple sentences.

After high school, Hemingway worked as a reporter for the Kansas City Star before signing up to fight in World War I. Unable to take up regular military duty because of a bad eye, he worked as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross in Italy. After he was badly injured, he stayed in a Milan hospital where he fell in love with his nurse, and wrote A Farewell to Arms (1929). Do you know the titles for any of Hemingway's other books?

Hemingway lived in Europe for many years. He traveled to Spain often and became a passionate fan of bull-fighting. He also wrote about bull-fighting. In 1953 The Old Man and the Sea, the story of a fisherman in a battle with a giant fish, won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction and in 1954 Hemingway won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
 
Art That Moves

July 22, 1899 - Alexander Calder Was Born

What did painter and sculptor Alexander Calder mean when he said "I think best in wire?" Born on July 22, 1898, in Lawnton, Pennsylvania, Calder revolutionized sculpture with his unique wire structures and mobiles--objects hanging from wires in midair. Before Calder, no one had created this type of art. The child of a well-known painter and sculptor, he started his career as a mechanical engineer and worked in that field for several years. In 1923, he began taking drawing lessons and eventually became a commercial artist covering prize fights and the circus for the National Police Gazette. In 1926 he moved to Paris, and in the winter of 1931-32, Calder made his first mobile.

Alexander Calder made mobiles that were motor-driven and some that moved with a breeze. These were called kinetic (moving) sculptures. Looking at Calder's art, you see he created objects in biomorphic or abstract shapes that remind you of natural things such as animals, plants, or parts of people.

Calder's work is very colorful, and even in his paintings, he tried to create the illusion of the canvas moving. Calder's art appeals to the imagination. What do you see when you look at these works of art?

You can probably see Calder's work at your local modern art museum. In the meantime, try creating your own wire sculpture or mobile.
 
Ruger's Cartography

November 12, 1899 - Panoramic Map Artist Albert Ruger Died

Have you ever tried to find your way around a strange town without a good map? In the 19th century with the United States expanding to the West, mapping new territories was extremely important. As cities grew and spread across the nation, a different kind of map--the panoramic map--became necessary and popular.

Pioneering panoramic-map artist Albert Ruger died on November 12, 1899, in Akron, Ohio. During his lifetime, Ruger helped develop this new form of cartography (mapmaking), producing maps of towns and cities in 22 states from New Hampshire to Minnesota, and as far south as Alabama. What is a panoramic map?

Panoramic maps were also called "bird's-eye-view maps" because towns and cities were drawn as if viewed from above at a slanted angle, much like a bird might see from a half mile away as it flew by the town. Panoramic cartographers didn't worry so much about the exact scale of their drawings; they concentrated instead on illustrating street patterns, individual buildings, and major landscape features in perspective. This map of Guttenberg, Iowa, is a good example.

Ruger formed Merchants Lithographing Company with a partner in the late 1860s, producing many of these popular maps. Aerial photographs and earth-orbiting satellite mapping techniques of today have made Ruger's panoramic map-making techniques somewhat outdated, but his panoramic maps can give us a glimpse into the past of America's towns and cities.
 
The Underwater Boat

April 11, 1900 - U.S. Navy Acquired First Submarine

Can you imagine traveling beneath the surface of the ocean? The modern submarine made this possible. On April 11, 1900, the U.S. Navy acquired its first submarine, a 53-foot craft named after its designer, Irish immigrant John P. Holland (1840-1914). The Holland served as a blueprint for modern submarine design. Gasoline propelled it on the surface, and electricity propelled it when it was submerged. By World War I, Holland-inspired vessels were a part of large naval fleets throughout the world. However, the idea for a boat that could travel underwater goes back long before that.

Designs for underwater boats date back to the 1500s. In the 19th century, the first useful submarines began to appear. During the Civil War, the Confederates built the H.L. Hunley, a submarine that sank a Union ship, the U.S.S. Housatonic, in 1864. But it wasn't until World War I that the first truly practical submarines emerged. Have you ever been on a submarine? Ask your family if they have and what it's like.
 
