Let's Learn Something New Today

Sears Tower

2010-05-03T08:44:00.000-04:00

On May 3, 1973 Chicago's Sears Tower, the world's tallest building at the time, was finished.

The Sears Tower rises to a height to 1,450 feet and is one of the most recognizable landmarks in the Chicago skyline and in the world. The building held the record for the world’s tallest building for 25 years until the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia were built in 1998.

In 1982, the antennas added to the building increased its total height to 1,704 feet. In 2000, one of the building’s antennas was extended to 1,729 feet, making it the world’s tallest building to the tip of its antenna. The building held this title until early 2009 when Burj Dubai topped out at over 2,600 feet, making it the tallest man-made structure ever built. Currently, Willis Tower is the tallest building in the United States and the fifth-tallest freestanding structure in the world as well as the fifth tallest building in the world to the roof.

On July 16, 2009, the Tower was renamed the Willis Tower with a great deal of controversy. Time Magazine named it one of the Ten Worst Corporate Name Changes.

Willis Tower
Sears Tower: The Name Says It All

Cheerios

2010-05-01T09:09:00.000-04:00

On May 1, 1941 General Mills introduced Cheerios.

When Cheerios debuted, they were called Cheerioats. The name was changed to Cheerios due to a dispute with Quaker Oats over naming rights in 1945.

It was the first oat-based and ready-to-eat without cooking cereal sold in the United States. Successful marketing and association with The Lone Ranger led General Mills to sell approximately 1.8 million cases of the cereal in its first year alone. Other icons that have been prominently featured in association with Cheerios include Rocky and Bullwinkle, Scooby Doo, Star Wars characters, and NASCAR drivers.

Cheerios have been made in a variety of flavors including:

Honey Nut Cheerios (1979)
Apple Cinnamon Cheerios (1988)
Multi-Grain Cheerios (1992)
Frosted Cheerios (1995)
Team Cheerios (formerly Team USA Cheerios) (1996)
Purely O's (organic Cheerios, manufactured by General Mills' subsidiary Cascadian Farms) (1999)
Berry Burst Cheerios (including variations of Strawberry, Strawberry Banana, Cherry Vanilla and Triple Berry) (2003)
Millenios (Cheerios with 2 shaped cereal pieces, no longer available) (2000)
Yogurt Burst Cheerios (2005) (including variations of Vanilla and Strawberry yogurt)

Cheerios
General Mills

Chernobyl

2010-04-26T14:47:00.001-04:00

On April 26, 1986 at 1:23 a.m., reactor number four at the Chernobyl plant, near Prypia in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, suffered a massive, catastrophic power excursion (meltdown). This caused a steam explosion, followed by a second (chemical, not nuclear) explosion from the ignition of generated hydrogen mixed with air, which tore the top from the reactor and its building and exposed the reactor core.

The resulting fire sent a plume of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area, including the nearby town of Pripyat. The plume drifted over large parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Northern Europe. Large areas in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia had to be evacuated, with over 336,000 people resettled.

In the aftermath of the accident, 237 people suffered from acute radiation sickness, of whom 31 died within the first three months. Most of these were fire and rescue workers trying to bring the accident under control, who were not fully aware of how dangerous exposure to the radiation in the smoke was.

It is considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history and is the only level 7 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale. Four hundred times more radioactive material was released than had been by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

The Chernobyl reactor is now enclosed in a large concrete sarcophagus, which was built quickly to allow continuing operation of the other reactors at the plant.

Official Chernobyl site
IAEA
Wikipedia

New Coke

2010-04-23T13:39:00.000-04:00

On April 23, 1985, The Coca-Cola Company introduced New Coke.

Before World War II, Coca-Cola firmly held the majority of cola sales with a 60% market share. By 1983, their share had dropped to 24% behind Pepsi.

Coca-Cola's CEO was looking to shake things up after losing a share of the market to Pepsi, thanks in part to the Pepsi Challenge. They began the super secret "Project Kansas" to develop a new formula and try out the new taste with blind taste tests with over 190,000 consumers.

Coca-Cola's sales numbers rose when the new version was initially introduced. Then came the backlash. Protests and anti-"New Coke" groups popped up across the country. Panicked drinkers hoarded cases of the original.

Coca-Cola brought back the original Coke, renamed Coca-Cola Classic, in July 1985.

The Coca-Cola Company
Advertising Age

1964 World's Fair

2010-04-22T12:57:00.000-04:00

On April 22, 1964, the World's Fair opened in Flushing, NY.

The fair was held at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in the Borough of Queens. That location held both the 1964/1965 New York World’s Fair and the 1939/1940 New York World’s Fair.

More than fifty-one million people attended the Fair which had a theme of "Peace Through Understanding," dedicated to "Man's Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe."

The most notable exhibit was General Motors Corporation whose Futurama, a show in which visitors seated in moving chairs glided past detailed scenery showing what life might be like in the "near-future," proved to be the Fair's most popular exhibit. Nearly twenty-six million people took the journey into the future during the Fair's two-year run.

New York 1964 World's Fair
Modern Ruins

Heartbreak Hotel

2010-04-21T15:50:00.003-04:00

On April 21, 1956, Elvis Presley's first hit record, "Heartbreak Hotel" became a number one hit.

The song was inspired by the suicide of a young man who left a note with the line, "I walk a lonely street." On November 10, 1955, Presley heard the song for the first time and said he would record it. Mae Boren Axton, a co-writer of the song, offered Presley a third of the royalties if he made the song his first single release from his new label, RCA.

This was Elvis' first #1 hit on the US Billboard pop charts. In 1995, the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, and was re-released in 1996 to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of its recording. It was ranked #45 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004.

There is now a real hotel named after the song located across the street from Presley's home, Graceland, in Memphis, Tennessee. It features 128 rooms and offers 24-hour Presley videos for its guests.

Song Facts
Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel

Edgar Allan Poe

2010-04-20T17:30:00.001-04:00

On April 20, 1841, the first detective story, "Murders in Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe, was published.

“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” is a tale of a grisly double homicide investigated by Poe’s recurring recluse C. Auguste Dupin. Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. John Watson, Dupin and his unnamed sidekick, who narrates “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” employ logic and literacy to divine the identity of the murderer — who, in patented Poe fashion, turns out to be more of a surprise than the crime itself.

