Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower
(October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969)
Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States and
one of the most highly regarded American generals of World War
II, died in Washington, D.C. of congestive heart failure at Walter
Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., at age 78.
March 27, 1912: In Washington, D.C., Helen Taft, wife of President
William Taft, and the Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted two Yoshino cherry trees on the northern
bank of the Potomac River, near the Jefferson Memorial.
The event was held in celebration of a gift, by the Japanese
government, of 3,020 cherry trees to the U.S. government.
The planting of Japanese cherry trees along the Potomac was
first proposed by socialite Eliza Scidmore, who raised money
for the endeavor. Helen
Taft had lived in Japan while her husband was president of the
Philippine Commission, and knowing the beauty of cherry
blossoms she embraced Scidmore’s idea. After learning of
the first lady’s interest, the Japanese consul in New York
suggested making a gift of the trees to the U.S. government
from the city of Tokyo.
Helen Louise Taft (née Herron; June 2, 1861 – May 22, 1943)
1950
The Johnson Smith Company was a mail-order company
established in 1914 by Alfred Johnson Smith (1885-1948)
in Chicago, Illinois, USA that sold novelty and gag gift
items such as x-ray goggles, whoopee cushions, fake
vomit, and joy buzzers.
The company moved from Chicago to Racine, Wisconsin
in 1926, to Detroit in the 1930s, and from the Detroit area
to Bradenton, Florida in 1986.
In 2014, the company marked its 100th anniversary. On
December 31, 2019, the company’s website announced
that they had ceased operations and closed. Johnson
Smith was acquired by Collections Etc in 2020.
(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
In one of the darkest moments of America’s industrial history,
the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City
burned down, killing 146 workers, on March 25, 1911. The
tragedy led to the development of a series of laws and
regulations that better protected the safety of factory
workers.
The Triangle factory, owned by Max Blanck and Isaac Harris,
was located in the top three floors of the 10-story Asch
Building in downtown Manhattan. It was a sweatshop in
every sense of the word: a cramped space lined with work
stations and packed with poor immigrant workers, mostly
teenaged women who did not speak English. At the time of
the fire, there were four elevators with access to the factory
floors, but only one was fully operational and it could hold
only 12 people at a time. There were two stairways down to
the street, but one was locked from the outside to prevent
theft by the workers and the other opened inward only. The
fire escape was shoddily constructed, and could not support
the weight of more than a few women at a time.
