Archive for May 2021
The Real Thing: Coke Advertising
TweetShareShareI’ll confess. I’m deeply biased when it comes to my favorite carbonated beverage. If it’s not a Coca-Cola, it’s not a cola. I don’t know if I was born with this affection (some might call it an affliction), but here I am 58 years later still sipping Coke…albeit in more sugar-free varieties. My favorite is…
Read MoreThe Model T Defined an Era
TweetShareShareThe Model T was not Henry Ford’s first car, but it might’ve been his best. Also known as the “Tin Lizzie” or “Leaping Lena” or “Jitney” or “Flivver,” the Model T was the first truly affordable automobile. In 1999, it was honored as the “most influential car of the 20th century.” Manufactured between 1908 and…
Read MoreWhat Hath God Wrought? The Birth of Telecommunications
TweetShareShareSamuel Morse is where telecommunications all began. He invented the telegraph and created the Morse code. An 1810 graduate of Yale, Morse was also an accomplished artist who founded and presided over the National Academy of Design for two decades. But he’s best know for the telegraph. Initially, Morse had little interest–or financial backing–for his…
Read MoreHeeeeeere’s The End, Johnny!
TweetShareShareThe Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was the drug of choice for late night insomniacs for three decades.The program was ranked #12 on TV Guide’s 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. The undisputed King of Late Night talk show hosts, Johnny Carson (1925-2009) made his debut on October 1, 1962 at the NBC studio…
Read MoreWhy 2030 Will Look Nothing Like 1995
TweetShareShareIf you think the past quarter century has been transformative, buckle up buttercup. Yesterday (May 19, 2021) Microsoft announced that it’s scrapping the Internet browser Explorer–once the standard browser on most non-Apple computers. Born on August 16, 1995, Explorer is now done. It was just 25 years old. In the 2020s, we’ll see a flood…
Read MoreThe Race of the First Kentucky Derby
TweetShareShareToday is the 146th anniversary of America’s most storied horse race: the Kentucky Derby. The winning jockey was Oliver Lewis aboard a horse name Aristides. We have forgotten how black Americans, in the beginning, not only ran these thoroughbreds but also cared for them. In this first running of the Kentucky Derby, thirteen out of…
Read MoreAmerica Embraces Debt
TweetShareShare“Put it on my card!” It’s the American way. We buy now, pay later. The history for card purchases is nothing new. In fact, it was first described in an Edward Bellamy utopian work titled Looking Backward (1887). Bellamy employed the term “credit card” in his work as a way for a person to spend…
Read MoreThe Golden Spike Connects a Nation
TweetShareShareIt was one of the most significant transportation projects in U.S. history: the transcontinental railroad. Over six years (1863-1869) in the making, this railroad project joined the eastern states with the western frontier. The golden spike (or “The Last Spike”) was a ceremonial 17.6-karat gold spike driven by Leland Stanford to connect the rails of…
Read MoreThe Hindenburg Disaster
TweetShareShare Nobody knew it at the time, but the Hindenberg disaster was the beginning of the end for air travel by blimp. For decades, the rich used blimps to travel to new locales, still somewhat faster than the automobile of that day. But as the airplane–a new air tech–found its wings, old-school blimps no longer…
Read MoreThe Monkey Trial of the Century
TweetShareShare It was one of the most influential, transformative court cases of the 20th century. The Scopes Trial–or “Monkey Trial” as some called it–focused on a Tennessee high school teacher named John Scopes. He was charged with teaching evolution. The only problem? He didn’t know if he actually taught the origins theory. Nevertheless, to force…
Read More