Come Back to the FIVE & DIME - It Happened ToDay

Come Back to the "FIVE & DIME"

February 22, 1879 - First Woolworth's 5¢ Store Opens Its Doors

On this day in 1879, Frank Winfield Woolworth opened his first Woolworth store in Utica, New York. The store offered a wide array of items ranging from household utensils to beauty products for five cents or less.

Though the Utica store was not successful, Woolworth opened another store in Lancaster, Pennsylvania that proved to be a stunning success with its expanded price scale of 10¢ or less.

These "Five & Dime" stores proliferated quickly across the country and soon Woolworth was so successful that he was able to merge and acquire four of his competitors to continue the expansion of his retail empire.

Quote for ToDay:
"Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll buy a funny hat. Talk to a hungry man about fish, and you're a consultant." - Dogbert of the Dilbert cartoons by Scott Adams

Ansel Adams - It Happened ToDay

Ansel Adams - Conservationist, Pianist, and Photographer

February 20, 1902 - Ansel Adams Born on This Day

Ansel Adams, a pioneer in photography, was born on this day in 1902. When Ansel was 14 year old, he first visited Yosemite National Park with his family and discovered his innate passion and talent for photography. Adams would later collaborate with Fred Archer in creating the "Zone" system for Black & White photography.

However, Adams began his profession career as a concert pianist and did not turn to photography as career until his late twenties. He is best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, particularly scenes in the National Parks such as - El Capitan and Moon Over Half Dome from Yosemite.

After his death in 1984, a mountain in Yosemite National Park and a California Wilderness Area would be named in his honor to commemorate his lifelong contributions to the Parks system and conservation.

Quote for ToDay:
"Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy." - Nora Ephron

Mother Of Invention - It Happened ToDay

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

February 11, 1847 - Thomas Alva Edison - the Wizard of Menlo Park - was born on this day.

If necessity is the mother of invention, Thomas Edison may not have been the father, but he was most definitely one of her consorts. Edison was one of the most prolific inventors in history and received over 1000 major patents for his inventions. The inventor and entrepreneur was born on this day in 1847.

Edison's inventions and business acumen greatly influenced the telephony and entertainment industries, besides his best known creation - the incandescent light bulb. Edison's earliest inventions were related to the telegraph and stock-ticker, and he made many improvements to his contemporary Alexander Graham Bell's telephone. While creating a better speaker for the phone, he was struck with the idea of capturing sound and being able to replay it. This lead to the creation of the phonograph 1878. The Kinetoscope, a cabinet that displayed moving pictures from a reel of film, and the Kinetophone which incorporated a phonograph to replay sound with the Kinetoscope's pictures would be unveiled in 1894 to display pictures taken with special camera Edison had created 1889, and the motion pictures industry was born.

Edison, the light bulb, and electricity are forever joined at the hip. While both the generation of electricity and the arc-light had been previously invented by others, neither were practical for everyday consumer use. The generating dynamos of the day were terribly inefficient and expensive to operate, and the open arc of electricity of the arc-light created a luminous glare too intense for general lighting purposes. Many other inventors were trying to create a light bulb for practical use in homes and businesses. However it was Edison that received the patent for the carbonized filament and brought the incandescent light bulb to the public. Legend has it that someone boasted that Edison had failed over 2000 times in creating the light bulb, to which Edison replied that he did not fail, but had discovered 2000 ways not to make a light bulb!

Edison was a truly successful inventor because he was also a savvy businessman who realized early on that his inventions would need both marketplaces and manufacturing plants. He knew light bulbs would be useless without a consistent and affordable electric supply, so he made innovations to the dynamo and in 1882 built the Pearl Street generating station and created the first public electric utility in Manhattan.

Quote for ToDay:
" Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration." - Thomas Alva Edison

No Strings Attached! - It Happened ToDay

No Strings Attached

February 7, 1984 - First Tetherless Walk In Space.

