Inventors

On March 27, 1884, the first long-distance phone call between New York and Boston was made.

On November 23, 1889, the world’s first jukebox was displayed and used at the Palais Royal Saloon in San Francisco, California.

On July 25, 1909, Louis Blériot became the first person to fly across the English Channel. Born in Cambrai, France, on July 1, 1872, Blériot was the first of five children.  At the age of 10, he attended the Institute of Notre Dame in Cambrai, where he often won prizes for his engineering drawings.

Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was born on July 12, 1895, in Milton, Massachusetts.

Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856, in Smiljan, Austrian Empire (present-day Croatia).

Inventor and businessman Cyrus McCormick died on May 13, 1884, in Chicago, Illinois.

Engineer and inventor Robert Fulton was born on November 14, 1765, in Little Britain, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

On September 4, 1882, Thomas Edison began providing electricity to a portion of New York City, an event often considered the start of the electrical age.

The father of American musical comedy, George Michael Cohan was born on July 3, 1878, in Providence, Rhode Island. The son of traveling Vaudeville performers, Cohan joined his parents on stage when he was just a baby. Cohan learned to dance and sing shortly after learning to walk and talk. Along with his parents and sister, the family toured under the name The Four Cohans, with George writing skits and songs in his teens.