Professor Walter's History Lessons

40 Years Ago Yesterday, The World Chaged with the Word "lo"

On October 19th, 1969 the message "lo" traveled 400 miles between the University of California and Stanford Research Institute.  The complete intended message was "login", but the system crashed.  What was so amazing about this message was that it was the first successful transmission of a message over a packet switched network known as the U.S. Department of Defense's ARPANET.  This was the foundation of the Internet and the first message ever sent on it.

-Professor (Uncle) Walter

The Only Time A Candidate Died During The Electoral Process

In 1872 incumbent president Ulysses S. Grant, Radical Republican, was running against Horace Greeley, Liberal Republican.  The election proceeded and the votes were cast.  The popular count was complete with Grant in the lead by a solid amount, but the electoral votes had not been cast.  Before the electoral process was completed Greeley's wife passed away.  Greeley descended into madness and died shortly thereafter before the electoral votes were cast.  His votes were divided among his four candidates with three from Georgia being left blank to honor him.  This was the only time a candidate died during the electoral process. 

If Greeley had lived the final electoral vote would have been 286 Grant, 66 Greeley.

-Professor (Uncle) Walter

Technology to catch a murderer... in 1845

In the early 1800's experiments in telegraphs were increasing.  The first commercial telegraph was made by Sir William Fothergill Cooke. Cooke and Charles Wheatstone patented it in May 1837 as an alarm system.  The system went into use on the Great Western Railway over a distance of 13 miles (21 kilometers) between Paddington Station and West Drayton.

On January 1st 1845 this message was sent.

"A MURDER HAS GUST BEEN COMMITTED AT SALT HILL AND THE SUSPECTED MURDERER WAS SEEN TO TAKE A FIRST CLASS TICKET TO LONDON BY THE TRAIN WHICH LEFT SLOUGH AT 742 PM HE IS IN THE GARB OF A KWAKER WITH A GREAT COAT ON WHICH REACHES NEARLY DOWN TO HIS FEET HE IS IN THE LAST COMPARTMENT OF THE SECOND CLASS COMPARTMENT"

Note: The needle type telegraph in use did not support punctuation, lower case, or the letters J, Q, and Z.

John Tawell was identified by the description at the train station and shadowed by a detective onto a New Road omnibus.  When Tawell departed the bus and when into a coffee tavern he was apprehended.  He was found guilty of murder and later hanged.  This is believed to be the first time a telegraph was used to capture a murderer.

-Professor (Uncle) Walter

Multiple births are common today, but they weren't always...

In modern times we hear of multiple birth quite ofter, especially with shows like Jon and Kate Plus 8.  However multiple births used to be a rare thing, and often exploited.

Oliva and Elzire Dionne were expecting another child that was to be their sixth.  Elzire felt sure she was having twins, and her doctor diagnosed her with "fetal abnormality".  On May 28th, 1934 he was in for a surprise when, with the help of two midwives, delivered five children which was not thought possible at the time.  The babies were wrapped in cotton sheets and napkins and placed on the bed.  They were three month premature, and not expected to survive.  They were fed and kept warm and, amazingly, all five survived.  A few days later the doctor joked to a news reporter, how much would you pay me for a story of five babies at one birth. 

The news spread quickly.

The children became a big sensation as well wishers sent letters and advice from across the world.  Seeking to capitalize on the fame the government of Ontario intervened and found the parents to be unfit for the quintuplets and too custody for a guardianship of two years.  Although Oliva was part of the guardianship the children were under the care of the doctor and two other guardians.  The government set about building a tourism industry around the children, building them a special compound with play area so that they could be viewed.  They lived a regimented life and about 6000 people a day came to see them.  The girls were made wards of the provincial crown, planned until they were 18 years old.

Although Oliva Dionne remained part of the guardianship, they were put under the guidance of Dr. Dafoe and two other guardians. The stated reason for removing the quintuplets from their parents' legal custody was to ensure their survival into healthy toddlers. The government realized the massive interest in the sisters and proceeded to engender a tourist industry around them. The girls were made wards of the provincial crown, planned until they reached the age of 18.  Oliva Dionne opened a souvenir and concession shop, and the are became known as Quintland.  Between 1936 and 1943 approx. 3 million people viewed the children.  In total they attracted about $51 million to the tourist industry of Ontario.  Quintland became Ontario's biggest attraction, even bigger than Niagara Falls.

