Scott Allsop's Blog, page 206

27th September 1908: First Model T Ford produced in Detroit

On the 27th September 1908, the first Model T Ford automobile rolled out of the Piquette Avenue factory in Detroit. Although some sources claim that the first Model T was built four days later – on 1st October – research shows that this was actually the date on which the new model was available for delivery. The new Model T wasn’t the first to be produced by the Ford company, but it was significant for being the first widely-affordable car. While the low cost was ultimately achieved thanks to...

26th September 1960: Kennedy and Nixon’s first televised debate

The first United States presidential debate took place between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Political debates had taken place in the United States as far back as 1858’s series of seven meetings between Senate candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. It wasn’t until 1956 that University of Maryland student Fred A. Kahn first suggested a national presidential debate, but that would have to wait for four years when Kennedy and Nixon met at the CBS studios in Chicago. Going in to...

25th September 1513: European ‘discovery’ of the Pacific Ocean

On the 25th September 1513, Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa became the first European to successfully lead an expedition to the Pacific Ocean from the New World. He and his men crossed the Isthmus of Panama – the narrow strip of land between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean – and saw what was then known as the ‘South Sea’ from the summit of one of the mountain ranges. It took another four days for them to descend to sea level. Balboa had first sailed to the New World in 1500, an...

24th September 1789: The Judiciary Act becomes law in the United States of America

The Judiciary Act was passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by President George Washington. Article III of the United States Constitution created the Supreme Court, and stated that it would be vested with ‘the judicial Power of the United States’. As it was to be the head of a federal court system, the Constitution further specified that the Supreme Court’s composition was to be determined by Congress. The Judiciary Act of 1789 was consequently adopted by the First United S...

23rd September 1974: BBC launches the Ceefax teletext service

On the 23rd September 1974, the world’s first teletext service went live when the BBC began transmitting its Ceefax service. Designed as a way to broadcast text-based information during the overnight ‘close-down’ of television services, it was the dominant medium for accessing breaking news until the arrival of the World Wide Web. A system for broadcasting text had been developed by the BBC during the 1960s, but it was a noisy and limited mechanical system that only ever made it as far as int...

22nd September 1888: First edition of National Geographic Magazine published

The first edition of the National Geographic Magazine was published by the National Geographic Society. The National Geographic Society was established in Washington D.C. in January 1888. Founded by just thirty-three men, the Society’s first President was the lawyer and financier Gardiner Greene Hubbard whose lay interest in science and geography perfectly embodied the Society’s creation ‘for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge’. Nine months after the Society’s foundation, th...

21st September 1937: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien is first published

On the 21st September 1937, J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy novel The Hobbit was first published in the United Kingdom. Although it has remained in print ever since, Tolkien made a number of revisions to the text over the course of the next thirty years to bring plot elements into line with the storyline of the subsequent Lord of the Rings, and also to retain copyright in the USA. Tolkien was an academic linguist who was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxfo...

20th September 1835: The start of the Ragamuffin War

The Ragamuffin War began when Brazilian rebels in the southern province of Rio Grande do Sul captured Porto Alegre. The early 1830s had seen gaucho ranchers in southern Brazil growing increasingly frustrated with the country’s central government. Their primary grievance concerned a tax on the province’s main product, a type of dried and salted beef known as charque, that had led to the market being flooded with cheaper imported versions from Uruguay and Argentina. As criticism of the governme...

19th September 1970: First Glastonbury Festival takes place

On the 19th September 1970 the first Glastonbury Festival took place at Worthy Farm in Somerset. Organised by dairy farmer Michael Eavis, the event was billed as the Pilton Pop, Blues & Folk Festival and attracted 1,500 people who paid a pound each to see a number of bands on a single stage and drink as much milk as they wanted. The two-day festival was inspired by Eavis’ visit to the nearby Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music albeit on a much smaller scale. Described by performer Ia...

18th September 1932: Actress Peg Entwistle’s body found after jumping from the Hollywood sign

The body of actress Peg Entwistle was found in a ravine below the Hollywoodland sign in Los Angeles. Millicent Lillian Entwistle was born in Wales to English parents, but had settled in New York with her actor father by 1916. After he died in 1922, the fourteen year old Peg and her two half-brothers were cared for by their uncle who had also moved to New York. Within a few years Entwistle had followed her father into the theatre, and she appeared in ten Broadway plays between 1926 and 1932. S...