Count down from 2016 with real world facts!

[Clarence]

1876

Alexander Graham Bell is granted a United States patent for an invention he calls the telephone

[Clarence]

1875

February 21 – Jeanne Calment is born in Arles, France. She would go on to become the world's oldest verified person to have ever lived, reaching an age of 122 years and 164 days, before passing away on August 4, 1997 of natural causes.



Calment ascribed her longevity and relatively youthful appearance for her age to a diet rich in olive oil (which she also rubbed onto her skin), as well as a diet of port wine, and ate nearly one kilogram (2.2 lb) of chocolate every week. She also credited her calmness, saying, "That's why they call me Calment." Calment reportedly remained mentally intact until her very end.

More interesting information about her:

Her international fame escalated in 1988, when the centenary of Vincent van Gogh's visit to Arles provided an occasion to meet reporters. She said at the time that she had met Van Gogh 100 years before, in 1888, as a thirteen-year-old girl in her father's fabric shop, where he wanted to buy some canvas, later describing him as "dirty, badly dressed and disagreeable", and "very ugly, ungracious, impolite, sick". Calment recalled selling coloured pencils to Van Gogh, and seeing the Eiffel Tower being built. At the age of 114, she appeared briefly in the 1990 film Vincent and Me as herself, becoming the oldest actress ever to appear in a motion picture.

[LaLou]

1874
The Treaty of Bern (formally the Treaty concerning the formation of a General Postal Union), signed in 1874, established the General Postal Union, which is today known as the Universal Postal Union.

Named for the Swiss city of Bern, where it was signed, the treaty was the result of an international conference convened by the Swiss Government on 15 September 1874. It was attended by representatives from 22 nations. Plans for the conference had been drawn up by Heinrich von Stephan, a German postal official.

On 9 October 1874, the Treaty was signed. Originally called the General Postal Union, the organization established by the Treaty was renamed the Universal Postal Union in 1878 due to its large membership.

The purpose of the treaty was to unify disparate postal services and regulations so that international mail could be exchanged freely. The signatories of the treaty were the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, Spain, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, the Russian Empire, Serbia, the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway, Switzerland, and the Ottoman Empire.

World Post Day is now observed on 9 October, recalling the date on which the Treaty was signed.

The Treaty of Bern was amended a number of times after its conclusion. On 10 July 1964, the UPU incorporated the treaty into a new Constitution of the Universal Postal Union, which is now the treaty that is ratified by states when they wish to join the UPU.

[Clarence]

1873

The Canadian Parliament establishes the North-West Mounted Police (which is renamed the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 1920).

[Clarence]

1872

Great Boston Fire of 1872



was Boston's largest urban fire, and still ranks as one of the most costly fire-related property losses in American history. The conflagration began at 7:20 p.m. on November 9, 1872, in the basement of a commercial warehouse at 83-87 Summer Street. The fire was finally contained 12 hours later, after it had consumed about 65 acres (26 ha) of Boston's downtown, 776 buildings and much of the financial district, and caused $73.5 million in damage. At least 30 people are known to have died in the fire.

[Clarence]

1871

More fires!



Four major fires break out on the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago, Peshtigo, Wisconsin, Holland, Michigan, and Manistee, Michigan. The Great Chicago Fire is the most famous of these, leaving nearly 100,000 people homeless, although the Peshtigo Fire kills as many as 2,500 people, making it the deadliest fire in United States history.

[Clarence]

1870

It is revealed that the famed Cardiff Giant is just carved gypsum and not the petrified remains of a human.



The Cardiff Giant was one of the most famous hoaxes in United States history. It was a 10-foot (3.0 m) tall purported "petrified man" uncovered on October 16, 1869, by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. "Stub" Newell in Cardiff, New York. Both it and an unauthorized copy made by P.T. Barnum are still on display.

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Good news! Christmas is declared a federal holiday in the United States!! By the 1870s, putting up a Christmas tree had become common in America.



They put piles of lit candles on dried out trees! Can you imagine?

You think maybe this contributed to the fires in the previous post?