The Mystery of Yellow Fever

August 27, 1900 - U.S. Army Physicians Discovered the Cause of Yellow Fever

No one knew what caused the often-deadly yellow fever, but it occurred in epidemic proportions, with one person after another in a given area becoming sick. People feared the mysterious disease, until U.S. Army physician James Carroll endangered his own health in the name of science. On August 27, 1900, Carroll allowed an infected mosquito to feed on him. He developed a severe case of yellow fever but helped his colleague, Walter Reed, prove that mosquitoes transmitted the feared disease.

Prior to this experiment, epidemics of yellow fever were common in the American South. Not knowing how the disease was transmitted, many people would leave the South for the summer, when epidemics were most common. In an 1888 yellow fever epidemic in Jacksonville, Florida, terrified citizens packed themselves onto trains leaving town. Some were so panicked, they left fires burning and the doors of their houses wide open. The Mayflower Hotel, where the epidemic started, was condemned and ordered burned to the ground.

With doctors at a loss as to how to stop the spread of yellow fever, people tried all sorts of strange remedies. They burned barrels of tar in the street to disinfect the air. They sprayed sulfur and lime mixtures into homes of the infected. Assuming the disease was contagious, they isolated the sick. After Doctors Reed and Carroll's discovery, effective ways were found to combat mosquitoes and the disease they transmitted. Can you think of other diseases in history that people feared because the cause was unknown at first?
 
Composer Scores!

November 14, 1900 - Composer Aaron Copland Was Born in Brooklyn, New York

Some people don't know what they want to be when they grow up until they are grown up. Others know when they are very young. When he was just 15, Aaron Copland decided to become a composer. Born on November 14, 1900, in Brooklyn, New York, to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Copland would become a famous American composer of operas, ballets, orchestral music, band music, chamber music, choral music, and film scores. How did he make his dream a reality?

An older sister taught Copland how to play the piano while he attended public high school. Then, as a first step to becoming a conductor, he tried to learn harmony through a correspondence course.

In the summer of 1921, Copland attended a newly founded school for Americans in France, where he came under the influence of a brilliant teacher, Nadia Boulanger. After three years in Paris, Copland returned to New York, composing an organ symphony for his teacher to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York. His career had begun.

Copland was very aware of the trends of his time, experimenting with jazz rhythms and new forms. He realized that radio, phonographs, and film were creating a new audience for modern music. Copland created scores that simplified music and expressed the American experience. Most important of these were the three ballets based on American folk material: Billy the Kid (1938), Rodeo (1942), and Appalachian Spring (1944), which was choreographed and performed by dancer Martha Graham. While Copland and Graham were collaborating on the creation of the ballet, she wrote to him, saying, "I have been working on your music. It is so beautiful and so wonderfully made. I have become obsessed by it." The Library of Congress commissioned the work where it was also performed for the first time.

Copland wrote scores for many early films, including adaptations of Thornton Wilder's play Our Town (1940) and John Steinbeck's short novels Of Mice and Men (1939), and The Red Pony (1948). Not only a gifted composer, Copland became a teacher, an author of books and articles on music, an organizer of musical events, and a much sought-after conductor. He received more than 30 honorary degrees and many awards. For many people, Copland's music uniquely captures the American spirit. He did what he set out to do when he was only 15. If you haven't before, try listening to Copland's Appalachian Spring. Close your eyes while you listen. See if the music makes you feel the energy that bursts forth in nature each spring.
 
Giving Back a Fortune

March 12, 1901 - Carnegie Gives Money to Build Libraries

Carnegie devoted the rest of his life to writing and using his vast wealth to give back to society. Carnegie founded 2,509 libraries in the English-speaking world, including ones in Michigan, Ohio, Vermont, Alabama and Washington, D.C. He also helped found Carnegie Mellon University. At the time of his death in 1919, he had given away over $350 million. If you made a fortune would you give it away to charity? To what cause would you give your money?

