Felix Hoffmann 's father suffered from a painful case of rheumatism, and he asked his son to find him a medicine that didn't have the negative side effects of sodium salicylate, the drug commonly prescribed at the time for that and other ailments. After all, Felix was a chemist with Friedrich Bayer Company. Felix researched decades of other scientists' experiments and conducted many of his own in an effort to grant his father's request. Then, on August 10, 1897, he made his f

The name Constantin Fahlberg is by no means a household name any more. But it ought to be. Constantin Fahlberg, chemist Fahlberg was born in Tambov in central Russia in 1850. He developed an early interest in chemistry and later moved to the United States, where he got a job as a chemist at Johns Hopkins University doing chemical research. One evening in 1878, while in his lab doing research, he got so involved in it that he suddenly realized that he was late for supper. He

World War II started out as an uphill battle for the United States. We were unprepared. Our allies had been, or were on the verge of being, defeated by the Axis juggernaut - the Nazis in Europe and the Japanese warmongers in the Pacific. Once we were in the war, the news was bad as we lost one possession after another in the early months of the war. We were strictly on the defensive, never on the offensive. Then came a bit of good news that gave us a ray of hope. We had a her

One of my earliest memories as a child is of waiting for the afternoon newspaper to be delivered to our mailbox by Jonesy, our "paperboy." (He was actually an adult driving an old, beat up, blue, late-Fifties Chevy.) I couldn't wait to plop down on the grass beside the driveway and open the paper to the comics page. I read every one of the strips, but among my favorites were Pogo , Nancy and Sluggo , Lil Abner , Beetle Bailey , and Dick Tracy . Comics later took second place

Last month's recent snow/sleet/ice storm brought back memories of childhood snow days. Days of no school and a lot of sledding until our toes, fingers, and noses were nearly frostbitten. And when we finally came inside to thaw our appendages, dry our wet clothes, and eat hot food, there were interminable sessions of playing Monopoly . Coincidentally, today marks the anniversary of when that board game first went on sale in 1935. Lizzie Magie's "The Landlord's Game" The game o

Just before the attack on Pearl Harbor and U.S. entry into World War II, approximately 88 percent of American households had an automobile. The numerous automakers were rolling out new models with bold features and looks in growing quantities. For example, Ford turned out 691,455 new cars in 1941. But the war brought a sudden end to that. In 1942, Ford produced only 160,000 new cars. William Knudsen, president of General Motors and head of the Office of Production Management

The RMS Republic , commanded by Captain Inman Shelby and carrying 742 passengers and crewmen, sailed from New York on January 23, 1909, 117 years ago. It was headed for ports around the Mediterranean. The RMS Republic The Republic was a large, majestic ship, "a palatial liner," of the White Star Lines . She had been built in 1903 in Belfast, Ireland. Because of the large number of wealthy Americans who sailed aboard her, she was often called "the Millionaires' Ship." In add

It might be the beginning of January, but baseball is never far from my mind. After the Braves' dismal year last season, I'm beginning to feel like I did when I was a kid and first began to follow the Braves and experienced their loss to the Mets in the first-ever league playoff series. But, like the Cubs fans said for decades, there's always next year. But what turned my attention back to baseball this time was two events on this date in history: Stan Musial' s contract in 1

On this day in 1493, Chris Columbus , who had sailed the ocean blue the year before, was on yet another voyage when he saw what he had heard sailors tell stories of and his imagination apparently had embellished. This is what he thought he was seeing. He thought he saw the legendary mermaids of naval lore. But the reality was quite different than the stories had led him to believe and what his imagination had envisioned. He described the "mermaids"--those half-fish-half-femal

I recently read a Pickles cartoon strip that was eerily appropriate for this time of year. The Pickles Opal, the grandmother, looking at herself in front of a full-length mirror, declared to Earl, her husband, something to the effect that in the new year she was going to eat less, exercise more, lose weight, and generally be more health conscious. Earl said, "That sounds hard!" Opal replied, "My motto for the year is 'I can do hard things.'" Earl walked away muttering, "My mo

I remember that when I was a kid, Nannie Summers, my maternal grandmother, often told me that as one gets older, time flies. I never understood that. My Nannie Summers It seemed to me that the months in school were interminable. I enjoyed school, but the days seemed to creep by. The summers working with my brick-mason father, mixing mortar and carrying bricks and rodding joints in the heat and dust, seemed even longer. And it seemed that Christmas would never get here. Now, d

During the debates surrounding the writing and ratification of the U.S. Constitution, two factions developed among the delegates, each representing different political philosophies. Those factions became known as the Federalists, who wanted a strong central government with broad, far-reaching powers, and the Anti-Federalists, who wanted the state governments to have greater powers and distinct and specific limitations on the federal government. The Bill of Rights Alexander Ha

Two days from today will mark a milestone anniversary of cold-weather exploration. On December 14, 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and four companions became the first men to reach the South Pole. (I've often wondered why none of those four other men is given credit for being the first.) Roald Amundsen Amundsen was born July 16, 1872, and, coming from a farming and seafaring family, he was early an enthusiast of cold-weather exploration. Being the first man to reach

As the Christmas season fast approaches, I hope you're not like me. I start thinking of next Christmas shortly after the current one, even before all the torn wrapping paper has been cleaned up. And I tell myself that I'll not wait until the last minute to finish my shopping the next time. I even begin making occasional purchases of those gifts (and hoping I remember where I put them when Christmas does arrive). Invariably, however, I wait too long to get some gifts and end u

It isn't often that all three of the Peterson siblings get together. More often, two of us will travel to see each other, but it's rare when all three can arrange to meet. After all, we're each in a different state, miles and hours of travel separating us. But last week we were able to get together for the first time in--well, I can't recall the last time we were together. Probably for a funeral somewhere. Knowing that we should get together since all of us are aging and we n

Birthdays in our family when I was a kid growing up were no big deal. Mother might bake us a cake. Nannie and Paw Summers, my maternal grandparents, always sent us a card with a dollar bill slipped into it. (On their limited Social Security checks, that was a great sacrifice because they did the same for each of their grandkids, and that added up.) But that was all we came to expect. There were no gifts, no parties. Well, we were promised two parties--one when we were six yea

Sometimes short, pithy quotations make one pause and think. That often leads to self-examination. And self-examination sometimes leads to...

It was 11:00 a.m. on November 11, 1918. At that precise day and hour, the guns that had raged and thundered across the fronts in the...

On this final day of October, we have at least two historic events we can celebrate, and both of them feature people who showed great...

"I've got an old mule and her name is Sal. Fifteen years on the Erie Canal.... "Low bridge, e'vrybody down. Low bridge. We must be...