Sharks Aren’t in the Great Lakes, but Testicle-Nipping Fish Are
"It’s not normal to get your testicles bitten off, of course, but it can happen.”
Jan. 25, 1945: Fluoridation — Better Teeth, or Commie Plot?
Grand Rapids, Michigan, fluoridates its water, beginning a controversy that remains unsettled to this day.
March 7, 1897: First Morning of the Cornflake
1897: Dr. John Kellogg, believing that a strict diet (along with vigorous exercise, fresh air and plenty of rest) benefits the patients at his sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, serves up the world’s first cornflakes. Kellogg was a Seventh-Day Adventist and a passionate adherent of the “healthy living” tenets of the church, which embraced a […]
Nov. 18, 1883: Railroad Time Goes Coast to Coast
1883: U.S. and Canadian railways adopt five standardized time zones to replace the multiplicity of local times in communities across the continent. Everyone would soon be operating on “railroad time.” Noon on a well-made, properly paced sundial is whenever the sun is highest right there. The advent of mechanical timekeeping in the Middle Ages didn’t […]
Nov. 3, 1900: The Grandmother of All Auto Shows
1900: The first major automobile show in the United States opens at Madison Square Garden in New York City. It wasn’t the first automobile show held in the United States. It wasn’t even the first held at Madison Square Garden. But it is considered the first modern automotive show. The weeklong event, sponsored by the […]
Video: 101st Airborne Delivers Game Ball From Above
Delivering game balls to the official before a football game isn’t normally a big deal. Oh, maybe some famous former player will get to come and wave to the crowd before he hands the ball to the head ref, but it doesn’t often get creative. Except, that is, during last weekend’s intrastate showdown between Michigan […]
Aug. 31, 1920: News Radio Makes News
1920: A Detroit station airs what is believed to be the first radio news broadcast. The exact headlines of that day are of no historical significance, but with this local newscast a nascent medium finally conveys a message so compelling that it would soon capture the world’s imagination as only television and the internet would, […]
Feb. 4, 1951: Major Assist Removes Enormous Cyst
1951: Doctors in Chicago complete the longest operation in history — a four-day marathon — to remove an enormous 300-pound ovarian cyst from a 58-year-old patient. The patient, Gertrude Levandowski, was a resident of Burnips, Michigan. After her husband died in the early 1940s, she began to gain weight because of an undiagnosed ovarian cyst. […]