In November 1943 the parents won custody of the children back, but never treated them the same as the other kids.  The five were treated as a single entity and were often told of the trouble they had caused.  The girls were unaware that the home they lived in and the money their parents had were a direct result of their existence.

When the girls turned 18 they left home and set out on new lives.  Of those, two died before 1998 when the Government of Ontario compensated them for their exploitation.  Today two of the girls are still alive.

• Annette Lillianne Marie Dionne (Allard) (age 75)
• Cécile Marie Emilda Dionne (Langlois) (age 75)
• Émilie Marie Jeanne Dionne (died August 6, 1954 (aged 20) of accidental suffocation during an epileptic seizure at her convent)
• Marie Reine Alma Dionne (Houle) (died February 27, 1970 (aged 35) of an apparent blood clot of the brain in Montreal)
• Yvonne Edouilda Marie Dionne (died June 23, 2001 (aged 67) of cancer)

-Professor (Uncle) Walter

Compulsory Sterilization for a Better America

In the late 1800's the concept of Eugenics was gaining popularity.  The belief was that by allowing those with desirable properties to procreate and preventing those with lesser characteristics would produce a generation of better children, and in turn a better America.  In 1897 the first bill came forward in the Michigan legislature to enforce mandatory sterilization, but it was defeated.  However the movement continued to grow and in 1907 Indiana signed the first bill into law.  In 1909 Washington and California followed. 

In 1927 the Supreme Court case of Buck v. Bell legitimized forced sterilization for patients in a Virgina home for the mentally retarded.  The laws generally allowed for sterilization based on one of three criteria:

1. Eugenics - Essentially the person had an undesirable trait such as blindness, mental retardation, mental illness, deaf, physically deformed, and epilepsy. Additionally Native Americans, and African-American women were sterilized, often without their knowledge.
2. Therapeutic - Based on a theory that vitality would increase with sterilization.
3. Punitive - As punishment for criminals.

In 1942 the Supreme Court case of Skinner v. Oklahoma affected Punitive sterilization, and the practice began to decline.  In the aftermath of WWII with the Holocaust fresh in the public's minds, the practice began to disappear.  By the early 1960s most states stopped the policy.  The last forced sterilization occurred in 1981. 

-Professor (Uncle) Walter

The Great Atari Video Game Burial or How ET Took Down Atari

In 1982 Atari secured the rights to E.T. the game and began development on a rushed schedule.  The developers were given only five weeks to complete the game in order for it to be ready for the Christmas season.  The game received one of the largest marketing pushes for a game up to that point.  Eventually 1.5 million were sold making it one of the biggest games of the time, however it was a terrible game that was panned by critics.  Atari had expected intense demand that never materialized.  Atari was left with 2.5 to 3.5 million unsold cartridges.  Many consider it one of the causes of the video game industry crisis of 1983.  E.T. is now considered one of the worst video games ever created.

Atari secretly began filling 10-20 tractor trailer trucks with cartridges and other materials and transported them to a New Mexico landfill.  When confronted by Alamogordo Daily News of Alamogordo, New Mexico, Atari stated that the dumping was in anticipation of the new Atari 5800 console that was on the horizon.  Later reports contradicted this and stated that they were returned or unsold games and broken equipment.  Eventually Atari stated that the dumping was of surplus inventory from the El Paso factory, but never confirmed that it was E.T. although most believe that it was.  The story has passed into urban legend at this point because the items in the landfill were crushed and encased in concrete to keep kids from digging there.  There are some who doubt this and believe that Atari would have recycled the cartridges instead to keep costs lower.

-Professor (Uncle) Walter

Fanny Hersey, Mother of Milton Hershey, Always Contributing

Veronica "Fanny" Hershey was the mother of famous chocolate maker Milton Hershey.  She had raised Milton in hard times and never forgot how tough life could be, especially the poverty she and Milton had endured years before. 

