History Evemts Are Good Pickings Today

This is a good date, August 15th,  for history.  I think most of us know some about most of the below events that happened on this date.

1057 - Macbeth, the King of Scotland, was killed by the son of King Duncan. 

If it wasn't for Shakespeare we might have asked  "Macbeth who?" 

1848 - The dental chair was patented by M. Waldo Hanchett.  

Of course this one everybody has had experience with.  Everybody knows of  the game, "Where's Waldo?"

1877 - Thomas Edison wrote to the president of the Telegraph Company in Pittsburgh, PA. The letter stated that the word, "hello" would be a more appropriate greeting than "ahoy" when answering the telephone. 

I think most people still say "Hello"  but some say, "Yeah?"  or "Whatzup?" or "This is a recording".

1911 - The product Crisco was introduced by Procter & Gamble Company. 

You have a choice:  "Crisco Ass" or "Lard Ass".

1914 - The Panama Canal was officially opened to commercial traffic as an American ship sailed from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. The first vessel to pass through the canal was the American cargo and passenger ship SS Ancon. 

My great uncle Oscar Ray Hunter (1884-1963) worked with the Panama Canal Project.  Not sweating digging it or chopping down giant vines with a machete with his shirt unbuttoned , but comfortably inside drinking tea and punching an adding machine, with a fan no doubt..  He was a bookkeeper.   His office must have been just down the hall from the medical unit, he married a nurse there, Charlotte McCabe (1881-1958).

Oscar Ray Hunter

1935 - Will Rogers and Wiley Post were killed in an airplane crash.

Will is still universally quoted -much of what they said a hundred years ago still fits today; withstood the test of time.

It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so.

Will Rogers

1939 - "The Wizard of Oz" premiered in Hollywood, CA. Judy Garland became famous for the movie's song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."