James Fields Smathers
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James Fields Smathers
James Fields Smathers (February 12, 1888 – August 7, 1967) was an American inventor who created what is considered the first practical power-operated typewriter. Early life Smathers was born on a farm near Valley Spring, Texas, the son of James Jefferson and Harriet Olenzo Smathers. After attending the local one-room country school he entered Texas Christian University in 1904. He finished business school, taught shorthand and typing for a year, and in 1908 became typist, accountant, and credit manager to a company in Kansas City, Missouri. Career Smathers realized during the course of his employment that there was a great need for some method of increasing the speed and decreasing the operator fatigue of typing, and it seemed obvious to him that electric power was the answer. By late 1912 he had produced a working model of his electric typewriter and applied for a patent, which was issued the following year. He continued developing his idea until in September 1914 he produce ...
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Llano County, Texas
Llano County is a county located on the Edwards Plateau in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 21,243. Its county seat is Llano, and the county is named for the Llano River. During the American Civil War, the county was on the frontier, and Llano County's soldiers spent more time defending against Indian attacks than they did invading Yankees. In 1869, pioneer rancher John Wesley Snyder led a cattle drive from Llano County along the Chisholm Trail to Abilene, Kansas. In the 1870s, a pioneer community known as Baby Head existed in Llano County. According to local legend, a small child was killed by Native Americans, and her remains were left on a hill called Baby Head Mountain. Jodie May McKneely (died January 1, 1884) originated the Baby Head Cemetery. The pioneer town no longer exists, but the cemetery still remains and is still accepting the dead. History * Peaceful Tonkawa tribe first inhabitants * 1842 April 20 – Adelsverein Fisher- ...
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Poughkeepsie, New York
Poughkeepsie ( ), officially the City of Poughkeepsie, separate from the Town of Poughkeepsie around it) is a city in the U.S. state of New York. It is the county seat of Dutchess County, with a 2020 census population of 31,577. Poughkeepsie is in the Hudson River Valley region, midway between the core of the New York metropolitan area and the state capital of Albany. It is a principal city of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown metropolitan area which belongs to the New York combined statistical area. It is served by the nearby Hudson Valley Regional Airport and Stewart International Airport in Orange County, New York. Poughkeepsie has been called "The Queen City of the Hudson". It was settled in the 17th century by the Dutch and became New York State's second capital shortly after the American Revolution. It was chartered as a city in 1854. Major bridges in the city include the Walkway over the Hudson, a former railroad bridge called the Poughkeepsie Bridge whic ...
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Typewriters
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectively against the paper with a type element. At the end of the nineteenth century, the term 'typewriter' was also applied to a ''person'' who used such a device. The first commercial typewriters were introduced in 1874, but did not become common in offices until after the mid-1880s. The typewriter quickly became an indispensable tool for practically all writing other than personal handwritten correspondence. It was widely used by professional writers, in offices, business correspondence in private homes, and by students preparing written assignments. Typewriters were a standard fixture in most offices up to the 1980s. Thereafter, they began to be largely supplanted by personal computers running word processing software. Nevertheless, type ...
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People From Llano County, Texas
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, or legal responsibility. The defining features of personhood and, consequently, what makes a person count as a person, differ widely among cultures and contexts. In addition to the question of personhood, of what makes a being count as a person to begin with, there are further questions about personal identity and self: both about what makes any particular person that particular person instead of another, and about what makes a person at one time the same person as they were or will be at another time despite any intervening changes. The plural form " people" is often used to refer to an entire nation or ethnic group (as in "a people"), and this was the original meaning of the word; it subsequently acquired its use as a plural ...
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1967 Deaths
Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 5 ** Spain and Romania sign an agreement in Paris, establishing full consular and commercial relations (not diplomatic ones). ** Charlie Chaplin launches his last film, '' A Countess from Hong Kong'', in the UK. * January 6 – Vietnam War: USMC and ARVN troops launch ''Operation Deckhouse Five'' in the Mekong Delta. * January 8 – Vietnam War: Operation Cedar Falls starts. * January 13 – A military coup occurs in Togo under the leadership of Étienne Eyadema. * January 14 – The Human Be-In takes place in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco; the event sets the stage for the Summer of Love. * January 15 ** Louis Leakey announces the discovery of pre-human fossils in Kenya; he names the species ''Proconsul nyanzae, Kenyapithecus africanus''. ** American football: The Green Bay Packers defeat the Kansas City Chief ...
