On May 15, 1911, the Supreme Court declared Standard Oil of New Jersey to be an illegal monopoly. Standard Oil controlled 88% of the oil production and deliver in the US via subsidiaries and holding companies and used its position of power to crush competitors and raise prices for consumers.
In their 1911 antimonopoly ruling in Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, the Supreme Court ordered Standard Oil to be broken up into 33 companies, most prominently including SO of New Jersey (Esso, later Exxon), SO of New York (Socony, later Mobil), SO of Ohio (later Sohio), SO of Indiana (later Amoco), and SO of California (later Chevron).
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, place of one of the worst industrial fires in New York City on March 25, 1911, is still standing today.
York was the first English city to become settled permanently by the Danish Vikings (in AD 867) and the last to remain under Viking rule (until 954). It served as capital of the Danelaw under the name of Jorvik.
16083 Jorvik (1999 TH12) is a main-belt asteroid discovered on October 12, 1999 by J. Ticha and M. Tichy at Klet, Czech Republic.
The Jorvik Viking Centre in York, England is the country’s main museum for its Viking heritage, built on the site of a Viking settlement. The name is the one applied to York by the Scandinavian warriors who conquered the Roman town of Eboracum.
York, Pennsylvania briefly served as the U.S. capital when the Continental Congress had to flee Philadelphia to avoid advancing British forces during the American Revolution.
The Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia is the oldest continually operating theater in the US. It was once owned by John Wilkes Booth’s brother, Edwin.
The North Briton, Issue No. 45, by John Wilkes, became a symbol of freedom of speech in Britain in the late 18th century.
The Lewis and Clark expedition encountered their first grizzly bears in present-day North Dakota.
“The Shoreline of Lewis” is a hypnotic slow air by Pipe Major Donald MacLeod written for the great highland bagpipes.
Donald O’Connor, whose full name was Donald David Dixon Ronald O’Connor, allegedly didn’t enjoy working with Gene Kelly while filming Singin’ in the Rain (1952), because he found him to be a bit of a tyrant on set.
The colour known as “Rider Green” in Saskatchewan is allegedly known as “Kelly Green” in other parts of the world, but that may just be an urban legend.
“The Colour Out of Space” by H. P. Lovecraft was the author’s personal favorite short story. It first appeared in the September 1927 edition of Hugo Gernsback’s science fiction magazine Amazing Stories.
In September 1927 the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) was formed and went on the air with 47 radio stations.
The pioneering online service provider Prodigy, which got squeezed out of the market by a nationwide flood of free AOL disks, was originally named Trintex, signifying its 3 founders: CBS, IBM, and Sears. It claimed to be the first consumer online service, since it used a graphical user interface instead of CompuServ’s command-line interface.
Arthur C. Clarke always stoutly denied that the initials of 2001: A Space Odyssey’s HAL 9000 supercomputer were intended as a “one-better” slam at IBM. He admired IBM and had found their experts very helpful in his work.
The P.G. Wodehouse character, Lord Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred, was a big fan of the stout denial in responding to questions about his activities during his occasional trips to London.
Jack Lord, star of the original Hawaii 5-0, was an artist in his spare time, boast that his art appeared in major art museums. This was because Lord would donate large sums of money to the museum with the stipulation that they display one of his paintings somewhere.
Winston Churchill enjoyed painting in his spare time.