Poe was born in Boston in 1809, and eventually died under mysterious circumstances in Baltimore in 1849. Poe was orphaned by the time he was three years old. He was adopted by John Allan, a tobacco merchant in Richmond, Virginia, and was sent to a boarding school in London. He returned to go to the University of Virgina, but he dropped out and gambled his tuition money.

He enlisted in the Army, but was dismissed six months later for disobedience. Poe moved in with his widowed aunt, Maria Clemm, and her teenage daughter, Virginia Eliza Clemm, whom he married before she was 14 years old.

Poe gained respect from his peers as an author and literary critic, but his career suffered from his compulsive behavior and from alcoholism. In 1849, he was found unconscious on a street in Baltimore. Poe was taken to the Washington College Hospital where he was diagnosed with "lesions on the brain" (the doctor believed Poe was mugged). He died 4 days later, briefly coming in and out of consciousness, just to whisper his last words, "Lord, help my poor soul." The real cause of his death is still unknown and his death certificate has disappeared.

Poe Museum
Mystery Net

AstroTurf

2010-04-19T13:43:00.001-04:00

On April 19, 1965, the Houston Astrodome's ceiling was painted because glare from the windows made fielding balls difficult.

The skylights were painted a dull translucent white, which reduced the lighting by nearly 40%, which created the need for lights during the day. The reduced lighting also caused the Bermuda grass in the infield and outfield to die. For most of the 1965 season, the Astros played on dirt and dead grass that were painted green.

The Astros had little choice but to install an artificial playing surface called ChemGrass that became known as AstroTurf. Because the supply of AstroTurf was still low, only a limited amount was available for the home opener on April 18, 1966. There wasn't enough for the entire outfield, but there was enough to cover the traditional grass portion of the infield. The outfield remained painted dirt until after the All-Star break. The team was sent on an extended road trip before the break, and on July 19, 1966, the installation of the outfield portion of AstroTurf was completed.

For five years the entire infield was dirt, but in 1971 the infield was covered with Astroturf except for the areas around each base.

San Francisco Earthquake

2010-04-18T16:34:00.001-04:00

At 5:12 a.m.on April 18, 1906, a magnitude 8.3 (Richter Scale) earthquake struck San Francisco. The earthquake was felt from southern Oregon to south of Los Angeles and inland as far as central Nevada.

Due to the thousands of buildings that lacked reinforcement and closely-spaced houses, the city was unprepared for the quake. The building collapses and a water shortage due to broken mains led to several large fires that combined into one huge city-wide fire that raged for three days and destroyed the entire downtown area. It destroyed 490 city blocks, a total of 25,000 buildings and made over 250,000 homeless. Damage estimates topped $350,000,000.

Over 3,000 people are estimated to have died as a result of the disaster. For those who survived, the first few weeks were hard, as aid poured in from around the country, thousands slept in tents in city parks, and citizens were asked to do their cooking in the street. Numerous businesses relocated temporarily to Oakland, and many refugees found lodgings outside the city.

Most of the cities of central California were badly damaged. However, reconstruction proceeded at a furious pace, and by 1908, San Francisco was well on the way to recovery.

Bancroft Library
Eye Witness to History
USGS

Ford Mustang

2010-04-17T08:06:00.002-04:00

On April 17, 1964, Ford sold over 22,000 Mustangs the first day that they were for sale.

In 1961, Lee Iacocca, vice president and general manager of Ford, had a vision. His wanted a car that would seat four people, have bucket seats, a floor mounted shifter, be no more than 180 inches long, weigh less than 2500 pounds and sell for less than $2500. Out of this vision, the Ford Mustang was born.

On March 9, 1964, the first Mustang rolled off the assembly line. With a multitude of different interior, exterior and drivetrain options, the Mustang would be able to be ordered as plain or as fancy, as economical or as fast, as the buy wanted. In general, the Mustang was designed for everyone and was advertised as "the car to be designed by you."

On April 16, 1964, the day before its release, Ford ran simultaneous commercials at 9:30 pm on all three major television networks. By the end of the year, Ford had sold 263,434 Mustangs. By the end of the Mustang's first year in production, Ford had sold 418,812 Mustangs.

The Rolling Stones

2010-04-16T10:18:00.003-04:00

On April 16, 1964, The Rolling Stones released their first album.

In the early 1950s Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were classmates at Wentworth Primary School near London. Both families moved, but in 1960, they met up again before heading off to college and formed the band. According to Richards, Brian Jones named the band while placing an ad with the Jazz News. When asked what the band's name was, Jones, in a panic, glanced at a Muddy Waters record on the floor and saw a track named "Rollin' Stone."

On 12 July 1962 the group played their first formal gig at the Marquee Club. During the 1960s, that club was also host to Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Who, King Crimson, Yes, Jethro Tull, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Their first album was self titled and it went to #1 on the UK chart. Jagger and Richards were just beginning as songwriters and only contributed one original song to the album. Two of the songs are credited to Nanker Phelge, which is a pseudonym that the band used for group compositions until 1965.

In nearly half a century, the band has released over 90 singles, more than two dozen studio albums, and numerous compilation and live albums. Ten of their studio albums are among Rolling Stone magazine's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, with their 1972 double album Exile on Main St. placing seventh. They also are #2 on the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list with (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.

The Rolling Stones Official Website
The Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time

#42

2010-04-15T08:57:00.000-04:00

On April 15, 1997, baseball honored Jackie Robinson by retiring #42 for all teams.

Uniform numbers were first used on a permanent basis by the Yankees and Indians in 1929, so that fans could tell who was who on the field. Those uniform numbers corresponded to the player's place in the lineup; those who batted leadoff wore number one, those who batted clean-up wore number four and so on. When teams started to retire numbers, the system no longer worked, so players were allowed to choose their numbers.

Jackie Robinson was the first African-American to play in baseball's major leagues in the modern era. Only white players were accepted in the major leagues until 1947, when Robinson was called up to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He made his first major league appearance on 15 April 1947.

Robinson's first season with the Dodgers was a difficult one. A group of Dodger players, led by Dixie Walker, suggested they would strike rather than play alongside Robinson. But the team management told them that Jackie would play and that Dixie and his teammates could leave if they wished.