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1888 Births
In Germany, 1888 is known as the Year of the Three Emperors. Currently, it is the year that, when written in Roman numerals, has the most digits (13). The next year that also has 13 digits is the year 2388. The record will be surpassed as late as 2888, which has 14 digits. Events January–March * January 3 – The 91-centimeter telescope at Lick Observatory in California is first used. * January 12 – The Schoolhouse Blizzard hits Dakota Territory, the states of Montana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Texas, leaving 235 dead, many of them children on their way home from school. * January 13 – The National Geographic Society is founded in Washington, D.C. * January 21 – The Amateur Athletic Union is founded by William Buckingham Curtis in the United States. * January 26 – The Lawn Tennis Association is founded in England. * February 6 – Gillis Bildt becomes Prime Minister of Sweden (1888–1889). * February 27 &nda ...
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Kansas City Times
The ''Kansas City Times'' was a morning newspaper in Kansas City, Missouri, published from 1867 to 1990. The morning ''Kansas City Times'', under ownership of the afternoon ''Kansas City Star'', won two Pulitzer Prizes and was bigger than its parent when its name was changed to ''The Star''. History John C. Moore and John Newman Edwards founded ''The Times'' in 1867 to support the Democratic Party's anti-Reconstruction policies. Edwards had been adjutant of Confederate general Joseph O. Shelby's division during the American Civil War. Moore was a colonel under Shelby, and before that chief of staff to General John S. Marmaduke, judge adjutant general, and second in the Marmaduke-Walker duel. William Rockhill Nelson bought ''The Times'' on October 19, 1901, mainly because he wanted ''The Times Associated Press wire. Nelson applied a subheading to the newspaper ''The Morning Kansas City Star'' and declared that ''The Kansas City Star'' empire was a 24-hour-a-day newspaper. In ...
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Typeface
A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly. The art and craft of designing typefaces is called '' type design''. Designers of typefaces are called '' type designers'' and are often employed by '' type foundries''. In desktop publishing, type designers are sometimes also called ''font developers'' or ''font designers''. Every typeface is a collection of glyphs, each of which represents an individual letter, number, punctuation mark, or other symbol. The same glyph may be used for characters from different scripts, e.g. Roman uppercase A looks the same as Cyrillic uppercase А and Greek uppercase alpha. There are typefaces tailored for special applications, such as cartography, astrology or mathematics ...
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Rochester Museum And Science Center
The Rochester Museum & Science Center (RMSC) is a museum in Rochester, New York, dedicated to community education in science, technology and local history. The museum also operates the Strasenburgh Planetarium, located next to the museum, and the Cumming Nature Center, a nature preserve near Naples, New York. The museum resides at 657 East Ave. and has a collection of 1.2 million artifacts. Museum exhibits RMSC permanent exhibits offer visitors unique, interactive educational experiences. For example, the ''Science on a Sphere'' exhibit is an interactive globe and three-dimensional data projection system that changes real-time data from Earth and other planets into graphic representations. Permanent ''Simulator Rides'' include a submarine dive to the bottom of Lake Ontario and a hurricane simulator. The ''Inventor Center'' allows visitors participate in different main problem-solving challenges that are presented every four to five months, while ''Electricity Theater'' is a s ...
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The Franklin Institute Awards
The Franklin Institute Awards (or Benjamin Franklin Medal) is an American science and engineering award presented by the Franklin Institute, a science museum in Philadelphia. The Franklin Institute awards comprises the Benjamin Franklin Medals in seven areas of science and engineering, the Bower Awards and Prize for Achievement in Science, and the Bower Award for Business Leadership. Since 1824, the institute has recognized "world-changing scientists, engineers, inventors, and industrialists—all of whom reflect Benjamin Franklin’s spirit of curiosity, ingenuity, and innovation". Some of the noted past laureates include Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Marie Curie, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking. Some of the 21st century laureates of the institute awards are Bill Gates, James P. Allison, Indra Nooyi, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Blackburn, George Church, Robert S. Langer, and Alex Gorsky. Benjamin Franklin Medals In 1998, the Benjamin Franklin Medals were create ...
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Franklin Institute
The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial. Founded in 1824, the Franklin Institute is one of the oldest centers of science education and development in the United States. Its chief astronomer is Derrick Pitts. History On February 5, 1824, Samuel Vaughan Merrick and William H. Keating founded the Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts. Begun in 1825, the institute was an important force in the professionalization of American science and technology through the nineteenth century, beginning with early investigations into steam engines and water power. In addition to conducting scientific inquiry, it fostered research and education by running schools, publishing the influential ''Journal of The Franklin Institute'', sponsoring ...
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