Born in 1835, Carnegie immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1848. Working in American industry and making smart investments, he had already made a fortune before the age of 30. In the 1870s, he saw the potential of the steel industry and founded his own steel mill. The company boomed. Here, the employees of the Carnegie Steel Company pose for a picture at a company picnic. In 1901, Carnegie sold the company for $250 million. It was time for Carnegie to retire. To what did he devote the rest of his life?

Carnegie devoted the rest of his life to writing and using his vast wealth to give back to society. Carnegie founded 2,509 libraries in the English-speaking world, including ones in Michigan, Ohio, Vermont, Alabama and Washington, D.C. He also helped found Carnegie Mellon University. At the time of his death in 1919, he had given away over $350 million. If you made a fortune would you give it away to charity? To what cause would you give your money?
 
Scat! Jazz Man, Scat!

August 4, 1901 - Jazz Giant Louis Armstrong Was Born

Louis Armstrong, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 4, 1901 (according to the most recent research), in the poorest section of town. He overcame poverty to become one of the most important people in the history of music.

Louis Armstrong was called "the single most important figure in the history of jazz" by Billboard magazine, a publication that tracks the recording industry. The jazz magazine Down Beat agreed. Why is Armstrong so important in the history of this American musical art form called jazz?

No one before Armstrong had ever played the trumpet the way that he did. He was one of the first great soloists of jazz music. The solos he played were as interesting and innovative as any music written at the time. Rather than follow notes on a page, he improvised, playing what was in his head instead. This type of playing laid the foundation for all jazz to come.

Armstrong also pioneered a type of singing. Do you know what it was called?

The new style of singing that Louis Armstrong pioneered was called "scat." Scat singing is a lot like improvising on a musical instrument. Instead of singing real words, with scat one sings nonsense words to the melody. Armstrong became as famous for his scat singing and gravelly voice as his trumpet playing. He recorded many songs with another jazz great and scat singer, Ella Fitzgerald.

In addition to all of his accomplishments, Louis Armstrong holds the record for being the oldest artist ever to have a Number 1 record. He accomplished this when he was 63 years old with his version of the song "Hello, Dolly," from the musical of the same name. What is even more extraordinary is that he reached Number 1 in 1964 by toppling the Beatles from the top of the charts! Louis Armstrong had come a long way from his poor Louisiana beginnings.
 
Grandma's Stories Inspired a Writer

February 1, 1902 - Langston Hughes Was Born

Do members of your family like to tell stories? The tradition of storytelling inspired poet and writer Langston Hughes, who was born in Joplin, Missouri, on February 1, 1902. Hughes spent much of his childhood with his grandmother, who filled his imagination with stories of the past. As a result, Hughes developed a deep interest in African American culture and history that he later wrote into his many stories, autobiographies, histories, and poems.

Hughes wrote the poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" the summer after he graduated from high school. It starts like this:

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older
Than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Hughes loved to write and was determined to make his work known. In 1925, while working as a busboy at a hotel in Washington D.C., he slipped three poems into the shoulder bag of guest Vachel Lindsay, who was famous for his performances of poetry. Lindsay liked the poems and as a result, Hughes received a scholarship to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. There he earned his degree and published collections of poetry and stories. Hughes was part of the Harlem Renaissance, a flourishing of artistic expression by African Americans centered in the community of Harlem in New York City in the 1920s.

In 1941, Hughes wrote the poem "The Ballad of Booker T" about the controversial educator, Booker T. Washington. A freed slave, Washington became a political leader for African Americans in 1881. Some people believe he was too cooperative with the white leaders. Hughes understood Booker's situation and explained it in the poem:

Sometimes he had
Compromise in his talk-
For a man must crawl
Before he can walk-
And in Alabama in '85
A joker was lucky
To be alive.

Ask your family if anyone has read poetry or stories by Langston Hughes. And while you're at it, ask your parents and grandparents to tell some stories about the past. Maybe they will inspire you.
 