Other major league teams followed Brooklyn's lead and hired black players of their own. Robinson's stellar play and his role in breaking the color barrier led to his 1962 induction as the first African-American in baseball's Hall of Fame.

Jackie Robinson died in Stamford, Connecticut, on October 24, 1972, due to complications of heart disease. He was only 53. Following his death, the Jackie Robinson Foundation was instituted. The foundation provides scholarships to 141 students annually who are sent to more than 60 colleges all over the country.

In 1997, on the 50th anniversary of Robinson's first year with the Dodgers, Major League Baseball permanently retired Robinson's uniform number, 42. He is the only baseball player ever to have been so honored. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Jackie Robinson official site
Biography.com
The Time 100

Roberto De Vicenzo

2010-04-14T09:56:00.001-04:00

On April 14, 1968, Roberto De Vicenzo entered the final round of the Masters two strokes off the lead. On Sunday, he had a 7-under round to force an 18-hole playoff between him and Bob Goalby the next day.

On the 17th hole, De Vicenzo made a birdie 3, but playing partner Tommy Aaron, who was keeping his opponent's scorecard, put down a 4. When they returned to the scorer's tent, De Vicenzo got caught up in the moment and signed the incorrect scorecard, meaning he had to take the higher score at that hole, giving him a 66 rather than the 65 he actually shot. And giving the Masters title to Bob Goalby.

A group of players later had a custom tailored Augusta National green jacket with his name sewn into the lining sent to De Vicenzo. He has never worn the jacket.

World Golf Hall of Fame
ESPN
Augusta

Titanic

2010-04-10T21:44:00.003-04:00

On April 10, 1912, the Titanic began its maiden voyage.

The Titanic was constructed to be a part of the White Star Line's fleet of ships. They were constructing a line of what they called "Olympic Class Liners." The first was the Olympic, the second the Titanic and the third was the Gigantic, but it was later named the Brittanic.

The Titanic was built over the course of two years by 3,000 men and, at the time of completion, was the largest ship in the world. Three million rivets were used in the construction.

The First-class section had an on-board swimming pool, a gymnasium, a squash court, a Turkish Bath, an Electric bath and a Veranda Cafe. The most expensive one-way trans-Atlantic passage was US$4,350 (which is more than US$95,860 in 2008 dollars).

On Sunday, April 14 at 11:40 P.M., the Titanic struck an iceberg. At the time, the international distress call was CQD, not SOS as was depicted in many Titanic movies. The Carpathia was 58 miles away, which was a four hour trip.

At 2:20 A.M., the Titanic broke in half after the stern raised high into the air. Of the 18 lifeboats carrying survivors, only two went back to try and find survivors while they waited to be rescued. 1,503 passengers and crew died and 705 survived. There were 472 lifeboat seats that were not used.

Two dogs survived in the lifeboats and all but one of the first class children were saved. 49 children from steerage died.

The Titanic rests on the Atlantic Ocean floor, nearly 2-1/2 miles under the surface. The two main pieces of the ship that split before it sank are 1,970 feet apart. Because the front section sank nose first, the bow is buried 60 feet in the ocean floor. That includes the gash that was caused by the iceberg that sank the ship.

After the Titanic accident, White Star merged with Cunard, best known for the Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Elizabeth 11 (QE2). In 1998, Carnival bought out the Cunard line.

Titanic Facts
Titanic and Nautical Resource Facts
White Star Line

Arthur Ashe

2010-04-08T08:51:00.002-04:00

On April 8, 1992, Arthur Ashe announced that he has AIDS, acquired from a blood transfusion during heart surgery.

Arthur Ashe was born July 10, 1943 in Richmond, Virginia. Arthur began learning tennis from an early age, in part because his father took a post at Brook Field in 1947. The position came with a house that was located in the middle of the blacks-only playground at Brook Field, which was an 18-acre park that included tennis courts.

In 1950, a few months before Arthur's 7th birthday, his mother died of complications from surgery. That same year, Arthur met Ronald Charity, one of the best black tennis players in the nation and a part-time tennis coach. Charity later introduced him to Walter Johnson, who would become his lifelong coach and mentor. Dr. Johnson was also the coach of the only African-American competing in world tennis at that time, Althea Gibson.

In 1958 Ashe became the first African-American to play in the Maryland boys' championships. This was also his first integrated tennis competition. During the summer Arthur could travel and participate in competitive tournaments around the country; during the school year his competition was much more limited because he was limited to black opponents from Richmond and there were only outdoor tennis courts for blacks.

Ashe was featured in the December 12, 1960 issue of Sports Illustrated as a Face in the Crowd. After graduating first in his high school class, Arthur went to UCLA, which had one of the best college tennis programs. That year he was also named to the U.S. Davis Cup team as its first African-American player.

After college, Ashe joined the Army and was stationed at West Point. While in the Army, Arthur continued to play tennis and in 1968, he won the first U.S. Open. He is the only African-American man to ever win the title.

In 1969 Arthur co-founded the National Junior Tennis League. The program was designed to expose children to tennis who might not otherwise have opportunities to play while fostering a sense of discipline and attention to academics. This was the first of many programs with which Arthur would become involved, many of them focusing on youths, minorities, education and tennis.

Arthur first applied for a visa to travel to South Africa and compete in the South African Open in 1969. He was denied a South African visa despite his number 1 U.S. ranking due to Apartheid. In protest he used this example of discrimination to campaign for the expulsion of the nation from the International Lawn Tennis Federation. This was the beginning of his activism against Apartheid, which would become a central issue to him for the next two decades.

In 1979 Arthur suffered a heart attack while holding a tennis clinic in New York. He was hospitalized for ten days afterwards and later that year underwent quadruple-bypass surgery. He continued to suffer chest pains and in 1980 decided to retire from tennis with a career record of 818 wins, 260 losses and 51 titles.

In 1983 Arthur went through a second bypass surgery. After the operation, in order to accelerate his recovery, he received a blood transfusion, which resulted in him contracting HIV. Also in 1983, along with Harry Belafonte, he founded Artists and Athletes Against Apartheid, which worked toward raising awareness of Apartheid policies and lobbying for sanctions and embargoes against the South African government. Two years later he was arrested outside the South African embassy in Washington during an anti-apartheid protest.

