| At the opening session of the open court, the Reverend Thomas Hooker preached a powerful sermon on the text that "the foundation of authority is laid in the free consent of the people." The constitution composed was adopted by the freemen of the three towns assembled at Hartford, and is usually named The Fundamental Orders. Nowhere in this great document is there a reference to "our dread Sovereign" or "our gracious Lord the King," — nor to any government or power outside of Connecticut itself. It did not even limit the vote to members of Puritan congregations. In all history this is the first written constitution which created a government, and it is easily seen to be the prototype of our Federal Constitution, adopted exactly one hundred and fifty years later. |
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| The clarinet's predecessor was the chalumeau--the first true single reed instrument. It appeared in the late 1600's and wasn't very flexible and had a range of about 1.5 octaves. Johann Christoph Denner (Nuremburg) and his son, Jacob are attributed to innovating the speaker key which gave the clarinet a larger register. The clarinet overblows at the 12th, the other woodwind instruments overblow at the octave. So, when you play with the thumb and first three fingers of the left hand without the speaker key, you sound the note C. When you add the speaker key, you do not get a C an octave higher, you sound a G, which is the interval of a twelfth. Because of his improvements of the chalumeau J C Denner is said to be the inventor of the clarinet. |
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| Congress, with nine states represented, ratifies the treaty of peace, known also as the Treaty of Paris. New Jersey and New Hampshire have one delegate present. New York and Georgia are unrepresented. Three copies are rushed by separate couriers to Paris. |
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| The muskets were to be copies of the 1763 French Charleville model, of which the government gave 2 or 3 to each contractor to follow. The army was interested in guns that could be repaired easily after a battle to prepare for the next day’s fighting. Interchangeability might have been a by-product of Whitney’s ideal factory; it was certainly not his single goal. He was more interested in manufacturing the weapons quickly using unskilled labor. |
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| The first pulp mill on the North American Continent was built in Germantown, Pa., in 1690 by William Rittenhouse following techniques developed in Europe. He constructed his mill near the city center where an ample supply of rags was always available for reduction to pulp and then pressed into paper. By 1810 some 185 mills were operating in the new United States. With so many mills in production, the supply of rags became scarce, the search was on for new raw materials. Many were tried and still used today, including tree bark, bagasse (sugarcane waste), straw, and cornstalks. It wasn’t until the introduction of mechanical wood grinders and new technology developed in England that ground wood pulp was used in paper production. The first US newspaper to be printed on paper made from ground wood pulp was the Boston Weekly Journal on January 14, 1863. |
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| In 1873, John Wesley Hyatt invented and registered the name "celluloid." What he had invented was not exactly a new combination of chemicals, but rather a new way of molding the plastic and making it stay hard. For some years, Hyatt used celluloid only for making solid objects. During this time, the Hyatts were also issued a patent for the first injection molding machine for plastics. In 1873 the word Celluloid was registered as the pyroxylin plastics official trade name. |
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| De Forest is generally thought of as the "Father of Radio". The Audion tube allowed amplification which made Radio transmission more practical for voice and music. |  |
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| Henry Ford's engineers perfected the assembly line concept by 1913, and Ford was the first to build entire factories around the concept. Assembly line was an evolution at Ford by trial and error not any single event. It was a team effort consisting primarily of Peter E. Martin, Charles E. Sorensen, C.Harold Wills, Clarence W. Avery and Charles Lewis. The new continuous motion method reduced assembly time of a car from over 12 hours to 93 minutes. They added the conveyer belt, and production by 1916 made over 700,000 model T's --twice the output of all competitors combined. The increased efficiency allowed Ford to cut prices in half, and in half again, selling the car for $360 in 1916, and $290 by 1924. |
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| Harry Hemstead sold the team to McGraw, Stoneham, and McQuade, who let McGraw control the on-field operation. The Giants dominated the National League in 30 years under McGraw, winning ten pennants and finishing second 11 times. The 1905, 1921, and 1922 teams won World Championships. |  |
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| Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis gave free agency to 91 Detroit Tigers players and farm hands. Citing cover-ups of the movement of players within its organization, Landis hands freedom to Roy Cullenbine, Benny McCoy, Lloyd Dietz, and Steve Rachunokfrom the parent roster and orders $47,250 paid as compensation to 14 players. Johnny Sain is one of 23 players who will later make it to the major leagues. Landis's edict also nullifies a deal that would have brought Philadelphia Athletics’ Wally Moses to the Tigers. |
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| In June of 1945 they participated in an eight-week USO performing for thousands of servicemen. They had been hoping to do such a tour since the war started in order to give back to the soldiers that were fighting. Back in the states they recorded “I Can Dream, Can’t I?” which is recognized as one of the most artistic, professional and memorable ballads ever recorded. It was No. 1 on the Billboard charts and remained in the top 10 for 20 consecutive weeks. |
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| "Tennessee Waltz" was written by Redd Stewart and Pee Wee King in 1947 and was originally a hit for Pee Wee King in 1948. Patti Page's recording is the best known version of this song, selling 10 million copies, the largest selling record by a female artist in recording history. It was concurrently #1 on the pop, country and R&B charts, a feat no other artist in recording history can claim. |  |