Monopoly With Real Money

February 11, 1903 - The Expedition Act Was Passed

If you've ever played the board game Monopoly, you know that the goal is to collect real estate or control railroads. If you have hotels on Park Place and Boardwalk, you're in good shape, but if you don't, then they're expensive places to land. During the late 1800s, life was becoming a bit like a Monopoly game. A person or company would merge businesses with related industries, making it possible to control production and prices. One example was J.P. Morgan's U.S. Steel Corporation. This company controlled all the stages of steel production, from iron-ore mining to steel manufacturing. When one company has such strong control over an industry, it makes it difficult for others to compete. This is called a monopoly. Having a monopoly makes it easier for the company to keep prices high and wages low because it has few competitors. What do you think was done about companies like this?

Critics of companies like J.P. Morgan's U.S. Steel Corporation said that allowing a company to control so many aspects of an industry hurt the general public. By 1902, there was such concern about huge "trusts" such as U.S. Steel that President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the Justice Department to use "antitrust" laws to prosecute not only the steel industry trust but also the meatpacking, oil, and railroad trusts. He said that these industries took advantage of the public by limiting competition. As a result, the Expedition Act was passed on February 11, 1903, making the antitrust suits a high priority in the nation's legal system. Roosevelt quickly gained a reputation for breaking up trusts. What nickname do you think he was given?

Roosevelt became known as a "trustbuster," but that didn't mean that he thought all business combinations were bad. He made the distinction between good trusts that streamlined business production, and bad trusts that used their position to keep prices high. Roosevelt continued to fight against "Big Business," and he led a successful crusade to break up the Standard Oil monopoly in 1907. Roosevelt's actions were popular with the public, but some historians have argued that his trust-busting behavior was motivated by politics as much as by the government's desire to control corporate America. What do you think?
 
Look Ma, No Hands

December 17, 1903 - Wilbur and Orville Wright's First Flight

"For some years, I have been afflicted with the belief that flight is possible to man. My disease has increased in severity and I feel that it will soon cost me an increased amount of money if not my life." Three years after Wilbur Wright wrote those words, he and his brother Orville put their belief in flight to the test in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.

Did their attempt to fly an airplane they had built in sections in the back room of their Dayton, Ohio bicycle shop cost Wilbur his life?

Orville piloted the first flight, which lasted just 12 seconds. On the fourth and final flight of the day, Wilbur flew for 59 seconds. Both brothers survived that morning, December 17, 1903. That day they became the first people to demonstrate sustained flight of a heavier-than-air machine under the complete control of the pilot. What did the brothers do after their exciting success?

Orville and Wilbur Wright walked four miles to Kitty Hawk and sent a telegram to their father: "Success four flights Thursday morning all against twenty one mile wind started from level with engine power alone average speed through air thirty one miles longest 57 seconds inform Press home Christmas."

The world was about to change forever.

The announcement of the Wright brothers' successful flight ignited the world's passion for flying. Engineers designed their own flying machines, people of all ages wanted to see the flights, and others wanted to sit behind the controls and fly. The brothers continued to make longer and faster flights.

The U.S. Army, seeing potential in the new technology, signed a contract with the Wright brothers in 1908 for the purchase of a machine that could travel with a passenger at a speed of 40 miles per hour. Today's commercial jet airplanes routinely travel at 600 miles per hour.
 
Crossing the East River

December 19, 1903 - New Yorkers Celebrated the Opening of the Williamsburg Bridge

Have you ever ridden in a horse-drawn carriage? Can you imagine what it would be like to cross a bridge during rush hour with everyone in a carriage instead of an automobile? The Williamsburg Bridge was one of the last major bridges built for the horse and carriage, as well as for pedestrians and bicyclists. On December 19, 1903, New Yorkers celebrated the opening of the Williamsburg Bridge, the second suspension bridge to span the East River. (The Brooklyn Bridge was the first.) How is the bridge used today?

