The first Father’s Day
Father’s Day was first celebrated in a small town in Fairmont, West Virginia on July 5, 1908. It was a service to commemorate and celebrate the lives of 210 fathers who were lost in a mining accident several months earlier. It was organized by a lady named Mrs. Grace Golden Clayton who chose the Sunday closest to the birthday of her recently deceased father. Father’s Day did not become a regular event in the city due to it being so close to July 4th.

The modern version of fathers day began two years later when another woman by the name of Sonora Dodd organized a Father’s Day celebration in the city of Spokane. This was largely influenced by the celebration of Mother’s Day.

Father’s Day officially became a holiday of recognition in 1972 by President Nixon. However, it had been presented to the congress in a bill many years prior to this in 1913. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson went to Spokane and spoke at the Father’s Day celebrations. He wanted it to become a national holiday but the congresses feared it would become commercialized and lose meaning. It wasn’t until 1966 that a President issued a presidential proclamation honoring fathers. Father’s Day was to be celebrated on the first Sunday in June every year. It was them finally signed into law in 1972.

When was NASA founded?
Prior to the founding of NASA, space exploration was considered to be a military venture. The US government believed that space exploration should be a peaceful endeavor that benefited the entire human race. It was concluded that the US military would not be able to keep up with the Soviet space program so NASA was formed. On July 29, 1958 President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act and established NASA as we know it today. When NASA was formed, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was incorporated into NASA. NACA was founded in 1915 and had the responsibility for aeronautical research.

Since it was founded the highlight for NASA was successfully landing a man on the moon on, July 20 1969. The next major goal for NASA is a manned mission to Mars. Although this won’t take place until sometime after 2030, the planning for the mission is well underway.

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When was the Statue of Liberty built
The idea of building the statue was first discussed in 1865, but because of the troubled political situation in France, the actual building didn’t take place until the early 1870′s. In 1875 it was decided that France would finance and build the actual statue and the US would build the pedestal. The statue was completed in stages as both countries struggled to raise the funds for the project. The completed statue was presented to the US Ambassador on the July 4, 1884. Meanwhile, the pedestal was not completed until April, 1886. The statue was brought to the US in pieces and reassembled on the current site. The dedication ceremony was held on October 28, 1886 when it was opened to the public.

Interesting facts about the Statue of Liberty

• The statue (including the base and pedestal) stands at a height of 305 feet and 6 inches (93 metres).
• The statue is made of copper and the green color is caused by the natural weathering of the copper.
• The restoration of the statue was completed in 1986. The torch was replaced, along with much of the internal structure.
• There are 154 steps from the pedestal to the head of the statue.
• The United States needed to fundraise $100,000 for the pedestal and, thanks to the work of Joseph Pulitzer, they achieved this goal. Amazingly, 80% of this money was received in sums of less than 1 dollar!

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The Abolition of Slavery in the USA
Slavery was a large part of the way of life in the United States for the years preceding the founding of the United States in 1776. Even after this time plantation owners in the South of America continued to use slaves to work their crops, as house servants and to look after their children. The first colony to acquire slaves was a colony in Virginia, North America in 1619. At the beginning slaves were people who worked to pay for their transport to the colonies of America, but by the 18th century courts and legislation made meant that only Africans and blacks could be owned as slaves. During the 1770’s through to the 1860’s people begun to question the morals of owning slaves and many political discussions and abolition demonstrations began to happen. Federal legislation banned the trans-Atlantic slave trade and passed other laws to protect the rights of slaves. Slavery became such a contentious issue that it contributed to the American Civil War. On December 6, 1865 slavery was finally abolished in the United States of America.

The Abolition of Slavery in Britain
The British had many slaves all over the British Empire. They used them to work and harvest crops such as sugar and tobacco. Due to a court case slavery became outlawed in Great Britain in 1772. However, the transportation and exploitation of slaves continued within the Empire. In 1807 a law was passed called the Slave Trade Act and prohibited the transportation and sale of slaves. A 100 pound fine was given for each slave that was found on a ship. This act had profound influence on other countries that traded with Britain and many other countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands also abolished slave trading. In 1833 an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom was passed abolishing slavery throughout most of the British Empire.

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The Founding of Microsoft
The company Microsoft was founded on April 4, 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, with the backing of MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems). Its original purpose was to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800. Later during the mid 1980’s Microsoft became an even more viable business with the development of MS-DOS, an operating system for IBM computers. In 1984 it developed it operating system of Microsoft Windows. Microsoft continued to develop programs and in 1990 it began to dominant the office suite market with the release of Microsoft Office. Over the coming years it rewrote, expanded and improved upon its operating systems and office suites releasing new updates and versions as improvements were made. In recent years Microsoft has even expanded its focus to include gaming consoles with the creation of the Xbox and the Xbox 360. It has also developed a range of products and services for consumer electronics and digital services with electronics programs such as Zune, MSN and Windows Phone.