Life imitated art, or at least the comics, as NASA took another step towards the Buck Rogers image of mobility in outer space.

Bruce McCandless, a captain of the United States Navy, became the first person to fly freely in space on this day in 1984.

Captain McCandless had designed a rocket-pack that allowed him to fly over 100 yards away from the Challenger space shuttle. The rocket-pack apparatus powered McCandless at speeds as high as 17,000 miles per hour to keep up with the orbiting shuttle. His untethered space-walk lasted an hour and a half before he returned to the spacecraft.

Quote for ToDay:
"Dance like it hurts,
Love like you need money,
Work when people are watching."
- Scott Adams - The Way of the Weasel

Don't Walk! - It Happened ToDay

Don't Walk!

February 5, 1952 - The First "Don't Walk" signs appeared in Manhattan.

Busy Manhattan streets first displayed "Don't Walk" signs on this day in 1952. In response to a rapidly increasing number of pedestrian fatalities, New York City installed its first automatic "Don't Walk" signs throughout the Manhattan burrow. However, after fifty years of service, the city switched most of the signs from "Walk/Don't Walk" to the international symbols of a Walking Person and the Upheld Orange Hand. The process of changing all eighty-five-thousand signs began in 2000, at a cost of $28.2 million.

Quote for ToDay:
"Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein

Your Vote Don't Count! - It Happened ToDay

Your Vote Don't Count!

February 4, 1789 - The Electoral College Unanimously Selects George Washington as First President of the United States.

On this day in 1789, the Electoral College unanimously elected George Washington as the first president of the United States; Washington remains the only president to have ever received 100% of the electoral votes.

As many of us are caught up in this year's campaign ritual, we should note that Washington was elected by a "college of electors" (the precise term "Electoral College" did not come about until the 1840's) as stipulated in Article II of the U.S. Constitution, not by a "popular" vote. It does not matter who you vote for this November for president, your vote don't count! No one has ever been elected to the office of President of the United States by a popular vote. The president and vice president will be chosen in December by the majority vote of only 538 people - the Electors of the Electoral College. Your November vote is actually to select a slate of electors for your state.

There is no "physical" place or building called the Electoral College where the electors gather to vote, rather it is a conceptualization of the same-day meetings of state electors convening in their respective state capitols. The electoral college never truly meets as one body. The constitutional theory is that the Congress is elected by the people, while the President and Vice President are elected by the states. Each state is allotted a minimum of three electors - one for each senator along with one for each congressional representative - California with 55 has the most and several states plus the District of Columbia have only 3. Each elector has two votes, one each for president and vice president. The college is convened on the first Monday after the second Tuesday of December.

With the exception of Maine and Nebraska, who proportion their electors, all the other states pledge their electors in a winner-take-all format based on the popular vote in the state. However, a "pledged" electoral vote is by no means a guaranteed vote for the party's candidate. Throughout our election history "faithless electors" have abounded. A faithless elector is one who casts an electoral vote for someone other than whom they have pledged to elect, or who refuses to vote for any candidate at all. On 158 occasions electors have not cast their votes for the president or vice president candidate to whom they were pledged. 71 times the candidate had died before the college convened, as was the case in 1872 with Horace Greeley and in 1912 with Sherman. The remaining faithless electors abandoned their pledges completely and cast rogue votes for their personal interest. All the states has laws governing faithless electors and rogue voting, but they are rarely enforced, actions are generally taken by the state and national political parties against the faithless electors.

If the Electoral College fails to vote a majority of at least 270 votes to one candidate, the U.S. House of Representatives is required to go into session immediately to vote for president and the Senate to vote for vice president. To date, the House has twice selected the president - 1801 and 1825 - and the Senate chose the vice president in 1837.

