Author: Steve Atkinson

The telegraph was invented by Samuel Morse in 1835 and it was Alexander Graham Bell’s intention to improve on the telegraph that lead to his invention of the telephone. It was on March 10, 1876 when Bell in one room and his assistant Thomas Watson in another he shouted the words, “Mr. Watson – come here – I want to see you” into the transmitter. Watson was able to hear what was said and reported back to Bell the exact words. With this the first working telephone was born.

Bell’s experiments with the telegraph was an attempt to transmit multiple messages over the same wire at the same time. He felt that this could be done if each signal would have its own different pitch.

On February 14, 1876, both Bell and Elisha Gray, with his Western Electric Manufacturing Company, submitted their patient to the United States Patient Office in Washington DC. Bell’s paperwork with application fee was completed first, Gray’s caveat was entered first, but his filing fee was entered after Bell’s. On March 7, 1876, three days before the successful experiment, Bell received Patent Number 174,465.

Gray would file lawsuits challenging Bell’s patent. He would lose them all, mainly because it was determined that because he failed to take actions to complete his caveat until others had demonstrated a working unit. Gray still wasn’t left in the dark since he did receive a patent for the telautograph, a way to transmit handwriting through telegraph systems. It can be called the first fax machine.

The Bell Telephone Company was created in 1877 and by 1886, ten years after the first voice transmission over 150,000 people in the United States owned telephones.

There really isn’t a sole inventor of the telephone. Bell’s ideas closely resembled Gray’s. The telephone’s transmitter was greatly improved when Edison’s carbon microphone was introduced. Not to mention that the entire idea of the telephone is really just an improvement and enhancement of Morse’s telegraph.

By the middle of the 16th century the Calendar used by the Christian Religious leaders, the Julian Calendar designed and adopted during the reign of Julius Ceasar in 45 BC, was off by around 10 days.

This was causing confusion on when Easter, as adopted by the First Council of Nicaea in 325, would be. Pope Gregory decided that calendar reform was needed. The outcome of this reform was our current calendar, also called the Gregorian Calendar.

Part of the reform was to add these 10 days to the calendar. This action was adopted on February 24, 1582. Later in the year on October 5th, five Catholic counties adopted the calendar. The day after October 5th was October 14th in these countries.

When a county added these days to the calendar it caused for these days to be skipped. England, for example, didn’t adopt the Gregorian Calendar until 1754. At that time another day needed to be added to the Calendar. September 2, 1752 was the last day that England observed the Julian Calendar with the next day being September 14th.

Adoption was slow, in fact as late as the 20th Century some countries were still on the Julian Calendar, including Russia, who changed in 1918, Greece in 1923 and Turkey in 1926.

Another change came in what was the beginning of the year. The Julian Calendar called March 1st as the first day of the year, while the Gregorian Calendar it became January 1st.

George Washington was the first son of Augustine Washington and his second wife, Mary Ball Washington. He was born on the family’s Pope’s Creek Estate near present-day Colonial Beach in Westmoreland County, Virginia.

When Washington took the oath of office on April 30, 1789 only 11 of the original colonies had ratified the Constitution. While he served as President 5 more states joined the union. North Carolina – November 21, 1789, Rhode Island – May 29, 1790, Vermont – May 4, 1791, Kentucky – June 1, 1792 and Tennessee – June 1, 1796.

Understandingly George Washington appointed more Justices to the Supreme Court than any President. 13 men, 2 did decline, were appointed by Washington.

Washington College, a small Liberal Arts college located in Chestertown Maryland, is the only college that George Washington agreed to allow use of his name. He gave 50 Guineas upon its founding in 1782 and was a member of the Board of Visitors and Governors, the only college board on which he sat.

The Washington Monument in Washington County, Maryland, 4 miles from the town of Boonsboro was first monument to George Washington to be completed. It was completed in 1827 and was formally dedicated on July 4th of that year. The Appalachian Trail passes the base of the monument.

Congressman Henry Lee eulogized Washington with the words; “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, he was second to none in humble and enduring scenes of private life.”

President’s Day is celebrated in the United States on the 3rd Monday in February. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, two men considered to be great presidents, was born in this month. Each at one time had the anniversary of their births celebrated as a national holiday before those two holidays were combined into one. They are not the only Presidents who celebrated their birthday in February. Ronald Reagan, February 6, and William Harrison, February 9, were born in this month.

With four presidential births one may think that February could be the month with the most.  It is not. That honor goes to October, which has six. Jimmy Carter – October 1, Rutherford Hayes – October 4, Chester Arthur – October 14, Theodore Roosevelt – October 27 and John Adams – October 30.

