One of my favorite Thanksgiving events is the Macy's Thankgiving Day Parade. So, I decided to post some facts on the parade that I found on the forums of budget101.com:
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The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is as much of a Thanksgiving tradition as pumpkin pie, and with the parade going strong after more than eight decades this year's parade will sure to entertain millions of turkey-hungry viewers. With all of the balloons, floats, marching bands, and entertainment involved in the parade, it's easy to forget some of the great history behind the annual event. Here are ten fun facts about Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade that you probably didn't know:
1. Macy's employees staged the first parade in 1924 - it was so successful that they decided to make it an annual event.
2. The first character balloon to make an appearance at the parade was Felix the Cat in 1927.
3. In 1934 Macy's worked with Disney for the first time to create the original Mickey Mouse balloon.
4. The only interruption in the parade's history was from 1942-44. Macy's gave their parade balloons to the war effort since rubber was so scarce.
5. The parade was first televised in New York in 1945, and that same year the Macy's parade began using the route that is still followed today.
6. There was a helium shortage in 1958 that forced the balloons to be filled with air and hung from cranes instead of the traditional floating and bobbing.
7. Floats must travel through the Lincoln Tunnel to get to Manhattan for the parade. A 24 foot wide, 40 foot high float has to fold up to an 8 foot wide and 12 1/2 food high float in order to get through. Wow!
8. Balloons go through rigorous testing with engineers to ensure they are aerodynamic and with the character's creators to make certain they adhere to the character's likeness and personality.
9. Nine parade telecasts since 1979 have been given the Emmy for outstanding achivement.
10. In 2006 the parade attracted 2.5 million spectators along the parade route and over 44 million television viewers, making it by far the most widely viewed parade around.
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Got an unusaual fact or oddity? eMail it to Joey Morris' Bizzare Bazaar at shaotlinc@hotmail.com
Friday, November 27, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Unusual Firsts
Since this is the first entry in this blog, I decided to post some "unusual firsts" I found on trivia-library.com:
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THE FIRST STUDENT PROTEST IN THE U.S.
Henry David Thoreau's grandfather. Asa Dunbar, set the pattern for American student rebellions over 200 years ago. In 1766 he protested against the quality of Harvard College food with the slogan "Behold, our butter stinketh!" After the faculty condemned him for "the sin of insubordination," Dunbar and his followers conducted an eat-out. They breakfasted off campus.
THE FIRST USE OF TEMPORARY INSANITY AS A DEFENSE IN THE U.S.
On Feb. 25, 1859, Congressman Daniel Sickles learned that his wife had been having an affair with Philip Key, son of Francis Scott Key who wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner." Two days later the enraged Sickles confronted Key and shot him twice, killing him. During the trial Attorney James T. Brady defended his client with the plea of "temporary insanity." Sickles was acquitted and later became a distinguished Union general in the Civil War.
THE FIRST AMERICAN ACCIDENT INSURANCE POLICY
Travelers Insurance Co. sold the nation's first accident insurance policy in 1864 to James Bolter of Hartford, Conn. The $1,000 policy covered only the time Bolter spent walking from the post office to his home on Buckingham Street. The premium was 2 Cent.
THE FIRST USE OF A CABLEGRAM TO CAPTURE A MURDERER
In April, 1885, Hugh Brooks, the son of a prosperous English merchant, registered at the elegant Southern Hotel in St. Louis, Mo. While staying there, he became a good friend of C. Arthur Preller, a wealthy compatriot. A few days after Brooks left St. Louis for New Zealand, police discovered Preller's body stuffed inside a trunk in his hotel room. Suspecting Brooks, Police Chief Larry Harrigan sent a 133-word wire costing $400 to the U.S. consul in Auckland. When Brooks arrived there, officials seized him and returned him to the U.S. in irons. Lawyers at the trial proved that Brooks, despite his family background, had little money, and had killed Preller in order to steal $600 from him. Brooks was hanged at the St. Louis Four Courts Jail in 1888, but before he died, he quipped, "America was certainly not the land of opportunity for me."
THE FIRST GIDEON BIBLE
Members of Gideons International, a laymen's organization formed in 1899, placed its first Bible in a room at the Superior Hotel in Iron Mountain, Mont., on Nov. 10, 1908. Since then, they have been responsible for distributing Bibles to prisons, hospitals, and schools, as well as motels and hotels.
