Browsing: January 20

A Brief History This article presents a chronological list of notable events that happened on January 20th.  For each date below, please click on the date to be taken to an article covering that date’s event. Digging Deeper On January 20, 1885, LaMarcus A. Thompson patented his version of the modern roller coaster, the Switchback Railway, which became the first roller coaster at Coney Island in New York! On January 20, 1920, a new organization devoted to the freedoms guaranteed to all Americans by the Constitution of the United States (and its amendments) was formed from the National Civil Liberties…

A Brief History On January 20, 1947, only 3 months before Jackie Robinson broke the “color barrier” and became the first African American major league baseball player, the famous catcher and slugger from the Negro Leagues of baseball, Josh Gibson, died at the young age of 35 of a stroke brought on by a brain tumor. Digging Deeper Gibson is now recognized by Major League Baseball as having had the highest single season batting average of all time, .466 in 1943.  As of 2020, MLB recognizes Negro League statistics as belonging in “major league” category.  Gibson also slugged about 800…

A Brief History On January 20, 2020, we take a meandering mid-winter look at some of those things you seldom if ever encounter anymore, things that were once commonplace and even in their time examples of cutting edge technology.  We might even throw in a phrase or word that has become passé.  We are not saying these things have totally disappeared, just so greatly diminished that seeing or hearing one is an oddity. (See our previous articles on this subject, including:  “Things That Did Not Exist (Or Were Different) on July 1, 1957,” “May 16, 1960: 10 More Things That…

A Brief History On January 20, 2011, the United States Justice Department issued 16 indictments against Northeast American Mafia families resulting in 127 charged defendants and more than 110 arrests.  Thinking of the most ruthless and untamed American outlaws it somehow easy to transpose their influence onto a classic picture of what it is called the American Dream. Maybe because these men where the triumphant image of succeeding against all odds. Planting their influence on cultural aspects of Manhattan and Brooklyn, Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago and New Orleans to this day. Digging Deeper Prohibition and the Upward Movement of the American…

A Brief History On January 20, 1920, a new organization devoted to the freedoms guaranteed to all Americans by the Constitution of the United States (and its amendments) was formed from the National Civil Liberties Bureau, an organization formed in 1917 to protect the Freedom of Speech, mainly by those Americans opposed to the US joining in World War I.  With the motto, “Because Freedom Can’t Protect Itself” the ACLU is a premier civil rights organization active all over the United States, supporting the rights of a wide variety of Americans in a wide variety of causes. Digging Deeper Among…