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| On this cold East Coast morning at 7 a.m., NBC-TV opened the the first "Today" show broadcast with a shot of Dave Garroway looking outside through the ‘Window on the World’ in New York City. The program was the first that featured his signature sign-off: hand raised, uttering one word, “Peace.” Also featured Jack Lescoulie as co-host. The show would be a radical departure from the TV industry's accepted programming; a news, features, special events program that would run in the early morning. |
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| In the early 1950's, NBC was planning a network TV show hosted by Dave Garroway. Garroway's charm, easy conversational style and and a chimpanzee side-kick named J. Fred Muggs quickly became NBC's answer to wake up even the grouchiest of viewers to the concept of morning television. On January 14, 1952, the soft-spoken gentleman with a bow tie who could talk for hours about anything from gadgets, vintage cars to jazz, greeted televisions viewers across the country for the first time on a new show called "Today." |
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| More than any other performer - save, perhaps, Elvis Presley, Little Richard blew the lid off the Fifties, laying the foundation for rock and roll with his explosive music and charismatic persona. On record, he made spine-tingling rock and roll. His frantically charged piano playing and raspy, shouted vocals on such classics as "Tutti Frutti," "Long Tall Sally" and "Good Golly, Miss Molly" defined the dynamic sound of rock and roll. |
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| "Memories Are Made of This" is from the film “The Seven Hills Of Rome” in which it was sung by Mario Lanza. It was written by Terry Gilkyson (who previously had performed with the legendary Folk group The Weavers in the early 1950s), Richard Dehr and Frank Miller in 1955. |  |
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| Kaempfert's recording of his tune, "Wonderland By Night" reached #1 in the US charts in 1961, and he decided to concentrate on his orchestra and recordings. Between 1959 and 1973, Kaempfert released over 30 albums for Decca. |  |
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| The Monkees' second single, after "Last Train To Clarksville," was released during the first season of their TV show. The Monkees sang on this, but did not play any instruments. The producers used session musicians because they were not convinced The Monkees could play like a real band. This became a huge point of contention, as the group fought to play their own songs. |  |
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| Sonny and Cher proved to be one of the magical musical combinations of the mid '60s and one of the better rock-influenced acts of the early '70. Their biggest success was as a duet on Atco, with "I Got You Babe" and "The Beat Goes On." |  |
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| Ted Turner's career in baseball, marked with controversy but little on-field success, began with his 1976 purchase of the Braves, which kept the team in Atlanta. His creation of the first superstation, TBS, distributed Braves games to cable systems nationwide and propelled the Braves to a self-proclaimed position as America's Team. |  |
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| "Baby Come Back" was written by Peter Beckett and J. C. Crowley, the two founders of Player. Beckett was the lead singer and guitarist. After the demise of Player, Beckett joined Australia's Little river Band, who included this on a live album. Beckett also wrote "Twist of Fate" for Olivia Newton-John and "After All This Time" for Chicago. |  |
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| In 1976 the King center strengthened its alliance with unions by focusing MLK birthday celebrations on the demand for full employment--a centerpiece of the AFL-CIO's legislative agenda. Thousands of people joined that year's King day march in Atlanta, with union members as the largest contingent. The event solidified a coalition that helped elect Jimmy Carter President that year. In exchange, President Carter endorsed the national holiday bill and ordered a commemorative stamp to honor King's fiftieth birthday in 1979. |
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| The Blues Brothers began life as an act on Saturday Night Live, where Aykroyd and Belushi would cover old soul records, dressed in black suits, black hats, white shirts and black ties. In the film version they get to play soul singers who receive rapturous applause, and share a film with some of the greats, like James Brown, Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles. |  |
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| Shakuntala Devi holds an undisputed place in the Guinness Book of Records for multiplying in 1980 two randomly chosen 13-digit numbers and giving the correct answer in 28 seconds.In 1977 she won a standing ovation from an audience of mathematicians when she extracted the 23rd root of a 201-digit number. |  |
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| “Say Say Say" was a 1983hit single for Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, produced by George Martin. It was taken from McCartney's Pipes of Peace album, and was the second successful duet by McCartney and Jackson, the first being "The Girl Is Mine." |  |
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| “Don't Be Cruel,” was a state-of-the-art, star-making affair. Released in the summer of 1988, the record produced Brown's first pop Top Ten hit in the title track, but really started to take off when the driving statement of purpose "My Prerogative" went all the way to number one toward the end of the year. |  |
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| "The Simpsons," created by cartoonist Matt Groening (and named for the members of his immediate family except for Bart, which is an anagram for Brat), first appeared in 1987 as a series of 30-second spots produced for the Emmy Award-winning variety series The Tracey Ullman Show. "The Simpsons" premiered as a half-hour comedy series January 14, 1990. Acclaimed by critics and fans alike as one of television's truest and most hilarious portraits of the American family, the series received the 1990, 1991, 1995 and 1997 Emmy Awards for Outstanding Animated Program. |
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