My favorite law is the Law of Unintended Consequences. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, as today, private companies were doing a brisk business delivering packages. The Post Office’s answer to this competition was Parcel Post, shipping packages through the mail, which began on January 1, 1913. It was a major innovation. Now almost
I’ve found another unknown chapter in the sordid U.S. history of systemic racism — in the 1830s until the Civil War, neither runaway slaves nor free Blacks were safe in New York City. This story actually begins with the Constitution. Article IV Section 2 contains the (now obsolete) “Fugitive Slave Clause” — “No Person held
We know there were no women in the Continental Congress. And yet, when the Declaration of Independence was printed with the signatures (actually the second printing), at the very bottom is the line “Baltimore, in Maryland: Printed by Mary Katharine Goddard”. How did that happen? Things were not going well for the rebellion in the
Yesterday, September 28, was the the anniversary of the 1918 parade that turned the city of Philadelphia into a Spanish flu hotspot. “Spanish flu” is a misnomer. The disease probably came from a Midwestern farm animal or bird. The culprit was the H1N1 virus, which moved through various animal populations, then mutated into a strain
How quickly the world changes! At one time, organ transplantation was just a dream. Yet, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), in calendar year 2019 there were 39,719 total transplants in the United States, up 8.7 percent from 2018 (https://unos.org/data/transplant-trends/). Of these, 3552 were heart transplants. The first heart transplant was performed
On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued one of the most important documents in U.S. history — the Emancipation Proclamation, except it was preliminary. This first issuance was meant as a warning: if the Confederate states did not end their rebellion by January 1st, 1863, then his Proclamation would take effect for real. Unfortunately,
Monday, August 31, was the 100th anniversary of the first radio news program, a milestone worth commemorating in this election year. One hundred years ago, the users of radio were hobbyists. In Detroit, home of the Scripps newspaper family’s The Detroit News, the company faced a dilemma. Radio was a threat to newspapers, yet it was
I’m sure you know Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press with moveable type in Mainz, Germany in the 1450s. But who brought the printing press to England? Credit is given to William Caxton, who was born sometime between 1415 and 1424, most likely in Kent, England. His career path was set when he was apprenticed
I’m sure you know of Betsy Ross, credited with making the first U.S. flag (https://www.ushistory.org/betsy/) and you may have heard about Molly Pitcher and the Battle of Monmouth (https://www.ushistory.org/Valleyforge/youasked/070.htm), but what else do you know about women and the Revolutionary War? In another example of history not making it into most history books, women played
I know that’s an old joke, but I thought of it while reading about how August 8 was the 135th anniversary of Ulysses S. Grant’s funeral. With all the talk about the statues of Confederate generals, I thought General Grant should have equal time. According to the print edition of The Writer’s Almanac (http://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/twa-the-writers-almanac-for-august-8-2020/): His