In 1992 the newspaper USA Today contacted him about reports of his illness, which had been kept private until that point although it is believed that other news organizations new about his illness but decided not to report on it. Arthur decided to preempt the paper and go public on his own terms holding a press conference with his wife on April 8, 1992 to announce that he had contracted AIDS.

Two months before his death he founded the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health, to help address issues of inadequate health care delivery to urban minority populations. He also dedicated time in his last few months to writing "Days of Grace," his memoir that he finished only days before his death.

On February 6, 1993 Arthur Ashe died of AIDS-related pneumonia in New York at the age of 49. His body was laid in state at the Governor's Mansion in his hometown of Richmond, VA. He was the first person to lie in state at the mansion since the Confederate general Stonewall Jackson in 1863. More than 5,000 people lined up to walk past the casket. His funeral was attended by nearly 6,000 people.

In 1997, the main court at the US Open in Flushing, NY was named for Arthur Ashe. The US Open also includes an Arthur Ashe Day which focuses on kids by having celebrities and popular athletes compete and young musicians perform.

Arthur Ashe
Arthur Ashe official site
ATP World Tour - Arthur Ashe
Sports Illustrated Arthur Ashe Tribute

Rwandan Genocide

2010-04-07T08:26:00.000-04:00

On April 7, 1994, Rwandan armed forces killed moderate Hutu Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and 10 Belgian peacekeeping officers in a successful effort to discourage international intervention in the genocide that had begun only hours earlier. In about three months, the Hutu extremists who controlled Rwanda brutally murdered an estimated 800,000 innocent civilian Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the worst episode of ethnic genocide since the Holocaust of World War II. That is about 10,000 murdered every day, 400 every hour, 7 every minute.

Although the two ethnic groups were very similar, sharing the same language and culture for centuries, the law required registration based on ethnicity. The government and army began to assemble the Interahamwe (meaning "those who attack together") and prepared for the elimination of the Tutsis by arming Hutus with guns and machetes.

On April 6, 1994, President Habyarimana was killed when his plane was shot down. It is not known if the attack was carried out by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a Tutsi military organization stationed outside the country at the time, or by Hutu extremists trying to instigate a mass killing. In any event, Hutu extremists in the military, led by Colonel Theoneste Bagosora, immediately went into action, murdering Tutsis and moderate Hutus within hours of the crash.

The Belgian peacekeepers were killed the next day, a key factor in the withdrawal of U.N. forces from Rwanda. Soon afterward, the radio stations in Rwanda were broadcasting appeals to the Hutu majority to kill all Tutsis in the country. The army and the national police directed the slaughter, telling Hutu civilians to participate in the killings or be shot. Thousands of innocent people were hacked to death with machetes by their neighbors. Despite the horrific crimes, the international community, including the United States, hesitated to take any action. They wrongly ascribed the genocide to chaos amid tribal war. President Bill Clinton later called America's failure to do anything to stop the genocide "the biggest regret" of his administration.

It was left to the RPF, led by Paul Kagame, to begin an ultimately successful military campaign for control of Rwanda. By the summer, the RPF had defeated the Hutu forces and driven them out of the country and into several neighboring nations. However, by that time, an estimated 75 percent of the Tutsis living in Rwanda had been murdered.

Rwanda: The Wake of a Genocide
The Triumph of Evil
Hotel Rwanda

Twinkies

2010-04-06T10:25:00.002-04:00

On April 6, 1930, Hostess Twinkies were invented by bakery executive James Dewar.

Twinkies were invented by Dewar when he realized that strawberry cake machines that sat idle when strawberries weren't in season could be used for another purpose. Originally, Twinkies were filled with banana filling, but bananas were rationed in the 1940s, so they switched to vanilla creme. It was so popular that they decided to stick with it.

The secret to Twinkies long shelf life is the fact that they contain no dairy ingredients. Hostess estimates that they use 8,000,000 pounds of sugar, 7,000,000 pounds of flour and 1,000,000 eggs to make the 500,000,000 Twinkies that they produce each year.

Twinkies have become part of popular culture and, for students at Rice University, also part of a grand experiment. The T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. Project used a variety of experiments to determine the properties of Twinkies.

Hostess Twinkies Site
Food History
Snopes

Anne Sullivan

2010-04-05T10:45:00.001-04:00

On April 5, 1887, Anne Sullivan taught the word "water" to Helen Keller.

Anne Sullivan Macy (1866-1936) was raised in extreme poverty. Her family was Irish immigrant farmers who had fled to the United States to escape the Irish Potato Famine. She was the eldest of five children, only two of whom reached adulthood.

Her father, Thomas Sullivan, was an alcoholic and her mother, Alice Chloesy Sullivan, died from tuberculosis when Anne was 9 years old. After the death of her mother, Anne and her brother were sent to Tewksbury orphanage, where her brother later died.

When Anne was 7 years old she developed trachoma, a bacterial infection of the eyes. This infection went untreated and affected her vision. She had almost no usable sight until she had an operation at the age of 15, which restored some of her vision, but she remained visually impaired for the rest of her life.

In August of 1886, Michael Anagnos, Director of the Perkins School for the Blind, asked Anne if she was interested in working for the Keller family in Tuscumbia, Alabama. He told her that their six-year-old daughter, Helen, had been deaf and blind since the age of 19 months because of a severe illness.

Since that time the baby had grown into a wild and increasingly uncontrollable child. The parents, Kate and Arthur Keller, had contacted the famous inventor and educator of the deaf, Alexander Graham Bell in Washington, D.C. for help. He, in turn, had put them in touch with the Perkins School for the Blind.

Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone and teacher of the deaf, who had referred Helen's parents to the Perkins School, also played a role in Anne's and Helen's life. He made the public aware of their results when he gave a New York newspaper a picture of Helen and one of her letters to him.

In May 1888, Anne, Helen, and Helen's mother Kate Adams Keller, traveled to Washington, D.C. There they met President Grover Cleveland and were joined by Dr. Bell. Already, however, people's interest was focused on Helen rather than Anne. Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) gave Anne the credit she was due, when he called her a "miracle-worker."