Along with February the months of January, March, April and July have had 4 President born in them. November have 4 different days with Presidential births with November 2nd being the only day in the year in which two Presidents were born.  This gives November 5 Presidential birth, the month with the second most.

July 4th, the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is also the anniversary of the birth of Calvin Coolidge.

When George W. Bush took office in 2001, every one of the months could claim a birth of a President. He was born on June 12. When Donald Trump became President June added another President with his birthday being June 14. September is the only other month with one Presidential birth with William Taft’s being on September 15.

Barack Obama’s birthday is on the 4th of August. August joins November as second with the most presidents born in this month with a total of 5. The others are Benjamin Harrison August 20, 1833, Herbert Hoover August 10, 1874, Lyndon B. Johnson August 27, 1908 and Bill Clinton August 19, 1946.

When should Christmas music be started to played for the Holidays? One thought is after Halloween, another is as soon as the weather starts turning colder (living in Maryland this would be around Mid-October) but for most that time starts just after Thanksgiving.

We all know and love the following songs, but did you know that they also have interesting stories. Here are brief stories about six of our Christmas favorites. Oh, and for me I start playing them anytime after the first of October, sometimes even earlier.

White Christmas
Everyone knows that the song was introduced in the movie Holiday Inn, but many don’t know that it was a song about being stuck in sunny and warm LA and dreaming of a White Christmas. The original first verse is:
The sun is shining
The grass is green
The orange and palm trees sway.
I’ve never seen such a day
In Beverly Hills LA.

But it’s December the 24th
And I am longing to be up North…

This part is rarely performed with the song (The Carpenters version does) and was never recorded by Bing Crosby.

Have Yourself A Very Merry Christmas
This Judy Garland song was written for and first introduced in the movie Meet me In St. Louis. The original intent for the song was to say that by next year things would be brighter. The original lines were;
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
May your heart be light
In a year our troubles will be out of sight

From now on
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the yuletide gay
In a year our troubles will be miles away

At the request of Judy Garland it was changed to:
Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Let your heart be light,
From now on our troubles
Will be out of sight.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Make the Yule-tide gay,
From now on our troubles
Will be miles away.
Then in 1957 when Frank Sinatra was recording his Christmas Album A Jolly Christmas he requested another change to the lyrics. Later in the song there was the line;
If the Fates allow
Until then, we’ll just have to muddle through somehow
And have ourselves a merry little Christmas now.

Sinatra wanted a more jolly song and asked for this to be changed. It was to:
If the Fates allow,
Hang a shining star
On the highest bough,
And have yourself
A merry little Christmas now.

This sure makes for it to be a merrier, Merry Christmas song.

I’ll Be Home for Christmas
he song was written in 1943 and recorded in that same year by Bing Crosby. Placing it in that time period it’s obvious that the song was about a soldier at war and his Christmas wish. If it wasn’t for White Christmas this would probably be considered Bing’s Christmas song. (Although his version of Silent Night sold more copies) The song remained on the charts for 7 weeks and well pass Christmas.

Silver Bells
The song was written by the prolific movie composers Jay Livingston and Ray Evans for the movie The Lemon Drop Kid, staring Bob Hope. It was originally going to be Tinkle Bells, until Livingston’s wife told him that to millions of american women the word tinkle meant something else and not something that would generally go over good in a Christmas song. The word tinkle was replaced with silver. Now the next time you hear the song replace the word ‘silver’ with ‘tinkle’ and see if it doesn’t seem like a slightly different song.

Frosty the Snowman
Frosty the Snowman was written with one thought in mind. Just before it was written Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer had be a huge commercial hit and the team of Jack Nelson and Steve Rollins wanted to write the next ‘Christmas Classic’. By the end of the winter they had put together two holiday songs to pitch to Gene Autry. Autry was sold and recorded Frosty for the next Christmas season.

And, the other Holiday song they pitched. It wasn’t a Christmas song, but the Easter song Here Comes Peter Cotton-tail.

A Christmas Song
In the hot heat in the summer of 1945, Mel Torme visited his friend Bob Wells. Earlier in the day Wells had written phases in a notebook in an effort to stay warm. A couple of these were; “Chestnuts roasting … Jack Frost nipping … Yuletide carols … Folks dressed up like Eskimos.”\

Torme also in an effort to try to cool off, thought that maybe writing a winter song would help. They took these phrases and in 40 minutes much of the music and some of the lyrics of one of the most recorded Christmas song was completed.