Tuesday, January 03, 2012

100 Years Ago in 1912

  • The Girl Scouts of the USA was founded.
  • The Dixie Cup was invented.
  • The Googoo Cluster Candy Bar (marshmallow, caramel, and roasted peanuts covered with milk chocolate) was first introduced.
  • The luxury liner Titanic struck an iceberg and sank.
  • The U.S. government adopted an 8-hour work day.
  • A New York deli owner, Richard Hellman, first marketed his bottled mayonnaise.
  • Nabisco debuted the Oreo cookie.
  • Morton's Table Salt and Lorna Doone cookies were firs put on the market.
  • New Mexico was the 47th and Arizona was the 48th State admitted to the Union.
  • The first parachute jump from an airplane was made.
  • Massachusetts passed first US minimum wage law.
  • First radio communications from a naval aircraft to ship.
  • Lifesavers candy was designed to be a candy that would not melt in the heat of the summer.  Its inventor bought a pill-making machine, punched a hole in the middle, realized they looked like mini life preservers, and called them Life Savers.
  • The invention of the electric starter eliminated the need for the hand crank to start a car.
  • First eastbound US transcontinental flight landed in Jacksonville, Florida.
  • Discovery of the South Pole was announced.
  • Mrs. William Howard Taft planted the first cherry tree in Washington, D.C.
  • Arizona, Kansas and Wisconsin voted for women's legal rights.
I try to imagine what life was like 100 years ago when there were no such things as.....

Zippers, band-aids, frozen foods, television, penicillin, electric shavers, scotch tape, ballpoint pens, aerosol spray cans, microwave ovens, Velcro, cake mixes, credit cards, super glue, soft drinks, calculators, pop-top cans, post-it notes, video games,  roller blades, contact lenses, diet soft drinks, Doppler radar to check the weather, answering machines, perma-press clothes, DNA, computers, and Valium.

This sunny January morning I sit here, sipping coffee and trying to picture life 100 years in the future.  Of course, I won't be here, but perhaps the average mind doesn't have the capacity to imagine the leaps technology will take.  It's best to be grateful for the every-day conveniences that people in 1912 couldn't have imagined us having.