Pleasant Hill Junior Academy - Torch Yearbook (Pleasant Hill, CA)

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The Uncle Sam Chronicles 'Y' 'ite 1799. Jonathan Grout invents and installs a 90-mile semaphore signal system between Boston and Martha's Vineyard. A message and reply took ten minutes, but Grout kept getting a busy signal. March 4, 1801. Thomas Jefferson becomes president. April 3, 1803. United States purchases Louisiana Territory from France for S15 million. May 14, 1804. Lewis and Clark leave St. Louis for the Pacific Coast. July 4th, 1804. Nathaniel Hawthorne born. 1807. First soda pop. Townsend Speakman, great grandfather of the Pepsi generation, adds fruit juice to soda water and sells it as medicine. ' 4 February 27, 1807. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow born. August 7, 1807. Robert Fulton's steamboat Clermont makes its first run on the Hudson River. June 18, 1812. United States declares war on Great Britain. August 19, 1812. First woman marine, Ruth Streeter fought aboard the U.S'..S'. Constitution. If anybody knew she was a woman at that time, he wouldn't admit it. December 1, 1813. British forces burn the city of Buffalo. August 24, 1814. British burn Washington, D.C. and the White House. December 24, 1814. The Treaty of Ghent concludes the War of 1812. The United States Army recorded 531,622 enlistments, but some militiamen enlisted as many as ten times. There was a bonus for enlistment. ' .Ianu 8 1815 British defeated at New Orleans . , ary . The war liad been over for more than three weeks but neither side had heard the news. March 4, 1817. James Monroe becomes fifth president. July 12, 1817. Henry David Thoreau bom. August 29, 1809. Oliver Wendell Holmes born. December 13, 1809. Dr. Ephraim McDowell performs the first abdominal operation on Mrs. Jane Todd. She was 45 and lived to be 78. 1811. An anonymous taxpayer returns 55 to the government. which he said he had defrauded. In 1916 the government received an anonymous payment of S54,923.15. I x May 12, 1820. Florence Nightingale born. 0ctober.24, 1820. Spain cedes Florida to the United States. April 27, 1822. Ulysses S. Grant born. December 2, 1823. Monroe Doctrine closes the Americas to foreign colonization. 1824. Natural gas is used to illuminate Freedonia, New York. r .Ianua 19, 1825. Ezra Daggett and Thomas Keffseft invent the tin can. 1826. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper is published. July 4, 1826. Thomas Jefferson dies. v 1827. Harrison Gray Byar builds a two-mile ' telegraph system at Long Island City 65 years before Edison's patent. 1834. The New York Sun announces that an astronomer has sighted men on the moon. They are described as being four feet high and able to fly with their own wings. Shortly afterwards, the story was admitted to be a hoax. Circulation continued to increase after the admission. 1834. Friction matches are manufacturedin Springfield, Massachusetts. November 30, 1835. Samuel Langhorne Clemens fMark Twainl born. November 25, 1817. Senaa Samma of Madras swallows a sword at Washington Hall. New York, manufactured for him by William Pye. May 21, 1819. The first bicycle is ridden in New York City. Two months later. the city bans them on sidewalks, streets, and in public places. August 2, 1819. Charles Guiee makes the first parachute jump. Ascending in a balloon, he plummets 300 feet before his umbrella-like chute opens, then is put in a holding pattern by the LaGuardia tower but is blown four miles out of New York. In its mythology is the true measure of o notion's strength. For what is notional character if not the sum ofthe people's hopes ond dreams, foilures ond triumphs? Whot does it mutter. recilly, if Johnny Appleseed lived or did not live. Today, in the collective mind of the A ' I , he is mericon peop e every bit os reol ond A os human os Teddy Roosevelt, Charles Lindbergh, or Donold Duck. N x x 1836. Texas declares itself independent of Mexico. February 25, 1836. Samuel Colt invents 1 t r. April 16, 1836. Massachusetts passes the first child labor law, requiring all children to attend school at least three months a year. Six yearslater, children under 12 are prohibited from working more than ten hours a day. 1838. Pierre Maspero, a New Orleans - saloonkeeper offers the country's first recorded free lunch. I