THE FIRST AIRLINE MEALS
Britain's Handley Page Transport became the first airline to serve in-flight meals when it offered lunch boxes on its London-to-Paris flight on Oct. 11, 1919.
THE FIRST AMERICAN NEON ADVERTISEMENT
The first neon-tube advertising sign in the U.S. appeared on the marquee of the Cosmopolitan Theater in New York City in July, 1923. It announced Marion Davies in the leading role of Little Old New York. A patent for the neon lighting was granted to French physicist and chemist Georges Claude.
THE FIRST IN-FLIGHT MOVIES
During an Imperial Airways flight to the Continent in April, 1925, the first in-flight movie, First National's production of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, was featured. Regular in-flight movies began on July 19, 1961, with the showing of By Love Possessed on a TWA flight between New York and Los Angeles.
THE FIRST FOOD STAMPS
On May 29, 1961, Chloe and Alderson Muncy, along with 13 of their 15 children, went to Welch, W. Va., to receive the nation's first food stamps from Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman. Accompanied by reporters and television crews, the Muncys proceeded to a grocery store after receiving $95 worth of stamps. They finished their shopping only after the Hale family, the country's second recipient of food stamps and the first family to pay for the stamps, had been to the checkout counter before them. Sponsored by the Kennedy administration, the food stamp program grew out of the shock that JFK experienced when campaigning in poverty-stricken areas of West Virginia in 1960.
THE FIRST X-RATED MOVIE IN CHINA
As a sign of a more tolerant intellectual climate, the first X-rated movie allowed inside the People's Republic of China was shown throughout the country in 1978. The Japanese-made film depicted the struggles of a young girl sold into prostitution by her parents. The nation's most respected cultural journal defended the movie, explaining that it had "enlightened and educated" its audiences by expanding the narrow view of morality imposed by Mao's wife and other members of the notorious "Gang of Four."
THE FIRST NUNS TO BE A U.S. AIR FORCE CAPTAIN AND A U.S. MAYOR
Mary Hargrafen, also known as Sister Mary Carl, was the first nun to become a captain in the U.S. Air Force. She was attached to the 2nd Air Medical Evacuation Squadron at Rhine-Main Air Base in West Germany in March, 1978. A member of the Sisters of St. Francis in Dubuque, Ia., Sister Mary Carl turned over most of her annual $20,000 salary to her convent. In 1980 Dubuque also had the distinction of electing the first nun as mayor of an American city--Sister Carol Farrell.
THE FIRST ARTIFICIAL BLOOD TRANSFUSION IN THE U.S.
A spokesman for the University of Minnesota Hospital announced on Nov. 20, 1979, that one of its doctors, Dr. Robert Anderson, had been the first in the country to give a patient a transfusion of artificial blood. The patient suffered a severe loss of blood after having undergone surgery for vascular disease. As a Jehovah's Witness, he refused on religious grounds to receive a transfusion of real blood, so the doctor injected a milky blood substitute called Fluosol, which was developed and tested in Japan.
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Got an unusaual fact or oddity? eMail it to Joey Morris' Bizzare Bazaar at shaotlinc@hotmail.com
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THE FIRST STUDENT PROTEST IN THE U.S.
Henry David Thoreau's grandfather. Asa Dunbar, set the pattern for American student rebellions over 200 years ago. In 1766 he protested against the quality of Harvard College food with the slogan "Behold, our butter stinketh!" After the faculty condemned him for "the sin of insubordination," Dunbar and his followers conducted an eat-out. They breakfasted off campus.
THE FIRST USE OF TEMPORARY INSANITY AS A DEFENSE IN THE U.S.
On Feb. 25, 1859, Congressman Daniel Sickles learned that his wife had been having an affair with Philip Key, son of Francis Scott Key who wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner." Two days later the enraged Sickles confronted Key and shot him twice, killing him. During the trial Attorney James T. Brady defended his client with the plea of "temporary insanity." Sickles was acquitted and later became a distinguished Union general in the Civil War.
THE FIRST AMERICAN ACCIDENT INSURANCE POLICY
Travelers Insurance Co. sold the nation's first accident insurance policy in 1864 to James Bolter of Hartford, Conn. The $1,000 policy covered only the time Bolter spent walking from the post office to his home on Buckingham Street. The premium was 2 Cent.
