On this day in 1925, Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming became the first female governor in the United States. Ross won a special election to fill a vacancy caused by the death of her husband, the incumbent, even though she had refused to campaign. She would later serve as the first female director of the […]

During the Roaring Twenties, flappers and other "bright young things" invented nonsense expressions — possibly to incense their proper mamas and papas. One of their favorite targets was phrases to replace the word/s "wonderful" or "the best". One of the most widely known of these is 'the bee's knees', as in "I think dinner at […]

Who didn't love reading the Sunday funnies as a kid? My most vivid memory of my paternal grandfather is watching him paste Sunday comic strips into scrapbooks. After he died, my aunt gave me two of them as keepsakes. One is Jiggs and Maggie, the other a strip called The Bungle Family. Jiggs and Maggie […]

During the 1920s motion pictures played a huge role in social life for people of all ages but especially those in their teens and early twenties — probably after they discovered those dark, secluded back theatre rows. The first public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but it would be […]