In June 1892, Anne was elected a member of the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf. In 1894, Alexander Graham Bell asked her to give a speech at an Association meeting. She was so shy, however, that Bell had to deliver the speech for her.

After Helen Keller's formal education, Anne Sullivan continued to assist her by accompanying her on her travels and to various lecture tours. After Helen's graduation from Radcliffe, Anne married young Harvard instructor, John Albert Macy in 1905. The three lived together until 1912 when the Macys separated.

Sullivan and Keller were constantly in demand to give lectures and to raise money for the American Foundation for the Blind. However, they often were too charitable and as a result had to supplement their income.

Anne's vision deteriorated in her later years, which required several surgeries, one of which was done to remove one of her eyes. When Anne died in 1936, she was cremated and her ashes were laid to rest in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. She was the first woman to be given this honor on her own merits.

American Foundation for the Blind
NNDB
Women in History

Velcro

2010-04-02T08:49:00.000-04:00

Velcro was first put on the market on April 2, 1978. The word Velcro comes from the French words for velvet "velour" and hook "crochet."

The origins of velcro can be traced to a Swiss engineer named George de Mestral in 1948. He was a fan of the outdoors and while on a hunting trip with his dog in the Alps, he noticed that grass burrs stuck to his wool clothing.

de Mestral took home some of the burrs and examined them under a microscope. He found that tiny hooks on the end of each burr caught on the loops of the wool in his clothes. After years of experimenting with creating the product, he got a patent in 1955 for Velcro.

Although most hook and loop tapes are nylon-based, there are also varieties made from plastic, stainless steel, and silver-impregnated substances for electrical applications. The fasteners are used in clothing, aircraft, office equipment, and sporting and leisure equipment. They are also used in the automotive and medical industries, nuclear engineering, and NASA’s space program.

The Great Idea Finder
Velcro official site
Hook and Loop

U.S. House of Representatives

2010-04-01T08:13:00.000-04:00

On April 1, 1789, the House of Representatives had its first full meeting in New York City. Pennsylvania Representative Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg was elected as its first speaker.

The House of Representatives is composed of 435 members elected every two years from among the 50 states, proportional to their total populations. California has the most members (53). The permanent number of 435 was established by federal law following the Thirteenth Decennial Census in 1910 This number was increased temporarily to 437 for the 87th Congress to provide for one Representative each for Alaska and Hawaii. The Constitution limits the number of Representatives to not more than one for every 30,000 of population.

A Representative must be at least 25 years of age, have been a citizen of the United States for seven years, and, when elected, be an inhabitant of the state in which the Representative is chosen. Each representative serves for a two-year term.

The most important job of the House of Representatives is creating laws. The Constitution grants the House several exclusive powers: the power to initiate revenue bills, to impeach officials, and to elect the president if the Electoral College is in a deadlock.

Before the Civil War, the House and Senate had frequent conflicts of the issue of slavery. Because the North was significantly more populous than the South, they had a clear majority in the House. However, because the Senate has 2 members per state regardless of population, there was equal representation of the states. During the Civil War, the North also had a majority in the Senate because all southern senators, with the exception of Andrew Johnson, resigned at the beginning of the war.

House of Representatives
Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives

Eiffel Tower

2010-03-31T09:59:00.002-04:00

Construction of the Eiffel Tower began on January 26, 1887 and was completed on March 31, 1889. It was built for the 1889 World Fair which also coincided with the centenary of the French Revolution.

Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was the main architect. He also created the internal frame of the Statue of Liberty in the year 1885. On the day that the tower opened, Eiffel climbed the 1710 steps to the top to attach the French flag.

The Eiffel Tower is constructed of 18,038 pieces of wrought iron which weigh 10,100 tons. Nearly 2,500,000 rivets were used when it was assembled. The foundations are only about 50 feet underground and were dug by hand for the first five months of the construction. When it was constructed, it was only intended to last twenty years and then it was to be sold for scrap.

There are a total of 1710 steps to the platform on the third level. You cannot climb all the way to the top (the third platform is only accessible by elevator), but you can climb the 674 steps to the second level. At 1060 feet tall, it was the tallest building in the world until 1929 when the Chrysler Building was completed in New York.

The tower is painted every 7 years and it takes 60 tons of paint to cover it. Amazingly, painting is still done with brushes and it takes 25 painters 15 to 18 months to complete.

In clear weather, you can see 42 miles from the top of the Eiffel Tower. During gusty winds, the top of the tower sways up to 6 inches. Depending on the ambient temperature, the top of the tower may shift away from the sun by up to 3.25 inches, due to expansion of the metal on the side facing the sun.

Eiffel Tower Official Site
All You Need to Know about the Eiffel Tower

Pencils

2010-03-30T09:53:00.004-04:00

Pencils with attached erasers were patented by Hyman L. Lipman on March 30, 1858.

In ancient Rome, scribes wrote on papyrus with metal rods called styluses. Later, they used lead in place of the metal. Graphite came into use after a large graphite deposit was discovered in England in 1564. The graphite made a darker mark than lead, but it couldn't be held with the hand to draw. Initially, string was wrapped around the graphite for stability, but that evolved to sticks that had been hollowed-out.

The first mass-produced pencils were made in Nuremberg, Germany in 1662. There an active pencil industry developed with famous companies like Faber-Castell established in 1761. William Monroe, a cabinetmaker in Concord, Massachusetts, made the first American wood pencils in 1812 as did another Concord area maker, famous author Henry David Thoreau.

The first mass-produced pencils were unpainted, to show off their high-quality wood casings. However, by the 1890s, many manufacturers were painting their pencils and giving them brand names. During the 1800s, the best graphite in the world came from China and, in Chinese culture, yellow is associated with royalty and respect.

Today, pencils are manufactured by combining graphite and clay, extruding the combination, firing it and adding lubricant to make it smoother for writing. Pencil casings are most often made with red cedar, which is milled into slats and then grooves are cut into the wood. The graphite is placed into the grooves and another slat of wood is glued on top. Pencils are then cut apart, painted and imprinted. The entire process includes 125 different operations.

