Posted in General | February 4, 2013
Among the items in the Archives at Queens Library’s collection of original sources, documenting the history of the four counties of Long Island, are personal correspondence, financial records, memorabilia, sketches and blueprints of noted African-American inventor and author…
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Posted in General | January 11, 2013
The New York Times reported that recently — just off the island of Midway, where the pivotal naval battle of the Pacific War was fought 71 years ago — archaeological divers discovered the remains of an historical rarity. In 10 feet of water, they found the propeller and other…
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Posted in General | January 10, 2013
January 20 marks the 127th anniversary of the patenting of the roller coaster. These scream-inducing attractions have spread all over the world and endured their own peaks and troughs of popularity, but you can’t tell the story without talking about Queens, where a pioneer of…
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Posted in General | December 17, 2012
December 17 is a big day for aviation history. In 1903, Ohio bicycle makers Orville and Wilbur Wright took their homemade craft down to Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina and became the first to achieve manned, controlled heavier-than-air flight.The Wrights’ story is well-known…
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Posted in General | December 11, 2012
The tradition of the Christmas tree was already well-established in the United States by the end of the 19th Century. Although the first national Christmas tree wasn’t set up until 1913, (based on the large tree that was decorated in Madison Square Park in Manhattan in 1912),…
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