On May 6, 1889 the Paris Exposition opened. Its headlining act? A nifty 984′ metal tower that had just been completed. And that tower (the one we know as the Eiffel Tower) was the world’s tallest building until New York’s Chrysler Building stole its thunder in 1930. We bring this up not because we think…
Guten Morgen! We’ll hope you’ll excuse the Teutonic outburst, but we saw this Plott Hound and just couldn’t help ourselves. You can find Lyric on page 79 of this week’s issue; she’s Griffin Pond Animal Shelter‘s featured pet of the week. We hadn’t seen this particular type of dog featured before, and a little research…
Because we sell anything and everything, we often get ads for the interesting, the unusual and the extremely specialized. One of the best parts of working here is that we learn so much about so many different things. Here’s where we feature an ad that made us sit up and take notice. We’re making a…
On April 25, 1903, New York became the first state to issue automobile license plates. Don’t let that little bit of trivia mislead you, though: while the first plates were issued 110 years ago today, they weren’t the first required ones. Starting in 1901, Massachusetts required that all vehicles carry identification plates; the difference, however,…
On this day in 1912, the RMS Titanic sunk, and, well, the rest is history. Here’s some information you The Titanic was famously equipped. But did you know that the ill-fated ship even had its own newspaper? It was called The Atlantic Daily Bulletin. While the ship might’ve cornered the market on journalism, it certainly…
Today’s a great day to give your email’s spam filter its due props: on April 12, 1994, the fist incident of mass commercial spamming occurred. We’re not talking green eggs & spam here, but rather the now-infamous Green Card Spam; that first mass emailed solicitation was from a pair of immigration lawyers & carried “Green…
48 years ago today, the world’s largest air conditioned room (as it was called by The New York Times) was put into use for the first time. Players experimented with the use of orange balls for the sake of visibility. And there was a President among the spectators. On April 9, 1965, the Astrodome opened,…
Ale. Lager. Porter. Stout. Light or dark, hoppy or malty. How do you like your brew? If you’re American, chances are that you like it cold. And we’ve got you covered! Beer’s got a very solid spot in American history. According to a Mayflower passenger’s diary, the pilgrims chose to land at what later became…
Can we get a moment of silence in remembrance of the iron Monopoly token? (insert moment of silence here) As you may have read, Hasbro is retiring the iron after a heated online election, and it’s being replaced with a cat token. We’re all for cats, but we can’t help but mourn the noble iron…