March 17 (this Sunday) is Saint Patrick’s Day. It’s actually the anniversary of St. Patrick’s death (as it is for designated saints days). St. Patrick’s Day is a Catholic feast day celebrating the patron saint of Ireland. Born in Roman Britain in the late 4th century, he was kidnapped at the age of 16 and […]
THROWBACK THURSDAY: The History of New Year’s Eve
Civilizations around the world have been celebrating the start of each new year for at least four millennia. Today, most New Year’s festivities begin on December 31 (New Year’s Eve), the last day of the Gregorian calendar, and continue into the early hours of January 1 (New Year’s Day). Common traditions include attending parties, eating […]
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 […]
WEDNESDAY THANKSGIVING FACTS
Start a conversation with a relative you see only once or twice a year, and impress your family members and friends at the holiday table when you share some of these interesting facts about Thanksgiving ! 1. The first Thanksgiving was actually a three-day celebration. Governor William Bradford organized the feast, inviting the Plymouth colonists’ […]
WEDNESDAY WORKFACT: Remote Work
{excerpted from an article at work flexibility.org} Here are five fast facts about the history of remote work: 1. Working from home is an ancient concept. From hunter-gatherers to the first farmers, home was not only where the heart is it was where the work was done, too. People lived and worked in the same […]
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 […]
THROWBACK THURSDAY: 11 Jobs That No Longer Exist
Back in the day, there were jobs to do just about everything. You could be paid to reset the pins at a bowling alley or knock on people’s windows to wake them up. But inventions, technology, efficiency and knowledge have contributed to the demise of such jobs that used to be commonplace in the economy, […]
THROWBACK THURSDAY: U.S. Post Office Established
{excerpted from an article at The History Channel online} On July 26 in 1775, the U.S. postal system was established by the Second Continental Congress, with Benjamin Franklin as its first postmaster general. Franklin (1706-1790) put in place the foundation for many aspects of today’s mail system. In 1753, Franklin, who had been postmaster of […]
THROWBACK THURSDAY: First Women’s Rights Convention Held
{excerpted from an article on History.com} At the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, N.Y., a woman’s rights convention the first ever held in the United States convened with almost 200 women in attendance. The convention was organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, two abolitionists who met at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in […]
THROWBACK THURSDAY: Flag Day Established in 1777
History of Flag Day, June 14 During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress adopted a resolution stating that the flag of the United States be thirteen alternate stripes red and white and that the Union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation. The national flag, which became known […]