January 5, 2009
Fair Deal
newly reelected president Harry S. Truman coined the phrase to refer to a 21-point program he had sent to Congress in 1945, focusing on civil rights and social welfare improvements (1949)
discovery by Wilhelm Roentgen was announced; though their exact nature was unknown to him (hence the name), the rays' discovery earned him the first Nobel Prize in Physics (1896)
Marketing students are always taught the genius of King Camp Gillette. He was the one who invented the safety razor with disposable blades. The razor (in this case, the "loss leader") was inexpensive; the profit was in the blades. This business idea is sometimes referred to as "freebie marketing." In 1903 — the first year the new razor was marketed — 51 razors and 168 blades were sold. Within a couple of years, Gillette had sold over 90,000 razors and some 12,000,000 blades. King Camp Gillette was born on this date in 1855.
January 4, 2009
Appendectomy
the first such surgical removal of the appendix was performed in Iowa (1885)
What animal migrates the farthest each year? How long did the Hundred Years War last? Who is the Heisman Trophy's only two-time winner? What is the longest movie ever made? When was the world's first postage stamp issued and what was it called? When Burger King opened its first branch in 1954, how much did a hamburger cost? What is the longest word in the English language that can be typed with the right hand only? Which US state was the first to ban slavery? In a non-leap year, what date falls in the exact middle of the year? What's special about January 4?
January 3, 2009
Spotlight of the Day: Alaska
Alaska is 50. The territory once known as Seward's Folly became the 49th and largest US state on this date in 1959. US Secretary of State William Seward bought the 587,875 square miles (1,522,595 sq km) in 1867 for $7.2 million. Here are some other tidbits of trivia about the state that makes up America's extreme northwest: the state motto is "North to the future"; its flower is the forget-me-not. The state bird is the willow ptarmigan; the fossil is the wooly mammoth; the insect is the four-spot skimmer dragonfly and the state sport is dog mushing. Alaska is an exclave of the US, separated from the other mainland states by British Columbia, Canada.