The 1,600-foot Williamsburg Bridge connects Manhattan to the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Until the 1920s, the Williamsburg was the world's longest suspension bridge. As times changed, the bridge became a route for trolley cars and trains. Today, cars and buses have replaced the trolley cars. Instead of a train, more than 90,000 riders a day cross the bridge on the subway. Although the horse-drawn carriage has been relegated to the past, you can still bicycle or walk across the Williamsburg Bridge just as New Yorkers did more than 100 years ago.
 
Two Scoops, Please

1904 - Ice Cream Cone Makes Appearance at World's Fair

Would you rather eat delicious, creamy ice cream from a bowl or a cone? Over time, several inventors around the world developed ideas of filling pastry cones with ice cream, and versions of the ice cream cone were invented. The walk-away cone made its debut World's Fair debut in St. Louis in 1904. Of course, before the cone, someone had to invent ice cream. Do you know when ice cream was invented?

The origins of ice cream go way back to the 4th century B.C. when the Roman emperor Nero ordered ice to be brought from the mountains and combined it with fruit toppings. In the 13th century, Marco Polo learned of the Chinese method of creating ice and milk mixtures and brought it back to Europe. Over time, people created recipes for ices, sherbets, and milk ices. It became a fashionable treat in Italy and France, and once imported to the United States, ice cream was served by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Dolley Madison. Jefferson's favorite flavor was vanilla. What's yours?

Whatever flavor ice cream you like best, you can make it by mixing cream, sugar, and flavorings (like chocolate or strawberry) and then carefully lowering the mixture's temperature until it sets. The discovery of using salt to control the temperature of the ingredients, along with the invention of the wooden bucket freezer with rotary paddles, were major breakthroughs in the creation of ice cream as we know it. A Baltimore company was the first to sell it to stores in 1851. Finally, with the introduction of refrigerator-freezers came the ice cream shop, which has become a symbol of American culture. Do you scream for ice cream?
 
New York Goes Underground

October 27, 1904 - New York Subway System Opened for Business

In London, it's "the Tube"; in Paris, it's the Metro; and in New York City, it's the subway. On Thursday afternoon, October 27, 1904, the mayor of New York City, George B. McClellan, officially opened the New York City subway system. The first subway train left City Hall station with the mayor at the controls, and 26 minutes later arrived at 145th Street. The subway opened to the general public at 7 p.m. that evening, and before the night was over, more than 110,000 passengers had ridden the trains through the underground tunnels.

If you have ever been to New York or seen it in movies or on TV, you have seen the streets full of cars and pedestrian traffic. New York City, even at the turn of the 20th century, had been in desperate need of a transportation system for years to help ease the congestion of pedestrians, horses, wagons, and carriages.

Finally overcoming legal, political, and financial problems, the Rapid Transit Subway Construction Company was formed and started construction on New York City's famous subway in March 1900. You and your family can see the subway in action only seven months after it opened. Watch the 1904 movie made by cameraman G.W. "Billy" Bitzer.
 
Shake and Quake

April 18, 1906 - The Great San Francisco Earthquake

What wakes you up in the morning? An alarm clock? Your parents? What about an earthquake? That's what woke up the city of San Francisco at 5:12 a.m. on April 18,1906. The 8.3 magnitude earthquake collapsed many buildings, but it wasn't just the shaking ground that nearly destroyed the city.

Fires that started as a result of the quake raged through San Francisco for three days. Closely-built wooden homes and broken water mains made it difficult to fight the fires. More than 3,000 people are estimated to have died.

For a few weeks, survivors slept in tents and parks. They cooked outdoors to avoid the chance that any more buildings would be burned. Then they got busy rebuilding their city and homes and hoped never to be awakened by a devastating earthquake again.
 
The Best Baseball Pitcher Ever?

July 7, 1906 - Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige Was Born

How old is "too old" to play professional baseball? At the age of fifty-nine, Satchel Paige became the oldest player in the major leagues. He may also have been the best pitcher in baseball ever.

Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige was born on July 7, 1906. He earned his nickname, Satchel, when he was a young boy carrying bags (and satchels) at railroad stations for passengers. Initially barred from the major leagues because he was African American, Paige played in what was referred to as "the Negro Leagues." Paige's pitching took the Kansas City Monarchs to five Negro American League pennants. He also showcased his skills by barnstorming across the country. What is barnstorming?

In barnstorming, a player traveled across the country and pitched for any team willing to meet his price. (Teams also barnstormed around the U.S. and played against local teams.) Paige sometimes traveled as many as 30,000 miles a year and in one streak pitched twenty-nine days in a row! He played in exhibition games against the best players of the day, black or white. Huge crowds came to watch him.

"I liked playing against Negro League teams," Paige was quoted as saying, "but I loved barnstorming. It gave us a chance to play everybody and go everywhere . . ."

Paige finally got his chance to play in the major leagues as a Cleveland Indian in 1948. That was one year after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in major league baseball and went to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
 
Motion Pictures Reach New Heights

November 8, 1906 - Cameraman Fred A. Dobson Began Filming "The Skyscrapers of New York"

Don't look down, Dobson! On November 8, 1906, cameraman Fred A. Dobson began filming "The Skyscrapers of New York" atop an uncompleted skyscraper at Broadway and 12th Street. The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, an early rival of Thomas Edison's motion picture company, sponsored this stunt-filled melodrama. The movie tells the story of a construction foreman who fires a crew member for fighting. The angry employee turns to stealing.

The storyline weaves in and around the actual construction of a New York skyscraper. With the use of steel girders and the invention of the safety elevator, skyscrapers were just starting to be built in big cities around the U.S. A fascinating record of early-20th century building techniques, "Skyscrapers" captures brick masons in action, workers maneuvering a steel girder into place, and a group of men descending a line suspended by a crane. And this was before they had hard hats and many modern safety features! Can you imagine working at those heights?
 
Her Truth Is Marching On

January 28, 1908 - Julia Ward Howe Elected to American Academy of Arts and Letters

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightnings of His terrible swift sword:
His Truth is marching on.
Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Name that tune's writer. It's "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," written by author and activist Julia Ward Howe. Howe became the first woman elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters on January 28, 1908.

Born in New York City in 1819, Howe, and her husband, social activist Samuel Gridley Howe, embraced the abolitionist (freedom from slavery) movement. This dedication, as well as Mr. Howe's training as a doctor, led to his appointment to the U.S. Sanitary Commission. As a result of Mr. Howe's work with the Commission, the couple was invited to Washington, D.C., to review the attitudes of Union troops after the First Battle of Bull Run in the Civil War in 1861. Mrs. Howe wrote her "Battle Hymn" soon after, inspired by seeing a real battle.

On November 18, 1861, Howe witnessed a Confederate attack on Union troops in Virginia. She wrote the poem "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," set to the tune of "John Brown's Body," a marching song popular among Union soldiers. It was published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1862, and she received just $5 dollars for the piece. It became very popular in the North, commonly sung at public gatherings. After the war, Howe worked for women's rights, prison reform, and sex education, fighting battles for causes she believed in until her death in 1910.
 
The Queen of Gospel

October 26, 1911 - Gospel Singer, Mahalia Jackson Was Born

Mahalia Jackson spent a lifetime singing the sacred songs that she loved. "The Queen of Gospel Song" was born on October 26, 1911, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Jackson grew up singing gospel at the Plymouth Rock Baptist Church, where her father was a preacher. At 16, she moved to Chicago, as many African Americans did around that time, and supported herself doing housekeeping and odd jobs. But she never stopped singing.

