Browsing: November 18

A Brief History On November 18, 2018, just after the 100th Anniversary of the Armistice that ended World War I, we look back over the past almost 62 years to take a look at things we find commonplace today that did not exist when I was born (January 1957).  We also look at things that were common then or in the past that no longer exist.  As you can guess from the title of this article, we have examined these items, new and passé, a few times before. (See “Things That Did Not Exist (Or Were Different) on July 1,…

A Brief History On November 18, 2017, we celebrate the annual Apple Cider Day, a national day in the United States and in the United Kingdom.  Why isn’t the juice of pressed apples just called “apple juice?”  For that matter, what is “apple juice?”  Read on and we will explain these fine points of culinary delight to you! Digging Deeper First of all, apple juice is junk!  It is made from apples all right, pressed into juicy stuff which if left alone would be apple cider, but it is further processed to ruin any useful purpose as a drink for…

A Brief History On November 18, 1993, the US House of Representatives passed the North American Free Trade Agreement that had been negotiated by President George HW Bush in 1992. President Clinton, assuming office in January of 1993, negotiated a couple small amendments to the agreement at the behest of congressmen. Digging Deeper Negotiated by Mexico, the United States and Canada, the measure replaced the previous trade agreement between the US and Canada known as the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement. In Canada, most political representatives were against the NAFTA pact, but since the opposition was split between 2 groups…

A Brief History On November 18, 1963, Bell Telephone introduced a new way to dial a telephone, something referred to as “dual-tone multi-frequency” (DTMF) technology, or Touch-Tone (the trademarked name) dialing.  Also known as push button phones, these would go on to replace the old rotary dial type of telephone (also known as “pulse dialing”) so that today it is rare to even see an old fashioned dial type phone. Digging Deeper Making a lot of calls in the old days was tedious, and tired, sloppy fingers would often slip out of the little round fingertip receptacles causing the caller…

A Brief History On November 18, 1982, five days after a championship fight for the lightweight (135 pounds) crown, Kim Duk-Koo of Korea died from a blow given by Ohio boxer Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, the defending champ. Digging Deeper Challenger Kim Duk-Koo brought a professional record of 17-1-1 into the fight and held his own early in the fight, but the champ dominated the later rounds.  The fight was stopped in the 14th round after Kim was solidly knocked down by Mancini.  The fight was not stopped soon enough, however, as just minutes later Kim fell into a coma and never woke up, dying a few days…