THE FIRST USE OF A CABLEGRAM TO CAPTURE A MURDERER
In April, 1885, Hugh Brooks, the son of a prosperous English merchant, registered at the elegant Southern Hotel in St. Louis, Mo. While staying there, he became a good friend of C. Arthur Preller, a wealthy compatriot. A few days after Brooks left St. Louis for New Zealand, police discovered Preller's body stuffed inside a trunk in his hotel room. Suspecting Brooks, Police Chief Larry Harrigan sent a 133-word wire costing $400 to the U.S. consul in Auckland. When Brooks arrived there, officials seized him and returned him to the U.S. in irons. Lawyers at the trial proved that Brooks, despite his family background, had little money, and had killed Preller in order to steal $600 from him. Brooks was hanged at the St. Louis Four Courts Jail in 1888, but before he died, he quipped, "America was certainly not the land of opportunity for me."
THE FIRST GIDEON BIBLE
Members of Gideons International, a laymen's organization formed in 1899, placed its first Bible in a room at the Superior Hotel in Iron Mountain, Mont., on Nov. 10, 1908. Since then, they have been responsible for distributing Bibles to prisons, hospitals, and schools, as well as motels and hotels.
THE FIRST AIRLINE MEALS
Britain's Handley Page Transport became the first airline to serve in-flight meals when it offered lunch boxes on its London-to-Paris flight on Oct. 11, 1919.
THE FIRST AMERICAN NEON ADVERTISEMENT
The first neon-tube advertising sign in the U.S. appeared on the marquee of the Cosmopolitan Theater in New York City in July, 1923. It announced Marion Davies in the leading role of Little Old New York. A patent for the neon lighting was granted to French physicist and chemist Georges Claude.
THE FIRST IN-FLIGHT MOVIES
During an Imperial Airways flight to the Continent in April, 1925, the first in-flight movie, First National's production of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, was featured. Regular in-flight movies began on July 19, 1961, with the showing of By Love Possessed on a TWA flight between New York and Los Angeles.
THE FIRST FOOD STAMPS
On May 29, 1961, Chloe and Alderson Muncy, along with 13 of their 15 children, went to Welch, W. Va., to receive the nation's first food stamps from Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman. Accompanied by reporters and television crews, the Muncys proceeded to a grocery store after receiving $95 worth of stamps. They finished their shopping only after the Hale family, the country's second recipient of food stamps and the first family to pay for the stamps, had been to the checkout counter before them. Sponsored by the Kennedy administration, the food stamp program grew out of the shock that JFK experienced when campaigning in poverty-stricken areas of West Virginia in 1960.
THE FIRST X-RATED MOVIE IN CHINA
As a sign of a more tolerant intellectual climate, the first X-rated movie allowed inside the People's Republic of China was shown throughout the country in 1978. The Japanese-made film depicted the struggles of a young girl sold into prostitution by her parents. The nation's most respected cultural journal defended the movie, explaining that it had "enlightened and educated" its audiences by expanding the narrow view of morality imposed by Mao's wife and other members of the notorious "Gang of Four."
THE FIRST NUNS TO BE A U.S. AIR FORCE CAPTAIN AND A U.S. MAYOR
Mary Hargrafen, also known as Sister Mary Carl, was the first nun to become a captain in the U.S. Air Force. She was attached to the 2nd Air Medical Evacuation Squadron at Rhine-Main Air Base in West Germany in March, 1978. A member of the Sisters of St. Francis in Dubuque, Ia., Sister Mary Carl turned over most of her annual $20,000 salary to her convent. In 1980 Dubuque also had the distinction of electing the first nun as mayor of an American city--Sister Carol Farrell.
THE FIRST ARTIFICIAL BLOOD TRANSFUSION IN THE U.S.
A spokesman for the University of Minnesota Hospital announced on Nov. 20, 1979, that one of its doctors, Dr. Robert Anderson, had been the first in the country to give a patient a transfusion of artificial blood. The patient suffered a severe loss of blood after having undergone surgery for vascular disease. As a Jehovah's Witness, he refused on religious grounds to receive a transfusion of real blood, so the doctor injected a milky blood substitute called Fluosol, which was developed and tested in Japan.
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Got an unusaual fact or oddity? eMail it to Joey Morris' Bizzare Bazaar at shaotlinc@hotmail.com
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