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When Was YouTube Created?
The YouTube domain name was activated on 14 February 2005. The idea for YouTube had been in existence since early in 2005. It was founded by three former employees of PayPal, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. The first video to ever be uploaded onto the site was titled Me at the zoo. It is a video of one of the founders of YouTube, Jawed Karim, at the San Diageo Zoo. It can still be found on the YouTube site and was upload on April 23, 2005. The founders tested the YouTube site in May of 2005 and found that it was extremely popular. They open the site for official use six months later in November 2005. YouTube took off and logged more than 100 million videos viewed each day by July 2006. At this time statistics showed that more than 65,000 videos were being uploaded on a daily basis. It is the third most accessed website in the internet ranking behind Google and Facebook. In October of 2006 Google announced that it had brought YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock. In November of 2008 a deal was reached between YouTube, MGM, Lions Gate Entertainment and CBS allowing YouTube to post movies and television shows. In 2010 YouTube introduced a film rental service allowing people to hire movies via YouTube. Currently this is only available to U.S Customers.

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When was Basketball invented?
Basketball was invented in December 1891 by a Canadian gym teacher named James Naismith. He invented basketball as he needed a way to keep his gym class active on days where it was not possible to be outside. He wrote some simple rules and used and peach basket and a soccer ball to play the first game. The first game of basketball was played on January 20, 1892. 18 players were on the court at the same time, 9 to a team. The final score at the end of the game was 1-0. By 1898 a standard team had five players. The first college basketball games was played January 18, 1896 between the University of Chicago and Iowa the final score in that game was 15-12.

Women’s basketball was first played in 1892 when a lady gym teacher by the name of Senda Berenson adapted Naismith’s rules for girls. The first official game was played on March 21 1893 between the freshmen and sophomores of Smith College.

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When Was The First Automobile Invented?
The first engine powered creation that could be called a “car” was invented in 1725. It was a steam powered car design to carry French artillery at walking pace. It was a three wheeled vehicle and there is some controversy about whether this vehicle actually worked. In 1801 another steam powered road vehicle was developed and built, but it was unable to maintain enough steam pressure to keep it moving for long periods.

The first combustion engine was invented in 1807 by two French brothers who installed it on a boat. In the same year a Swiss inventor François Isaac de Rivaz developed his own internal combustion engine and used his design to develop the world’s first vehicle powered by it. In 1885, a German inventor by the name of Karl Benz (own company became Mercedes Benz) designed and built the first ever gasoline powered internal combustion automobile. It was the first automobile to be patented in 1879 and Karl Benz is widely recognized as the inventor of the automobile.

The first electric car was invented in 1881, by a French inventor named Gustave Trouvé. He demonstrated his three wheeled electric powered vehicle at the International Exposition of Electricity, Paris.

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It is difficult to know when writing was invented as many cultures developed way to make records of crops, people and other items. The Sumerian people of Mesopotamia are thought to have created the first writing. They used a reed to press symbols into soft clay which was then allowed to dry. This was called cuneiform and the earliest known examples date back to 4000BC. Cuneiform was a type of writing that used pictures to represent whole words rather than symbols that correspond to a particularly sound. The Egyptians quickly followed developing their own hieroglyphics around 3100 BC. They then developed the world’s first alphabet using hieroglyphics in 2000BC. The Greeks are credited for developing the first alphabetic writing similar to modern day writing in around 100BC. In this system symbols represented sounds rather than whole words. Most written symbols were used for accounting purposes and it was not until alphabetic systems where developed that they were used to record ideas and history.

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The Formation of Hawaii as the 50th State
For over a century the islands of Hawaii have been under the rule of the United States. After a peaceful but controversial coup the American Colonists that lived on Hawaii overthrew the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893. Hawaii became the territory of the United States in 1898. Much political and social unrest followed in the years after. In 1990 Hawaii was granted the right to self-governance and started action to become a state. However, Hawaii remained a territory for sixty years as it was advantageous to big business owners. During the 1950’s the Hawaii Republican Party was voted out of office and the Democratic Party of Hawaii controlled politics in Hawaii for the next 40 years. The residents of Hawaii campaigned for statehood to occur. In March 1959 Congress passed the Hawaii Admission Act which granted Hawaii the right to become a state. A referendum was held on June 27, 1959 asking the people if they wanted to become a state. The vote was 17 to 1 in favor of becoming a state. On August 21, 1959 Hawaii officially became the 50th state of the United States of America.

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