Determined to always be of use she insisted she contribute to Hershey's Chocolate in some way.  Every morning she would rise early.  On the weekends she would walk around the factory checking to make sure all the doors were locked.  Every weekday she would sit out wrapping kisses in tin-foil.  Milton was humoring her, because the kisses would never be sold.  They were not wrapped in sanitary conditions.

But she always felt she had to contribute, and she always held a special place in Milton's heart.

-Professor (Uncle) Walter

The History of the NRA (National Restaurant Association)

In 1917 egg brokers tried to raise the price of eggs to 65 cents a dozen.  The year old Kansas City Restaurant Association organized an egg boycott and brought the price down to 32 cents proving that collective bargaining and planning would work.  In 1919 the Kansas City restaurateurs launched a national organization to represent an industry of 43,000 restaurants.  As prohibition took hold, restaurants which had charged 5 cents for beer while giving away sandwiches changed their tactics and the industry boomed. 

When the great depression hit, restaurants were hit quite hard and the NRA began direct marketing for the industry with he slogans "Enjoy Life— Eat Out More Often" and "Take Her Out to Dinner at Least Once a Week."

After WWII the industry boomed again and the NRA release it's first instructional film "America's Heritage of Hospitality"  In the 1950s the NRA endorsed credit cards and released two songs "Pass the Meat, Pass the Potatoes" (1951) and "Let's Go Out to a Restaurant" (1953).  By the 1980s the NRA began to make educational films about many aspects of food service from food safety to responsible alcohol serving.  They moved their headquarters to Washington D.C. so they would be able to make a better impact in the government.  In 1998 Fortune magazine named the NRA the 10th most powerful lobbying organization int he country.

Under the guidance of the NRA the food service industry has changed the way America eats, and how often we eat out.  In the year 2000 Americans were spending more than 45% of their food budget eating out vs. 25% in 1955.  By 2010 more than 1/2 of it is expected to go to restaurants.

And all because the price of a dozen eggs was too high.

-Professor (Uncle) Walter

The Price of Success Can Be Measured By The Milk Carton

In 1972 Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney decided to start Syzygy Engineering however when they went to register the name they found that Syzygy was already taken.  Finally they settled on Atari and Bushnell had Al Alcorn, their new design engineer, begin work on a new console game based on the Magnavox Odyssey's tennis game (for which they later had to pay rights).  They created the console out of a black and white TV from Walgreens, specialty gaming hardware, a coin-op system from a washing machine and a milk carton to hold the quarters.  Bushnell deployed the new system in a tavern call Andy Capp's.  The game was in instant success till ten that evening when it suddenly died.

The next morning when the Atari team arrived to find out what had happened they found a line outside the door of people waiting to play the new game.  The problem that had threatened the success of the new game was simple.  The milk container had overflowed with quarters.  Customer kept shoving quarters in until the unit shorted.  Cleaning the quarters out fixed the problem, and PONG became a runaway hit.

Atari grew on the success of PONG reaching a pinnacle with the Atari 2600.  In 1976 Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications for an estimated 28-32 million and left the division in 1978.

And near disaster could have been avoided if they had only used a larger milk carton.

-Professor (Uncle) Walter

Prohibition - Not Just An American Concept

In the annals of American history, the period of prohibition (1920-1933) stands out as creating a demand for criminal organizations running illegal liquor throughout the county.  Today the legacy of those times persist from the memories of Al Capone to NASCAR which began with the drivers who ran bootleg whiskey.  What may come to a surprise to many Americans is that this was not just an American view that banning alcohol was a good idea.  Prohibition was in many places throughout the world. 

1900-1948 Prince Edward Island
1914-1925 Russia and the Soviet Union
1916-1927 Norway
1915-1922 Iceland
1919 Hungary
1919-1932 Finland

While prohibition was considered "The Noble Experiment" it proved to be a massive failure, and extremely unpopular when the country faced The Great Depression.

-Professor (Uncle) Walter