History

Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, in which we're reminded about the late speaker's quest for civil rights equality.

Making their way through the Great Basin National Park in Nevada, archeologists came across an 1873 Winchester rifle. The Rifle, a Winchester model 1873 repeating rifle, was found leaning against a tree. It's 132 years old but it’s not known how long it has been leaning against the three.

The game show Wheel of Fortune turns 40 years old this year. The original host was Chuck Woolery and the letter turner was Susan Stafford. The name of the show was Shopper’s Bazaar. Woolery, in a contract dispute, left the show in 1981 and was replaced by Pat Sajak. Vanna White joined shortly after.

Christmas as we know it today hasn’t always been Christmas as we know it. It was only about 150 years ago Christmas in the United States started to take shape and become the holiday we have today.

This Sunday is the 73rd anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941. This is the day President Franklin Roosevelt said would be the day that 'lived in infamy'. It's the date that threw the United States into the World War.

December is ‘Bingo’ month. The game made its debut in December of 1921 and has been a popular game ever since. The original name was ‘Beano’ until toy salesman, Edwin S. Lowe, heard an excited winner yell out ‘bingo’ when they won a game at a carnival.

On this day in 1910, the first horseshoe pitching tournament was held in Bronson, Kansas. Things were a little different in those days of horseshoes, the stakes were only 2 inches high, ringers counted as five points, leaners three and close shoes were one. The stakes were 38 feet apart.

Today, during the Morning Buzz, we had the opportunity to talk to Tim and Greg Morin.  They are twins who own Shaker Hill Outdoors in Poland Spring.  But, more recently, they were snatched up by the History Channel's Downeast Dickering.

In 1938 at the site of the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, Westinghouse buried a 5,000 year time capsule. It is scheduled to be opened in the year 6963. It is located in the Westinghouse Pavilion of the fairgrounds in Queens, New York.

One of the biggest murder mysteries that has gone unsolved since the late 1880’s, may have been solved. Jack the Ripper, who brutally killed and mutilated five women in 1888, may have been identified using DNA evidence.

If you visited Disney World or Disneyland in the early days of the parks and you visit Disney today, you will see quite a few changes in the park. Some of the early rides and attractions are gone forever. There was a day on the monorail you could sit up front with the driver simply by asking, but that is no longer allowed.

Maine’s annual Open Lighthouse Day is Saturday, September 13. On that day, 22 lighthouses around the state will offer free admission to visitors. The annual draw is 15,000 to 18,000 people as they get the opportunity to climb to the top of the lighthouses.

This past Saturday (August 2) was an event to honor the 80th anniversary of Amelia Earhart’s visit to Maine. At Maine Instrument Flight they had a display about Earhart and a special focus on encouraging girls and women to learn to fly. One of the old newspaper photos in the display about Earhart’s visit to Augusta caught my attention. The caption on the photo did not identify the girl other than

In this day and age of technology, your smart phone probably has more capabilities than the first space ship to go to the moon, but on July 20th 1969, an American made the first footprints on the moon’s surface. This Sunday, July 20th marks the 45th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon.

The 85th Major League Baseball All-Star game will be played at Target Field in Minneapolis on Tuesday, July 15th. Here are some things you may not know about the All-Star game. The first game was played on July 6. 1933 in Chicago and Babe Ruth was the first player to hit a home run in All-Star game history.

On July 8th, 1776, the Liberty Bell (not called that at the time) was rung to celebrate the first reading of the Declaration of Independence. At that time the bell didn’t have its famous crack, at least not that bell. That was the second bell to be shipped to America.