Old Glory

Chances are Betsy Ross did not actually design the first US flag.

All of the officially adopted US flags had the stars arranged in straight rows.

There were no meanings tied to the colors of the flag when it was adopted. The meanings we often hear for the red and white and blue come from The Great Seal.

From 1794 to 1818 the official US flag had fifteen stripes.

The stars represent “a new constellation”

When a US flag is retired it is burned in a ceremony.

According to the US Flag Code, “The flag should never be used as wearing apparel, bedding, or drapery.”… they really need to educate Team USA on this one before the next Olympics.

Today you get a picture.. a flag retirement ceremony.

Thank you Mr. Eastman

Some Kodak facts....

George Eastman founded Kodak in 1888.

Kodak produced the first "consumer" cameras. They took 100 shots and then were mailed to Kodak for film processing. Kodak would reload the camera and send it, along with the prints, back to the consumer.

In 1936 Kodak put the first color 35mm film on the market. Kodachrome would be produced for 74 years, until 2009.

Kodak engineers produced the first digital camera in 1975.

In 2005 Kodak, a leading producer of silver halide papers (used in darkrooms and photo labs) discontinued production of their black and white photo papers.
 
Recent years have seen the company decline rapidly.

The Final Frontier

I like space. Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff are among my favorite movies. I know lots of random facts.

Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier on October 14,1947.

Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth, was launched on October 4, 1957.

In 1958 as a response to the Sputnik launch, the US Government created the Advanced Research Projects Agency. One of the projects of DARPA was ARPANET, a progenitor of the internet. The first message was sent over the network in 1969.

On April 12,1961 Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel into space. He orbited the earth.

Alan Shepard was the first American in space in Freedom 7. May 5, 1961. He did not orbit the earth.

The digital watches we wear today are more powerful computers than those used in the Apollo Spacecraft.

Apollo 17 was the last time humans walked on the moon. It was in 1972.

In 2004 George W. Bush announced the Constellation program which would send humans back to the moon by 2020. Barack Obama cancelled the program.

At this time, only two space shuttles are still in service. Discovery's last flight is scheduled for September, 2010. Endeavor's last flight is scheduled for November, 2010.

Suffragette City

I'm not talking about the David Bowie song. I'm talking about the right to vote. Specifically women's suffrage in the United States.

In the 1700's women actually LOST the right to vote in every state at that time.

Susan B. Anthony strongly objected to women putting the suffrage movement on the back burner to focus on supporting troops during the Civil War.

In 1872 Susan B. Anthony and 11 other women were arrested for illegally voting in the Presidential Election.

In 1872 Victoria Woodhull became the first woman to run for President. In 1972 Shirley Chisholm became the first black woman to run for President.

Teddy Roosevelt campaigned as a supporter of women's suffrage.

The Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920, 100 years after Susan B. Anthony was born.

Go read up on Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Mary Wollstonecraft.