This Week in History

Hello everyone! I’m Sebastian Sonder, and I’m here to tell you what all happened this week, but not this year. We’re diving back to the past to see what happened way back then! So, let’s start with today, shall we?

• On March 7th, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for the telephone in the US. Then, phones were huge and stood in people’s homes. Now we can fit them in our pockets. The difference over a century can make is astonishing.

• On March 8th, 1934, Edwin Hubble's photo shows as many galaxies as the Milky Way has stars. If that was in 1934, just imagine the possibilities when it's 2034, or even 2134. So many technological advances from the years past.

• On March 9th, 1701, France, Cologne & Bavaria signed an alliance. Now, 2 of the 3 still exist. Somewhere in the past 300ish years, Cologne was either overthrown, colonized, or something in between. 

• On March 10th, 1578, Queen Elizabeth I of England gave Johan Casimir £20,000 to aid the Dutch rebellion. For the Americans, that's $23,832.18. That’s a pretty big amount of money, so props to her for helping a rebellion.

• On March 11th, 1789, Benjamin Banneker and Pierre Charles L'Enfant began to lay out Washington, D.C. If only they knew how big the city would become, or how many different cities or areas would be considered Washington, D.C.

• On March 12th, 1642, Abel Tasman was the 1st European to sight New Zealand, viewing the north-west coast of the South Island. At least he didn’t mistake it for India as Christopher Columbus did with America.

• On March 13th, 1852, Uncle Sam's cartoon figure made its debut in the New York Lantern weekly. Now, Uncle Sam is seen as a WWII enlistment advert, but who knew he was actually from nearly a century before then?

  
  

  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!