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the indomitable American Spirit, the eternal verities? Maybe. but you won't find those here. either. Keep looking somewhere else if you're interested. What we have for you is an America that is usually forgotten, sometimes not even remembered. occasionally best left undisturbed beneath its rock. Your history books have given you the hopes, dreams. promises and realizations of America. For our 200th birthday. we give you a second look. And we give it to you one year early. , XAV - . ..... The Uncle Sam Chronicles -.. ' his to r A' 'i : - ' Benj tmin Fr inklin conducted thc first electric ,Q as E turkey dinner in Philadelphia in 1749 1 to bc killed for our dinner by the electric shock -9 - t ' t . X -:A describing the event by letter: A turkey is -I: .,-A -f - , ind ro isted by the electric tl hi ick. before a fire 5 kindled by the electrified bottle: when the healths of all the famous electricians in England. Holland, France and Germany are to be drank in electrified bumpers. under I the discharge of guns from the electrified battery. This was the beginning of 224 years of profligate use of electric power by Americans, a custom that continued unreversed until 1973. The turkey was served well done. Yankee Doodle was written in 1755 by Dr: Richard Shuckburgh at Albany, New York, as a putdown of straggly federals. Later the 1 song was played at the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. L By the time of independence. New York had a Chamber of Commerce. a law school. and a medical college: mustard was being manufactured in Philadelphia. and an inclined railway had been constructed in Lewiston. New York. Two days before independence. QNew Jersey became the first colony to grant lsuffrage to women. Later New Jersey rescinded law, declaring in 1807 that only free. white male citizens could vote. 1785. Dr. John Greenwood introduces the first porcelain false teeth to America and the world. One of Greenwood's first customers is George Washington. October 26, 1785. George Washington imports first jackasses from Spain. 1787. Levi Hutchins invents the alarm clock. Once set, the time of the alarm cannot be changed. September 17, 1787. Constitution is signed. September 13, 1788. New York named capital of United States. April 30, 1789. George Washington inaugurated. John Adams is Vice President. Thomas Jefferson Secretary of State, Alexander Hamilton Secretary of Treasury. September 15, 1789. James Fenimore Cooper born. 1790. James Dearham becomes first black doctor. 1790. George Vancouver explores the Pacific Northwest coast. 1790. John Carroll is consecrated as Bishop of Baltimore, first Catholic bishop in the United States. 1. . i ' . i ,Q ui. i . 1, . 1 March 1, 1790. First census records 3,939,326 Americans. April 17, 1790. Benjamin Franklin dies. 1791. Washington, D.C. is platted. March 4, 1791. Vermont becomes a state. 1792. First Conscription Law passes. Every white male between 18 and 45 is ordered to enroll in the militia and to provide his own weapon and cartridges. No punishment is specified for non-compliance. April 9, 1792. First macadam road between Philadelphia and Lancaster. April 16, 1792. First chuckhole. May 17, 1792. New York Stock Exchange meets at the Merchants Coffee House. October 13, 1792. Architect James Hoban lays cornerstone for White House. . June 20, 1793. Eli Whitney applies for a patent on the cotton gin. September 18, 1793. Cornerstone of Capitol layed. Architect is William Thornton. Capitol completed in 1830. June, 1798. Oliver Evans manufactures the first practical steam engine. December 14, 1799. George Washington dies. December 15, 1799. The Bill of Rights. the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, is passed. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Century. ll

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Blick Rodgers' Davy Crockett Jim Thorpe Johnny Appleseed ,loe Louis Martin Luther King John Glenn Dick Tracy .lohn Brown Little Orphan Annie Humphrey Bogart Tarian Clntrles Lincllveralz Wild Bill Hickocli Tom Swift Sltirley Temple To in Sawyer The Lone Ranger The Uncle Sam Chronicles S if it l.. I l iii . al' l '- fi' fi Cv X - 'F 693 '!' M Q5 1839. First baseball game played at Cooperstown, New York. 1839. Charles Goodyear vulcanizes rubber. July 8, 1839. John D. Rockefeller born. 1840. 2,816 miles of railway are in operation in the United States. August 30, 1842. Congress levies a tax of 75 cents a pound on opium. It had previously been duty-free. Fw December, 1842. Dr. Crawford Williamson Long of Jefferson, Georgia, uses anesthesia in an operation, removing a tnmor from the back of James M. Venable. The bill' for the operation was 52.25, including 25 cents for the anesthetic. November 23, 1844. James Polk defeats Henry Clay for the Presidency by 170 electoral votes to 105. ' March 4, 1845. Texas is annexed, triggering the Mexican-American war. .lean Harlow Jessie Owens Gibson Girl Kate Smith .S'upern1an Rudolph Valentino Clark Gable Paul Bunyan Annie Oakley Sergeant York Audie llluiplzy Babe Ruth Uncle Sam Sam Houston Kit Carson Charlie Chaplin Howrlv Doodv Pecos Bill Dea r Abby Gary Cooper Neil Armstrong Marcus Garvey Daniel Webster John Paul Jones Robert E. Lee Mickey Mouse Will Rogers ,Pocohontas Lassie Andrew Jackson Billy The Kia' Betty Boop John HEHIZI' Charlie Parker Mr. Natural Louis Armstrong Elvis Presley Billy Jean King llflarilvn Monroe Daniel Boone 1, 1845. David Levi Yulee of Florida becomes the nation's first Jewish senator. June, 1846. Brigham Young and the Mormons leave Nauvoo City on their way to the Great Salt Lake. June 14, 1846. 49th Parallel is established as the boundary between Oregon Territory and Canada. December 28, 1846. Iowa becomes a state. 1847. The Mormons found Salt Lake City. February 11, 1847. Thomas Alva Edison born. March 3, 1847. Alexander Graham Bell born. 1848. Tom Hyer becomes the first American Q boxing champion. 1848. The firstchewing gum is manufactured by John Curtis on his Franklin stove. He called it The State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum, but it didn't sell, so he doubled his pleasure, doubled his fun and came out with some new flavors: Licorice Lulu, Yankee Spruce, and 200 Lump Spruce.