Superman first appeared in Action Comics in June of 1938. Superman is widely considered to be an American cultural icon, and helped to create and establish the superhero genre within the American comic book industry. The Great Depression of the 1930s was a huge influence on early Superman stories, and Superman took on the role … Read more
Richard Felton Outcault is widely regarded to have invented the modern comic strip, and was born on January 14, 1863. Outcault’s “Yellow Kid’ is considered the first comic strip character, and appeared in Hearst’s New York Journal in 1896. The Kid was a bald, floppy-eared, buck-toothed, grinning kid in a huge yellow shirt. Barefoot and … Read more
Scott Adams gets his ideas for the Dilbert comic strip from a couple of different sources. Adams was first a corporate cog in both the banking and the utilities industries, so a lot of fodder for his strip comes from personal experience. But the “Dilbert” strip is known for soliciting ideas from its readership, and … Read more
Illinois Avenue is the most landed space in Monopoly. It is followed by B&O Railroad, Free Parking, Tennessee Avenue, New York Avenue, and Reading Railroad. Monopoly is a redesign of an earlier game “The Landlord’s Game”, which was first published by the Quaker and political activist Elizabeth Magie. Monopoly is also the most played commercial … Read more
During medieval times, most people could neither read nor write. Even those who could sign their names were required to follow it with an X, symbolizing the cross of St. Andrew, or the contract would be invalid. Those who couldn’t write their names still had to end the contract with the X to make it … Read more
The international Morse code distress signal is commonly known as SOS. Morse code is a series of electrical impulses that signify the letters of a structured message. SOS doesn’t stand for “save our ship” or “save our souls,” as has been commonly believed. First adopted by the German government in radio regulations, the letters SOS … Read more
An equestrian statue is a statue of a horse-mounted rider, and the term comes from the Latin word “eques”, meaning “knight” and a derivative of “equus”, which means “horse”. Statues of horse and rider are exclusively of monarchs or great warriors and are usually found in places of honor. The tradition is that if the … Read more
The word computer first appeared in the seventeenth century as the job title of a person who did calculations as an occupation. Most human computers weren’t paid very much, just like the Information Technology workers of today, even though their job descriptions are slightly different. Although slide rules were sometimes called computers, it wasn’t until … Read more
Before the electronic age, ticker tape was a thin paper ribbon of information fed mechanically to the brokers on Wall Street. At day’s end, floors were ankle deep with ticker tape. On October 28, 1886, the elaborate dedication of the Statue of Liberty was visible from the brokers’ windows, causing such excitement that they began … Read more
