This Week in History

• February 21st, 1878, the first telephone directory was issued in New Harbor, Connecticut. There were 50 subscribers at the time. Crazy to think that now the phone directory is in the phone itself as the contacts app!

• February 22nd, 1907, the first cabs with taxi meters came into use in London. It's hard to even imagine a cab without one, much less what they must have looked like in the past. Makes you wonder how the fare was measured before 1907.

• February 23rd, 1836, the siege of the Alamo began. It lasted 13 days, and the garrison fell following that. This was a terrible event, but it gave more fuel to the flames of the Texas revolutionaries and also gave them their famous battle cry, still heard today, “Remember the Alamo!”

• February 24th, 1582, Pope Gregory XIII announced the change to the New Style calendar, more commonly known as the Gregorian calendar we use today. Apparently, it lost 8 years when the change took place, but that may just be a conspiracy to justify what happened in 2020.

• February 25th, 1926, Francisco Franco, Spanish Dictator and General, got his General title at the age of 33, the youngest General in Spain at the time. He may have gone on to do bad things, but that's a pretty decent accomplishment for that age!

• February 26th, 1909, Kinemacolor, the first successful color motion picture process was first shown to the general public at the Palace Theater in London. Imagine being one of the first to see a movie in color, something so common now, that must have been really cool!

• February 27th, 425 AD, the University of Constantinople was founded by Emperor Theodosius II at the urging of his wife Aelia Eudocia. Who knew they had universities back then, over a thousand years ago. Almost makes one wonder about what the classes looked like in 425.

Well, that's all for this week! Pretty interesting stuff, right? Let me know down below what your favorite piece of information was, or how many of these you knew! Have a great day and an even better week, catch you next time!