In Chicago, Jackson joined the Greater Salem Baptist Church and began touring with a gospel quintet. Jackson only sang gospel, refusing to sing secular (non-religious) music, because, she said, "When you sing gospel you have a feeling there is a cure for what's wrong." She made her first solo recordings in the mid-1930s and eventually signed with Columbia Records in 1954. Jackson collaborated with the "Father of Gospel Music," Thomas Dorsey. She recorded with jazz great Duke Ellington, packed Carnegie Hall in New York City on a number of occasions, had a radio show, and sang for four presidents. Besides being a great singer, she was a highly successful businesswoman.

With the power of her music, Mahalia Jackson participated in the civil rights movement and became a prominent figure in the struggle. Jackson has influenced many singers of today, such as Aretha Franklin. Martin Luther King Jr. said of her, "A voice like this comes, not once in a century, but once in a millennium." Ask your parents and grandparents if they have heard the gospel songs of Mahalia Jackson. Have you ever heard gospel music?
 
Train Across the Ocean

January 22, 1912 - Railway to the Keys

How would you get to an island 128 miles away? By boat? By plane? Well, in the early 1900s Henry M. Flagler, a Florida developer, decided a train would be a practical way for people to get to the island of Key West, Florida.

To complete the railway, 42 bridges had to be constructed. The length of track connected mainland Florida to the southernmost settlement in the United States and the keys (islands) in between. On January 22, 1912, Flagler boarded the first train of the Florida East Coast Railway bound for Key West.

Twenty thousand people lived on the small island of Key West in 1912. On January 22, 1912, almost every one of them showed up to watch Henry Flagler and the train arrive in their city.

In 1935, a hurricane destroyed the railway. By 1938, it was replaced by the world's longest over-water road, called the Overseas Highway. If you happen to find yourself in Florida, driving across today's ocean highway to Key West, wouldn't it be fun to think of getting there by train?
 
Who Planted the Cherry Trees?

March 27, 1912 - Cherry Trees Planted in Washington, D.C.

Today, when we think of Washington, D.C., in the springtime, one of the first images that comes to mind is the cherry trees in full bloom. These trees have become one of the most impressive tourist attractions in the city. On March 27, 1912, First Lady Helen Herron Taft and the wife of the Japanese ambassador, Viscountess Chinda, planted two Yoshino cherry trees on the northern bank of the Potomac Tidal Basin in Washington. How many more cherry trees do you think were planted at that time?

When First Lady Taft and the Viscountess Chinda planted those cherry trees, they were only a small part of a gift of 3,000 trees given to the U.S. by the Japanese government. The trees were planted along the Potomac Tidal Basin near the Jefferson Memorial, in East Potomac Park, and on the White House grounds. Why do you think the Japanese gave the cherry trees to the U.S.?

Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore, a travel writer and photographer, had the idea of planting cherry trees in Washington after she returned from a trip to Japan in 1885. She recommended that the city purchase the trees, but the government ignored her request. Finally, in 1909, she decided to raise money and purchase them herself. She wrote to First Lady Helen Herron Taft and told her of her plans. The first lady was enthusiastic about the idea and decided to take up the matter. Once the Japanese consul in New York heard of the first lady's plans, he suggested that his government make a gift of the trees to the U.S. government.
 
Fly Like an Eagle, Scout!

August 21, 1912 - The First Eagle Scout, Arthur R. Eldred

Are you a member of the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts of America, or have you ever wondered what they're all about? A Boy Scout might hope to someday achieve the award of Eagle Scout, the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America.

On August 21, 1912, Arthur R. Eldred of Oceanside, New York, became the first young man in America to earn the Eagle Scout award. More than one million Boy Scouts have now earned the rank since 1911, including former President Gerald Ford and film director Steven Spielberg. Do you know how many merit badges it takes to become an Eagle Scout?

It takes 21 merit badges to become an Eagle Scout, and 12 of those awards are required, such as First Aid and Citizenship of the World. The Boy Scout movement began with the 1908 publication of Scouting for Boys by British Lieutenant General Robert Baden-Powell. He suggested turning existing boys' groups into scout patrols. Americans at that time had a popular fascination with outdoor recreation as a means of developing a person's character.