Three times in American history, the elections of 1876, 1888, and 2000, the candidate receiving an aggregate plurality of the popular vote did not become president and his opponent was elected by the Electoral College. Here are some recent quirks of rogue Electoral College voting:

• In the 1960 election, Harry F. Byrd (Democrat) did not run for President but received fifteen electoral votes from three states. All eight of Mississippi's electors voted for Byrd as President and Strom Thurmond as Vice President; six of Alabama's electors did likewise, while one faithless Republican elector from Oklahoma cast his votes for Byrd as President and for Barry Goldwater as Vice President.
• In the 1968 election, Alabama Governor George Wallace (American Independent Party) won five states, taking forty-six electoral votes.
• In the 1992 election, Reform Party candidate Ross Perot took nearly 19% of the popular vote at national level, but he won no states and, thus, received no electoral votes.

I'm not going to get into the merits, or lack thereof, of the Electoral College in this presentation. I'm just giving you the facts, but please feel free to discuss the issue.

Quote for ToDay:
"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" - H. M. Warner, founder of Warner Brothers, in 1927

Did Phil See His Shadow? - It Happened ToDay

Did Phil See His Shadow?

February 2nd - Imbolc, Candlemas, and in North America - Groundhog Day.

As the light grows longer
The cold grows stronger
If Candlemas be fair and bright
Winter will have another flight
If Candlemas be cloud and snow
Winter will be gone and not come again
A farmer should on Candlemas day
Have half his corn and half his hay
On Candlemas day if thorns hang a drop
You can be sure of a good pea crop
- traditional Scottish poem

We should really begin with the month "February", whose name comes from the ancient Latin februum which means purification and the Roman purification ritual Februa held on February 15th. Traditional gods associated with this time of year center on craftsmanship and water, particularly water for purification, hence Aquarius - the Water Bearer - is the season's zodiac sign. Hephaestus from the Greek pantheon is a patron of smiths, artisans, and sculptors; and Mimir in Norse legend; and in many pagan tales, it is at this time the god releases the goddess so she can bring fertility to the Earth.

From Celtic traditions we have Imbolc and St. Brighid, and later Candlemas, all embracing the goddess and celebrate the purification of the virgin. In ancient Scotland, Ireland and Wales, Imbolc was also a time of weather prognostication, and the tradition of watching serpents or badgers to see if they would emerge from their winter burrows is perhaps a precursor to the North American Groundhog Day.

The earliest known reference to Groundhog Day comes from James Morris' diary entry mentioned in The Folklore of American Holidays - by H. Cohen and T.P. Coffin - the Morgantown, Pennsylvania storekeeper wrote:

"Feb. 4, 1841 Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate."

February 2, 1887 was the beginning of celebrating Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, PA.


Punxsutawney Phil predicted an early Spring in 2007...like many human weather forecasters, he was wrong. You can click on the link to find out Phil's forecast for 2008...but remember, he's just a weather forecaster, check with your local gods and goddesses for purification!

from Grounghog.Org

Quote for ToDay:
"Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better." - George Santayana - philosopher, poet, and cultural critic

Here Comes the Judge - It Happened ToDay

Here Comes the Judges

February 1, 1790 - The U.S. Supreme Court convened for the first time.

On this day in 1790, the U.S. Supreme Court convened for the first time in New York City. Article Three of the United States Constitution establishes this third branch of our government - the judicial branch. The United States Supreme Court is granted the power to render rulings on constitutional issues, along with military matters.

John Jay was appointed by President George Washington as the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court along with five Associate Justices - James Wilson, William Cushing, John Blair, John Rutledge, and James Iredell. The Supreme Court currently consists of nine Justices, but has had as few as five Justices and up to ten. The Circuit Judges Act of 1869 would set the number of Justices at nine. Supreme Court Justices are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. The Justices serve for life and can be removed only by resignation or by impeachment and subsequent conviction of a crime.

The Supreme Court is the only court established by the United States Constitution, all other federal courts are created by acts of the U.S. Congress and state courts through state constitutions and legislation.

Quote for ToDay:
"We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say 'It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.' Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes." - Fred Rogers (1928-2003) best known for "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" TV series - minister, educator, and advocate of children.