February 21 marks the 88th anniversary of “plop, plop, fizz, fizz” – the debut of America’s most popular over-the-counter relief for upset stomach, acid indigestion, heartburn, headache and more. The Alka-Seltzer story began in the winter of 1928, when Hub Beardsley, president of the Dr. Miles Laboratories, visited the offices of a local newspaper in […]
THROWBACK THURSDAY: Should We Bring Back These Old-School Office Practices?
{excerpted from an article in the Harvard Business Review online} Progress is good, and the business community has made real advances over the last 50-60 years. But are there elements of twentieth-century business culture that may be worth preserving? Beyond reading books and handwriting notes, what old school office habits might be worth resurrecting? […]
THROWBACK THURSDAY: Chicago Radio Station WFMT Debuts
On December 13, 1951, radio station WFMT-FM made its debut on Chicago’s airwaves. Founders Bernie and Rita Jacobs vision was to create a station they themselves could enjoy, respect, and share with others. While virtually every other radio station in the Chicago market has changed format or call letters, WFMT has remained dedicated to presenting […]
THROWBACK THURSDAY: History of Mrs. Claus
The first mention of Mrs. Claus appears in the 1849 short story A Christmas Legend by missionary James Rees, in which a couple disguise themselves, angel-like, as travelers, and seek shelter with a family. As it turns out, the two strangers are not the Clauses at all, but long-lost family members in double disguise. […]
THROWBACK THURSDAY: Origins of Some Holiday Traditions
Courtesy of Mental Floss online HANGING STOCKINGS While there’s no official record of why we hang socks for Santa, one of the most plausible explanations is that it’s a variation on the old tradition of leaving out shoes with hay inside them on December 5, the eve of St. Nicholas’s feast day. Lucky children would […]
THROWBACK THURSDAY: Ford Begins Production of Model A
On November 1, 1927, Ford Motor Company began production of the Model A, its first new model in decades. On the day the Model A was offered for sale in early December of that same year, after a nationwide advertising blitz, 50,000 cash deposits were received in NYC alone and mob scenes took place at […]
THROWBACK THURSDAY: Saturday Night Live Debuts
{excerpted from History online} Saturday Night Live (SNL), representing a new kind of comedic late-night variety show, debuted on NBC on October 11, 1975 starring then relatively unknown comedians Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin and Laraine Newman. It would go on to become the longest-running, highest-rated show on […]
THROWBACK THURSDAY: World’s Largest Coffee Break
History’s largest coffee break occurred on this day on Coffee Morning in 1996 when 513,569 people drank coffee simultaneously in 14,652 groups throughout the United Kingdom. The event raised $28.46 million for the Macmillan Cancer Support charity. The first ever Coffee Morning happened in 1990. It was a rather small affair with a simple idea: […]
THROWBACK THURSDAY: History of Pawnbrokering
Few institutions exist for 400 years. And yet, throughout 2018, the city of Brussels is celebrating Mount of Piety’s 400th anniversary, an institutional pawnbroker run as a charity in Europe from Renaissance times till today. This organization is also referred as Monte di Pietà (Italian), Mont-de-Pi “t ” (French) or Monte de Piedad (Spanish). On […]
THROWBACK THURSDAY: First Enactment of Minimum Wage & More
On August 23…. In 1630, the first minimum wage – in fact, the first labor law of any kind in Colonial America – was passed in the Massachusetts Bay Colony when Gov. John Winthrop and his court of assistants decreed that construction workers should be paid at the rate of one shilling a day, or […]