The Boy Scouts of America was founded in 1910 with President William Howard Taft as honorary president. By 1912, every state could claim a band of troops. In 1916, the government granted Scouts the right to wear a uniform similar to a U.S. armed services uniform.

Boys weren't the only ones who enjoyed Scouting. In 1912, Juliette Gordon Low started the Girl Guides in Savannah, Georgia, and by 1915 had established a national organization called the Girl Scouts of America. They established their headquarters in Washington, D.C. In 1936 they started baking and selling their famous cookies nationwide. But Girl Scouting is about much more than cookies and uniforms. The activities are designed to build character, to promote good citizenship, and to develop personal fitness. How many Scouts do you know?
 
The Father of the Blues

September 28, 1912 - William Christopher Handy's "Memphis Blues" Was Published

Do you listen to the blues? If you haven't, you've definitely heard music influenced by the blues (a song of sadness in which the second line often repeats the words of the first). Artists such as John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, and Koko Taylor have made that sultry blues sound legendary, but before them, William Christopher Handy, the "Father of the Blues," brought the African-American folk tradition into mainstream music. The publication of his song "The Memphis Blues" on September 28, 1912, changed the course of American popular song.

By the 1960s, the blues sound had significantly influenced the development of jazz, classical music, and the rock and roll of such performers as Aretha Franklin and the Rolling Stones. Do the blues influence any of your favorite songs?

Born in Alabama in 1873, W.C. Handy found his true calling when he began playing cornet with dance bands traveling the Mississippi Delta. Along the road, Handy wrote down and collected blues songs he heard in the 1890s. Audiences, however, wanted to hear ragtime dance tunes, the lively and popular music of the day, so that's what he played. When he settled in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1909, Handy found a sophisticated population with a limitless appetite for music. Music was so popular in Memphis that an aspiring mayor, E.H. Crump, hired Handy as the bandleader for his campaign.

Handy's original tune, titled "Mr. Crump," merged the blues sound with popular ragtime style. Overwhelmingly popular, the song led Crump to the mayor's office and Handy to musical success. Changing the song's name to "The Memphis Blues," he watched the sheet music go on sale in department stores on September 28, 1912. The first thousand copies sold out in just three days. But Handy's publisher deceived him and told him that the song had flopped, offering him just $50 to buy the rights. The composer agreed. Though cheated out of his first big hit, Handy went on to produce many other popular works, such as the "Yellow Dog Rag." W.C. Handy became recognized around the world as the "Father of the Blues." What other blues musicians do you know?
 
The Day to Pay

April 15, 1913 - Tax Day

Uh oh, it's April 15. Even if you don't know what that means, your parents probably do--it's Tax Day. Income taxes are usually due on this day from all employed Americans. Income taxes have become such a common part of our lives, that it is hard to imagine that, at one time, there was no income tax in the U.S.

From its beginning, this country has been very expensive to run, and the government has been responsible for raising the money to pay those expenses. Before the Revolutionary War, whiskey and tobacco taxes provided most of the revenue. After the war, however, the government needed more money.

When the country was young, it struggled to raise funds from the 13 original states--$15 million from each state in 1779 and more in following years. The government collected the first income tax during the Civil War, but only temporarily. President Grover Cleveland tried to start up regular yearly income taxes in 1894, but the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional. For supporters of the income tax, that meant amending the Constitution, which the government finally did in 1913 with the 16th Amendment. From that point on, Congress could legally collect taxes on incomes.

Homer S. Cummings, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee during the administration of President Woodrow Wilson, counted the income tax as among the most notable accomplishments of the Democratic Party. The funds raised from it have been used for running many parts of the government. How much one pays depends on yearly earnings and certain deductions. Collecting and figuring taxes employs many people such as the staff of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), accountants, and this public tax worker, who was working hard back in 1936.
Ask your parents how they file their income tax return. But you might want to wait a day or two--they may be busy trying to make the deadline!
 
 
 
 
 
 
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