[Eff]

1869

Black friday
September 24, 1869, the collapse of the price of gold. Handwritten caption by James A. Garfield indicates it was used as evidence before the Committee of Banking & Currency during hearings in 1870.
Black Friday, September 24, 1869 was caused by the efforts of two speculators, Jay Gould and James Fisk, to corner the gold market on the New York Gold Exchange.[1] It was one of several scandals that undermined the stability of the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant.

Well since then "Black Fridays" for us is sales at electricity shops and so lol

Yay for me!

[Clarence]

1868

The first traffic light was installed in 1868, 18 years before the first car



1868, the first non-electric, gas lit, traffic lights were installed outside the British Houses of Parliament in London to control the traffic in Bridge Street, Great George Street and Parliament Street. They were promoted by the railway engineer J. P. Knight and constructed by the railway signal engineers of Saxby & Farmer. The design combined three semaphore arms with red and green gas lamps for night-time use, on a pillar, operated by a police constable. The gas lantern was manually turned by a traffic police officer, with a lever at its base so that the appropriate light faced traffic.

http://curionic.com/the-first-traffic-l ... first-car/

[Clarence]

1867



My home, Canada, officially becomes a country!

[LaLou]

1866
Alfred Nobel invents dynamite in Germany.
Dynamite is an explosive material based on nitroglycerin, using diatomaceous earth (AmE: kieselgur; BrE: kieselguhr), or another adsorbent substance such as powdered shells or clay. Dynamites using organic materials as sorbents such as sawdust are less stable and such use has been generally discontinued.

[Clarence]

1865

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln



Also the end of the American Civil War.

[LaLou]

1864

August 22 – First Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field is signed in Geneva by 12 European states under the auspices of the International Committee for Relief to the Wounded (predecessor of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement).

[Clarence]

1863

Battle of Gettysburg



American Civil War: Battle of Gettysburg – Union forces under George G. Meade turn back a Confederate invasion by Robert E. Lee in the largest battle of the war (28,000 Confederate casualties, 23,000 Union).

I've walked around the battlefields in Gettysburg. It is a lovely place if you don't think about the small stream which was running red with the blood of 50,000 dead man and boys who were valiantly trying to kill each other over a fundamental disagreement about whether humans should be treated and traded as objects.

[Clarence]

1862

Paper currency (greenbacks) introduced in the US by President Abraham Lincoln



They were legal tender by law, but were not backed by gold or silver, only the credibility of the U.S. government.

This was mostly due to the costly Civil War as Lincoln needed a way to have more money be available.

Before this they used only coins etc, little black bags of gold and silver, traded horses and whatever they had to do to get by

Certain banks would give bank notes but they were not legal tender that could be used anywhere.

[Clarence]

1861



Fort Sumter, standing as the last Union post in the seceded state of South Carolina, is awakened in the early hours of the morning of April 12, 1861, to Confederate artillery fire. The Fort was surrendered on April 13th after almost two days of being bombarded and heavily outnumbered. The seige at Fort Sumter was the first major act of aggression by the Confederate States of America against the Union and would be known as the start of the Civil War.

[Clarence]

1860

The Pony Express begins its first run from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California with riders carrying a small bible.

[Clarence]

1859

Solar storm of 1859



A solar coronal mass ejection hit Earth's magnetosphere and induced one of the largest geomagnetic storms on record.

Studies have shown that a solar storm of this magnitude occurring today would likely cause more widespread problems for a modern and technology-dependent society. Scary stuff!

Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases giving telegraph operators electric shocks. Telegraph pylons threw sparks. Some telegraph operators could continue to send and receive messages despite having disconnected their power supplies.

[Clarence]

1858



Abraham Lincoln says "A house divided against itself cannot stand" accepting Illinois Republican Party's nomination for the Senate

very famous line

also the pencil with an attached eraser was patented by Hyman L Lipman of Phila

[Clarence]

1857

~~ United States ~~



- The largest slave auction in United States history, dubbed as 'The Weeping Time'. Over a 2-day period (starting March 2), Pierce M. Butler sells 436 men, women, children, and infants, all of whom are kept in stalls meant for horses at a racetrack in Savannah, Georgia, for weeks beforehand.

- Dred Scott v. Sandford: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that Blacks are not citizens and slaves can not sue for freedom, driving the country further towards the American Civil War (the ruling is not overturned until the 14th Amendment in 1868).

~~ Canada ~~

Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, as the capital of Canada.