Pencil erasers are made from either a synthetic rubber compound or from vinyl. Long strands of the eraser material are cut into small pieces called plugs. The plugs are lined up with metal bands called ferrules. A machine cuts a small hole in the top of the pencil and a ferrule is filled with glue and placed on the end of the pencil. A plunger presses an eraser into the other end of the ferrule and the pencil is complete.

The Great Eraser Caper
History of the Pencil
Pencil timeline

Louvre Pyramid

2010-03-29T01:19:00.003-04:00

On March 29, 2009 the pyramid entrance opened at the Louvre in Paris. It is approximately 70 feet high and 115 feet across at the base.

The Louvre was originally built as a fortress by Philipe II in the 12th century to defend against Viking attacks and was converted to a palace in the 14th century. In the 15th century, the original fortress was destroyed by Francois I and a wing added along the Seine. In the 16th century it was further expanded to include the courtyards and Catharina de Medici added the Tuileries palace. When Louis XIV took power, he moved to Versaille and construction stopped until the 19th century when the palace was expanded once again to enclose the courtyard on all four sides. In 1871, the Tuleries palace was burned, which opened the west side of the courtyard.

The Louvre held art beginning with Francis I in the 16th century. One of the original pieces that he purchased was the Mona Lisa. Pieces were held privately in the royal collection until the French Revolution when it was opened to the public.

Among the thousands of priceless paintings is Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, perhaps the most famous painting in the world; it is housed in the Salle des Etats in a climate-controlled environment behind protective glass. Works of artists like Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Rubens, Titian, Vermeer, and David can also be seen. Among the well-known sculptures in the collection are the Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo. Besides art, the Louvre has many other types of exhibits, including archeology, history, and architecture.

The glass pyramid, which functions as the museum's main entrance and connects the three remaining buildings, was designed by American architect I.M. Pei. The design was met with very harsh criticism by what Pei estimated was 90% of people that saw his design. On the suggestion of Paris's mayor, Jacques Chirac, a cable model was constructed to scale in the courtyard and an estimated 60,000 people visited in the four days that it was on display.

The design of the pyramid includes an inverted pyramid directly beneath so that light is reflected into the underground rooms. During construction, workers found a series of abandoned rooms with an additional 25,000 items which are now on display in the Louvre.

More than 8 million people visit the Louvre each year and most enter through the pyramid. The glass is cleaned once a month by alpine climbers that are specially trained to do the job.

Louvre official site
A View on Cities
Great Buildings
Photos of the Louvre

Three Mile Island

2010-03-28T07:49:00.001-04:00

At about 4:00 a.m. on March 29, 1979, the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pa. suffered the largest nuclear accident in US history.

The accident was caused by a combination of user error and equipment malfunction. There was a failure in the non-nuclear secondary system, followed by a stuck-open valve in the primary system, which allowed large amounts of reactor coolant to escape. Initially, plant operators didn't realize that there was a leak due to indicators that were ambiguous. It took several hours to realize the coolant had been vented.

At 6:56 a.m. a plant supervisor declared a site emergency, and less than half an hour later station manager Gary Miller announced a general emergency, defined as having the "potential for serious radiological consequences" to the general public.

Two days after the accident began, Lt. Gov. William Scranton appeared at a news conference to say that Metropolitan Edison, the plant's owner, had assured the state that "everything is under control". Later that day, Scranton changed his statement, saying that the situation was "more complex than the company first led us to believe". Schools were closed and residents were urged to stay indoors. Farmers were told to keep their animals under cover and on stored feed. Governor Dick Thornburgh, on the advice of the NRC, advised the evacuation of pregnant women and preschool age children within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility. Within days, 140,000 people had left the area.

Cleanup started in August 1979 and officially ended in December 1993, with a cost around $975 million. In 1988, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced that, although it was possible to further decontaminate the Unit 2 site, the remaining radioactivity had been sufficiently contained as to pose no threat to public health and safety. Several studies in the years since the accident have supported the conclusion that radiation releases from the accident had no perceptible effect on cancer incidence in residents near the plant.

Dickinson College's Three Mile Island site
Meltdown at Three Mile Island - PBS
US Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Japanese Cherry Trees

2010-03-27T09:18:00.000-04:00

On March 26, 1912, the first Japanese cherry trees were planted in Washington D.C. The 3,000 trees were a gift of friendship to the United States from Tokyo, Japan.

The flowering cherry tree is called "Sakura" in Japan and is symbolic of the evanescence of human life and the transformations the culture of Japan has undergone.

The trees that are planted in the capitol now are actually part of the second shipment of trees received from Japan. The first trees arrived in January 1912, but the Department of Agriculture found the trees were infested with insects and nematodes and other diseases. To protect American growers, the department concluded that the trees must be destroyed.

On February 14, 3,020 cherry trees of 12 varieties were shipped from Yokohama on board the S.S. Awa Maru, bound for Seattle. Upon arrival, they were transferred to insulated freight cars for the shipment to Washington. They arrived on March 26 and the following day, First Lady Taft and the Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese Ambassador, planted the first two cherry trees on the northern bank of the Tidal Basin. These two original trees are still standing today several hundred yards west of the John Paul Jones statue at the south end of 17th Street. Located at the bases of the trees are large bronze plaques which commemorate the occasion.

In 1952, cuttings from the cherry trees in the United States were sent to Japan to restore Japan's noted collection of trees on the banks of the Arakawa River in the Adachi Ward which had deteriorated during the war years. Trees in the Adachi Ward were the parent stock for the trees given to the U.S. In 1982, another 800 cuttings from the original trees at the Tidal Basin were sent to Japan to help them retain the genetic characteristics of their trees.

The date that the trees bloom varies from year to year depending on the weather conditions. Since the National Park Service has been keeping records of the blooming dates, the earliest blooming date as been March 15, 1990, and the latest date was marked on April 18, 1958. This year's National Cherry Blossom Festival begins March 27 and concludes on April 11.

The National Cherry Blossom Festival
National Park Service - Cherry Blossom Festival
Cherry Blossom Tree information
Cherry Blossom Festival Facts

Polio Vaccine

2010-03-26T09:25:00.000-04:00

On March 26, 1953, Dr. Jonas Salk announced a vaccine to prevent polio.

