Napoleon III became Emperor in 1852 when the city of Paris was heavily polluted. Parisians were emptying sewage and waste into the streets and into the Seine River. There were no sewers. In 1832 there had been a massive cholera epidemic in which 20,000 residents died. A new city emerged
June 16 The first roller coaster in America opens at Coney Island, in Brooklyn, N.Y.. Its speed is approximately six miles per hour and cost a nickel to ride. – 1884. When daylight breaks, survivors of a tsunami in Japan find that more than 20,000 of their friends and family
Thoughts of Summer and vacations brought to what remains of my mind, an unplanned adventure that took place on a teenage Route 66 road trip to California with a couple of friends. When we drove through Arizona we saw a sign for the Meteor Crater. It was a slight diversion,
Costumed reenactors are planning a May-September 2023 celebration of the 350th anniversary of the 1673 expedition by Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette.
June 9 With a spectacular victory at the Belmont Stakes, Secretariat becomes the first horse since Citation in 1948 to win America’s coveted Triple Crown (the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes). In one of the finest performances in racing history, Secretariat, ridden by Ron Turcotte, completed
By R. Mel DormerAurora, Ill. Charles Coddington’s recent article on Aurora old-timers memories (May 19: Aurora old-timers know special sites of past places) stirred a few memories for me of my near East Side Aurora neighborhood, the South Broadway/North Avenue area. • Our ever-present mail carrier, Benny, was met at
June 2 Twenty-six journeymen printers in Philadelphia stage the trade’s first strike in America over wages: A cut in their $6. weekly pay. – 1786. In an event that is generally regarded as marking the end of the U.S. Civil War, Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of Confederate forces
In the Summer this year the Tanner House Museum in Aurora will be open to the public Sunday afternoons beginning May 29. The season will run through September 4. Hours will be 1 p.m to 4 p.m.. Visitors may come at any time during those hours. Reservations will not be
May 26 The first copies of the classic vampire novel, Dracula, by Irish writer Bram Stoker, appear in London bookshops on this day. – 1897. One hundred thousand steel workers and miners in mines owned by steel companies strike in seven states. The Memorial Day Massacre, in which 10 strikers
May 19 Explosion in Coal Creek, Tenn. kills 184 miners. – 1902. Thirty-one dockworkers are killed, 350 workers and others are injured, when four barges carrying 467 tons of ammunition blow up at South Amboy, N.J.. They were transporting mines that had been deemed unsafe by the Army and were
May 12 The dead body of aviation hero Charles Lindbergh’s baby is found more than two months after he was kidnapped from his family’s Hopewell, N.J., mansion. Lindbergh, who became the first worldwide celebrity five years earlier when he flew The Spirit of St. Louis across the Atlantic Ocean, and
May 5 Lumber strike begins in Pacific Northwest, will involve 40,000 workers by the time victory is achieved after 13 weeks: Union recognition, a 50¢ per hour minimum wage and an eight-hour day. – 1937. In Lakeview, Ore., Mrs. Elsie Mitchell and five neighborhood children are killed while attempting to
April 28 Coal mine collapses at Eccles, W.Va., and kills 181 workers. – 1914. One-hundred nineteen die in Benwood, W.Va. coal mine disaster. – 1924. Boxing champion Muhammad Ali refuses to be inducted into the U.S. Army and is immediately stripped of his heavyweight title. Ali, a Muslim, cited religious
April 21 According to tradition, April 21, 753 B.C., Romulus and his twin brother, Remus, found Rome on the site where they were suckled by a she-wolf as orphaned infants. Actually, the Romulus and Remus myth originated some time in the Fourth Century B.C., and the exact date of Rome’s
April 14 U.S. president Abraham Lincoln is shot at a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his army, to effectively end the American Civil War. – 1865. In what came to be known as Black Sunday,
April 7 Rwandan armed forces kill 10 Belgian peacekeeping officers in a successful effort to discourage international intervention in the genocide that had begun only hours earlier. In approximately three months, the Hutu extremists who controlled Rwanda brutally murdered an estimated 500,000 to one million innocent civilian Tutsis and moderate
Seats remain for the Little White School Museum’s first historic Spring bus tour of Oswego. Sunday, April 10, for two “Industrial History bus tours of Oswego. Pre-registration, $5 per person for participants age 16 and older, is required by visiting the Oswegoland Park District’s web site at www.oswegolandparkdistrict.org or calling
March 31 President Martin Van Buren issues a broadly-applicable executive order granting the 10-hour day to all government employees engaged in manual labor. – 1840. The Eiffel Tower is dedicated in Paris in a ceremony presided over by Gustave Eiffel, the tower’s designer, and attended by Pierre Tirard, French prime
March 24 Groundbreaking on the first section of the New York City subway system, from City Hall to the Bronx: According to The New York Times, the following was a worker’s review of the digging style of the well-dressed Subway Commissioners: “I wouldn’t give th’ Commish’ners foive cents a day
March 17 In New York City, the first parade honoring the Catholic feast day of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is held by Irish soldiers serving in the British army. – 1762. The leadership of the American Federation of Labor selects the carpenters union to lead the eight-hour
