New York Trivia & Tidbits - Page 11

Looking for New York trivia? Try our list New York little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

New York City native Theodore Roosevelt was born sickly but his parents enrolled him in an exercise program that launched a lifetime interest in strenuous exercise. The 26th president was known for progressive reforms such as land conservation and trust-busting.

first appeared: 6/15/2003

Radio City Music Hall opened in 1932 as the first building of the Rockefeller Center complex. It was conceived by theatrical impressario S.L. Roxy Rothafil.

first appeared: 6/8/2003

July 24th is Solomon Northrup Day in Saratoga Springs (pop. 26,186). Northrup, an African-American, was kidnapped from his home here and sold into slavery in 1841. Freed in 1853, he chronicled his ordeal in Twelve Years a Slave.

first appeared: 6/1/2003

The Speidie Fest, a four-day celebration in Binghamton (pop. 47,380), celebrates the marinated and grilled meat sandwich introduced to the area by Italian immigrants.

first appeared: 5/25/2003

New York City’s first official subway system began operating Dec. 27, 1904. Its maiden trip was made even more exciting when the city’s mayor insisted on driving the train for several miles.

first appeared: 5/18/2003

Sherman Foote Denton, a naturalist/artist of the late 1800s best known for his chromolithographs of wildlife, produced 103 different fish prints for the state’s Fish and Game Commission over a 12-year span.

first appeared: 5/11/2003

In 1896, Nickola Tesla proved he could transmit electricity from Niagara Falls to Buffalo, a distance of about 30 miles, using his alternating current (AC) system.

first appeared: 5/4/2003

Syracuse resident Joseph Burns is credited with inventing the serrated knife in 1919. The inspiration came to him while using a scallop-edged glass-cutting tool, a design he thought might prove useful for cutting bread.

first appeared: 4/27/2003

“Adirondack,” the Iroquois term for bark-eater, was appropriated for the 6-million-acre Adirondack Park that stretches from Albany to the Canadian border. It is the largest park in the continental U.S.

first appeared: 4/20/2003

One of the earliest processes for the commercial production of marshmallows was developed in Rochester in the 1890s by Joseph B. Demerath.

first appeared: 4/13/2003

The West Point Bullion Depository originally stored silver. In the 1980s, more than $20 billion in gold was moved there, making it second to Fort Knox in gold storage.

first appeared: 4/6/2003

The first organized professional team in baseball, the New York Knickerbockers, was formed in Manhattan in 1845 and named after New York’s Dutch settlers. The team moved to New Jersey, but the name survives with the N.Y. Knicks basketball team.

first appeared: 3/30/2003

Mark Twain spent several summers at Quarry Farm in Elmira (pop. 30,940), the home of wife Olivia’s relatives. Olivia was a graduate of Elmira College, which now houses the Center for Mark Twain Studies.

first appeared: 3/23/2003

While a permanent home for the United Nations was being prepared in New York City, the U.N. Security Council met from 1945 to 1951 in the town of Lake Success (pop. 2,797).

first appeared: 3/16/2003

William H. Seward was governor of New York, a U.S. senator, and secretary of state to President Abraham Lincoln, but he’s perhaps best known for arranging the purchase of Alaska from Russia (“Seward’s folly”) in 1867.

first appeared: 3/9/2003

The Troy Female Seminary, founded by Emma Hart Willard in 1821, was one of the earliest American educational institutions to provide women with an education comparable to that of college-educated men.

first appeared: 3/2/2003

While 13 professional ball players have hit four home runs in a single game, the first American League player to do so was New York Yankees first baseman Lou Gehrig on June 3, 1932.

first appeared: 2/23/2003

When a new post office opened in New York City in 1914, the building bore the inscription, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” The source is the Greek historian Herodotus.

first appeared: 2/16/2003

Seeking to improve low-grade oils, Hiram Bond Everest of Rochester developed a distillation process at a company he dubbed Vacuum Oil, patenting a steam cylinder lubricant in 1869, thus boosting the development of high-speed machinery.

first appeared: 2/9/2003

Spring-fed Lake George in the Adirondacks has its outlet at the LaChute River. The river runs through a series of rapids and empties into Lake Champlain, a descent of about 220 feet, greater than Niagara Falls.

first appeared: 2/2/2003

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