In the 1940s and early 1950s, parents were constantly worried about their children contracting polio. Because they didn't know what caused the disease, parents kept their children away from public places due to the fear that their children could contract polio and be crippled for the rest of their lives.

Polio is a virus which causes an acute infection. In most cases, it did not cause paralysis and may have only caused flu-like symptoms which were mild enough that people went out in public, not realizing that they were spreading the disease.

The disease was even more terrifying in that it seemed to strike at random. The only thing that was known for sure was that it was contracted 35 times more frequently in the summer months than during the spring. The largest outbreaks were in 1952 - 1954 when there were more than 100,000 new cases. In 1955, Dr. Salk's vaccine was administered to two million children and was shown to be effective in preventing polio.

In 1957 there were fewer than 6000 cases in the United States, and by 1964, two years after the introduction of the Sabin oral vaccine, polio had all but disappeared with only 121 cases reported nationally.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, President from 1932 to 1945, was a polio victim. He wore heavy steel braces on his legs and walking was difficult for him. Most of his time was spent in a wheelchair. Other famous survivors of polio include Alan Alda, Judy Collins, Francis Ford Coppola, Mia Farrow, Joni Mitchell, Jack Nicklaus, Itzhak Perlman, Wilma Rudolph, Dinah Shore, Donald Sutherland and Neil Young.

Global Polio Eradication Initiative
Post-Polio Health International

Palace Theatre

2010-03-25T06:57:00.000-04:00

On March 25, 1913, The Palace Theatre opened in New York City. This image shows the theater in 1920. It is located at 1564 Broadway in Times Square.

For many years of its life, it was the best known Vaudeville theater in the country and doing well meant that you could "play the Palace." Many famous entertainers performed on the stage include Ethel Barrymore, Harry Houdini, Will Rogers, Ethel Merman, Judy Garland, Jerry Lewis, Harry Belafonte, Bette Midler, Shirley MacLaine and Diana Ross.

During the Great Depression, television and radio became more popular and Vaudeville attendance started to decline. In the fall of 1932, The Palace was converted to a movie theater. After an unsuccessful attempt to return to Vaudeville in the 1950s, on January 29, 1966, the Palace reopened with the original production of the musical Sweet Charity.

A hotel was built above the theater in the 1980s, cantilevered over the auditorium. The image to the right shows how the building looked in 2008. Most recently, it has become the home to a revival of West Side Story.

Palace Theatre Official Site

Bhutan

2010-03-24T08:00:00.001-04:00

The Kingdom of Bhutan is a country in Asia that is bordered by China in the north and India in the south, east and west. The population is 691,141 and the capital and largest city is Thimphu. The state religion is Vajrayana Buddhism with Hinduism being the second-largest religion.

On March 24, 2008, Bhutan held its first public election after centuries of direct monarchic rule. The Druk Phuensum Tshogpa won the elections taking 45 out of 47 seats in the parliament.

Bhutan's early history is unclear, because most of the records were destroyed after fire ravaged the ancient capital, Punakha, in 1827. Because of its largely unspoiled natural environment and cultural heritage, Bhutan has been referred to as the last Shangri-la. When traveling to Bhutan, entry is free for citizens of India and Bangladesh, but all other foreigners are required to sign up with a Bhutanese tour operator and pay around $200 per day that they stay in the country.

In 2006, Business Week magazine rated Bhutan the happiest country in Asia and the eighth-happiest in the world. In 2007, Bhutan had the second fastest growing economy in the world, with an annual economic growth rate of 22.4 percent. The per capita income in 2008 was about $5600 USD. The literacy rate for men over 15 years of age is 60% and for women it is 34%.

The most common form of popular music in Bhutan is rigsar, which combines traditional and modern instruments.

Bhutannica
CIA Factbook
The World Bank

OK

2010-03-23T08:02:00.003-04:00

On this date in 1839, The Boston Morning Post printed the initials O.K. for the first time. At the time, it was considered the cool thing to do to misspell words and use abbreviations as slang when talking to each other, much like "kewl" for cool or "TTYL" for talk to you later is used now.

One of the misspellings was "oll korrect" which was shortened to O.K. Other popular abbreviations included "KY" for "No use" (know yuse), "NC" for enough said (knuff ced), "KG" for "No go" (know go), and "OW" for all right (oll wright).

The abbreviation was made popular during Martin Van Buren's campaign when a group of thugs that were trying to get him re-elected referred to themselves as the "O.K. Club." At the same time, the Whigs attributed the O.K. to Andrew Jackson's inability to spell correctly.

OK has become so common, even in languages other than English, that Microsoft uses it in 80% of its programs that have been translated into other languages.

Global Language Monitor
NPR
The Straight Dope

Sunday in the Park with George

2010-03-22T07:04:00.000-04:00

Sunday in the Park with George is a musical written by James Lapine (born January 10, 1949) with music by Stephen Sondheim (born March 22, 1930). It was inspired by the painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat. It won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for drama and was nominated for ten Tony awards.

The first act of the play is set in 19th century France where George is sketching studies to prepare for La Grande Jatte. Seurat is obsessed with his work, to the frustration of his mistress, Dot. Along the way, we meet many other characters, whoever happens to be in the park that Sunday, who eventually become part of the canvas.

The second act is set in 1984 where George's grandson is a sculptor. He returns to the island where Seurat created his masterpiece and is in dire need of inspiration. The visit leads him compare his ideas of what is art and what is life.

The original 1984 production had a famous cast, including: Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Brent Spiner and Charles Kimbrough. A performance was taped at Booth Theater in 1985 and was broadcast on Showtime and later on PBS as part of "American Playhouse."

Lapine, a graduate of Franklin & Marshall College, also has an MFA in Design from the California Institute of the Arts. He has written the book for and directed Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods and Passion.

Sondheim spent his teenage years in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, which was near the summertime residence of Oscar Hammerstein II, and later became his personal assistant. He is a graduate of Williams College where he won the Hutchinson Prize, which enabled him to study composition at Princeton University. He has won more Tony awards than any other composer and also has won an Academy Award, Grammy Awards and the Pulitzer Prize.

Sunday in the Park with George synopsis
James Lapine biography
Stephen Sondheim biography

The Doomsday Vault

2010-03-21T18:51:00.001-04:00

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, also known as The Doomsday Vault, is designed to store duplicates of seeds from genebank collections around the globe. The Vault was established so that if seeds are lost as a result of natural disasters, war or simply a lack of resources, the seed collections may be reestablished using seeds from Svalbard.

The seeds are stored in minus 18 degrees Celsius and are placed in sealed packages that are placed in sealed boxes and are stored on shelves inside the vault. The low temperature and the limited access to oxygen ensures low metabolic activity and causes a delay in the aging of the seeds. The permafrost ensures the continued viability of the seeds if the electricity supply should fail.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Food states that some crops, such as peas may survive for 20-30 years only, but other crops, such as sunflower and some of the grains may survive for many decades or even hundreds of years. Eventually, all seeds will lose the ability to germinate - they’ll die. Before this happens, a few seeds are taken from the stored samples and planted and then new seed is then harvested and placed in storage. This way, the original variety can be perpetuated, and last almost forever.

Since the opening of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in February 2008, more than 430,000 unique seed samples have arrived at the Vault from seed banks all over the world. According to the Ministry website, the Seed Vault has the capacity to store 4.5 million different seed samples. Each sample will contain on average 500 seeds, so a maximum of 2.25 billion seeds may be stored in the Seed Vault.

The Norwegian Ministry of Agriculture and Food
Global Crop Diversity Trust

Equinox

2010-03-20T16:57:00.002-04:00

For people in the Northern Hemisphere, today marks the first day of spring. On this day, the sun crosses directly over the earth's equator. This moment is known as the vernal equinox (in the Southern Hemisphere it is the autumnal equinox). The Earth's axis is tilted at a 23.4 degree angle on the equinox, which gives everyone in the world about the same length of day and night. That means that on this day, the sun rises exactly in the east and falls exactly in the west.

Other planets also have an equinox. Saturn, for instance, experiences an equinox once every 15 years, compared with six-month intervals on Earth.

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/riteofspring1.html
http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/march-equinox.html
http://www.astro.uu.nl/~strous/AA/en/antwoorden/seizoenen.html

Blogging

2010-03-19T12:33:00.002-04:00

The first blog, links.net, was started in January 1994 by Swarthmore College student Justin Hall.

Popular use of the term weblog as we know it today cam from Jorn Barger of the blog Robot Wisdom in December 1997. In 2004, Merriam-Webster declared “blog” the “Word of the Year.”

As of the beginning of 1999, there were 23 blogs known to be in existence. On July 31, 2006, Technorati tracked its 50 millionth blog. In November 2007, the China Internet Network Information Center said there were 72.82 million blogs in China alone. With the staggering increase in the number of blogs over the past few years, there are no solid numbers as to how many blogs now exist, but Socialnomics estimated that the number is over 200 million.

An estimated $100 million worth of blog ads were sold in 2005 according to New York Magazine. The IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers state that U.S. Internet advertising stats for the first half of 2009 was $10.9 billion, with a considerable portion of that being through blog advertising.

March Madness

2010-03-18T13:35:00.000-04:00

The NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament, which began in 1939, features the top 65 men's basketball teams in the country. The tournament bracket includes the champion of each Division I conference. The remaining slots are at-large berths and those teams are chosen by an NCAA selection committee.

The tournament is played over the course of twenty days in March. The final rounds of the tournament are referred to as the Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight and Final Four which leads to the championship game. The phrase "March Madness" was coined by Henry Porter in 1939 to describe an high school tournament in Illinois. Brent Musburger used the term during NCAA coverage in 1982 where it was quickly adopted.

Although the NCAA basketball tournament now determines the national champion, that was not always the case. Until the 1950's, the NIT was considered a more prestigious tournament than the NCAA basketball tournament, and teams often chose to enter the NIT and bypass the NCAA tourney.

The most points scored by one team during the tournament is 149 by Loyola Marymount against Michigan in 1990. The fewest points scored by one team is 20 by North Carolina in their 26-20 loss to Pittsburgh in 1941. The most points scored by an individual player is 61 points by Austin Carr of Notre Dame in 1970.

History of the NCAA Basketball Tournament
March Madness Basketball Facts
NCAA Basketball Trivia

St. Patrick

2010-03-17T09:54:00.002-04:00

St. Patrick was born at Kilpatrick, near Dumbarton, in Scotland in the year 387 and died at Saul, Downpatrick, Ireland on March 17, 493 according to the Catholic Encyclopedia.

When Patrick was sixteen, he was kidnapped by a group of Irish raiders that were attacking his family's estate and was held by them in Ireland for six years. During that time, he was a shepherd and became a devout Christian, hoping to convert the Irish people to Christianity.

Patrick escaped his captors and walked to the Irish coast, nearly 200 miles from where he was held. He said that he had a vision from God telling him to leave Ireland. Later, he said that he was told in a second vision to return to Ireland as a missionary.

Patrick had the idea of incorporating Irish traditions into Christianity to make the people more likely to accept them. According to the History Channel website, "He used bonfires to celebrate Easter since the Irish were used to honoring their gods with fire. He also superimposed a sun, a powerful Irish symbol, onto the Christian cross to create what is now called a Celtic cross, so that veneration of the symbol would seem more natural to the Irish."

Biography.com says that "There is also the legend that he drove the snake from Ireland, although scientists are now certain that there never were snakes on the island; some scholars have argued that the snakes were symbolic of Druids."

Educational Institutions

2010-03-16T08:43:00.003-04:00

The oldest school in the world is The King's School in Canterbury, England. It was founded in 597 by St Augustine of Canterbury. The Collegiate School in Manhattan, New York, was founded by Dutch settlers in 1628, and is the oldest school of any kind in North America.

The oldest continually operating university in the world is the University of Bologna in Bologna, Spain. It was founded about 1088 and the word 'universitas' was first used here.

There are several universities in the United States that claim to be the oldest. Harvard University calls itself "the oldest institution for higher learning in the United States" with the earliest date of 1636. The University of Pennsylvania claims the distinction of being the first institution to get the official designation of university on November 27, 1779. However, The College of William & Mary also claims to be the first college to become a university.

Complicating the situation even more, three institutions claim the title of oldest public university in the United States: the University of Georgia, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and The College of William & Mary.