SEPTEMBER 26 – 1855 John D. Rockefeller gets to work; 1927 Happy Birthday Robert Cade, Gatorade; 1887 Emile Berliner patents gramophone; 1960 1st Presidential debate on national TV; 2015 Largest Butter Sculpture goes on display in New York
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SEPTEMBER 26
1855 John D Rockefeller gets to work at age 16.
Born July 8 1839 in upstate New York, John Davison Rockefeller learned business before he was ten years old by raising turkeys and sealing candy. It was on this day in 1855, 16 year old John Rockefeller began working a job as a bookkeeper where he showed his genius skills at organization. Rockefeller always enjoyed celebrating the anniversary of his first day at a job, and dubbed this day Job day. +
From there, John learned another job trading commodities namely grains and coal. In Pennsylvania in 863 the first oil well was drilled in North America, and nineteen year old John got involved with Samuel Andrews for the refinery of oil right away and opened his first firm, in 1864 he married Laura Spielman, and they had several children that would survive to adulthood. From there John joined forced with HM Flagler and SV Harkness of the freight business, along with Brother William, and in 1870 formed the Standard Oil Company.
Rockefeller’s company outsourced nothing. He made sure his firm used their own docking areas, warehouses, barrel-making plants, transportation methods throughout the country, even its own scientists to find new applications for petroleum and oil-based products. He purchased virtually every refinery in Cleveland, New York, Pittsburgh and Philly. During the 1880s, Rockefeller had successfully built America’s first trusts, and in the 1880s kept expanding operations. Oil wells were built out west; he changed the company focus to the applications of crude oil, and selling to other countries in Europe and Asia.
But people generally don’t like it when someone creates an enterprise out of their ruins, and that’s one of the things for which Rockefeller was blamed. Since faulting someone for being a better entrepreneur than you doesn’t legally stick, charges of bribery, spying on competitors, price fixing, and as many forms of extortion as you can think of were brought up against Standard Oil. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed in 1890 which prohibited combinations and trusts that restrained trade.
Two years later, the Ohio Supreme Court invalidated Standard Oil Trust, Standard Oil Trust was recreated as a holding company called Standard Oil New Jersey, and it would be dismantled as well in 1911, long after John himself had resigned from the company. During the Panic of 1907, Rockefeller supposedly pumped in $10M to the New York banks to ease the pressure, but short term loans still wouldn’t be given out and the Panic of course happened anyway. But that’s a story for another time.
John Rockefeller, raised strictly as a Baptist by his mom, didn’t see his dad much growing up, since his father was allegedly a conman that roamed America swindling people out of their hard earned money for “herbal medicine”. Not sure if that any effect on John’s philanthropic ideals, but since this day, Sep 26 1865, his first day on the job, he wanted to give 10% of his earnings away. It wasn’t quite the 85% his pal Andrew Carnegie gave away when he retired, but when John retired it exceeded $550M, plenty for the Rockefeller Foundation in 1913, followed by funding for the Sanitary Committee, Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health where he helped to cure the big hookworm disease that was running rampant in the south at the time, and the Laura Spielman Rockefeller Memorial Foundation in 1918. John wanted to live to be a hundred, but passed on May 23, 1937, at the age of 97 years old.
Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.
Good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people.
If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.
1945 – First American is killed in Vietnam. Lt. Col. Peter Dewey
…was killed by Viet Minh troops who mistook him for a Frenchman. He led a seven man Office of Strategic service to gather intelligence and represent American interests. According to the Potsdam Conference, the British were in charge of accepting Japanese surrender, but Ho Chinh Minh and the Viet Minh took control of the area and had no intention of giving the area back to the French. At least not until the next day when the British helped the French take it back. According to some sources, The French tended to be abusive to the Vietnamese who resisted them, and Dewey complained to British commander General Douglas Gracey.
Well Grace didn’t care much for Dewey’s complaining and sent him packing. On the way to the airport, Dewey reportedly blew past a Viet Minh roadblock, saying something to them in French, and the Viet Minh troops shot Dewey in the head, thinking he was French. Peter Dewey was the first of 59,000 American troops that would die in Vietnam.
1927 – Happy birthday Robert Cade.
…You know what’s cool about this guy’s name? It rhymes with Gatorade. Yup! My man Robert invented a beverage that would rehydrate us all after an intense workout. He worked at the University of Florida in the College of Medicine. And that my friends, is how Gatorade got its name! Florida gets real hot and humid, and if you’re a football player, you’ll need to rehydrate yourself in practice. And if you played for the Florida Gators, Robert Cade will hook you up.
At first it didn’t taste like the Gatorade we drink today. Gator lineman Larry Gagner tried it and spit it out, saying it tasted like toilet bowl cleaner. It just needed some slight improvement, maybe some lemon juice, a little cyclamate, maybe some water and salt and sodium citrate and a spoonful of fructose and a dash of mono potassium phosphate. There you go! It was called Cade’s Aid. The names was changed later. And by golly it worked! In 1965 the Gators were playing the LSU Tigers, who couldn’t last the 102 degree heat. In 1967, the Gators beat the Georgia Tech YellowJackets for the title at the Orange Bowl. Yellowjackets head coach Bobby Dodd told reporters, the Gators had the Gator aid, we didn’t, and that made the difference.
Gatorade everyone, like a boss!
1887 – Emile Berliner from New York patents the gramophone. In the beginning those things were hand cranked. It’s hard to maintain a 33 1/3rpm when you have to do it by hand. Luckily he had a buddy who was an engineer who helped him come up with a cheap wind-up spring motor.
1960 – The first televised presidential debate. It was JFK v VP Richard Nixon. Nixon didn’t do very well, but got better as the debates went on. Kennedy in the end did seemingly better and won a very close presidential election later on.
1912 – Groundbreaking begins on Fenway Park, the oldest MLB stadium to date. The Boston Red Sox have been playing there since 1912. Fenway park has hosted 10 World Series, five of them being one by the Sox, most recently in 2013.
2015 largest butter sculpture goes on display in New York.
Created by the Lactases American Group presented a 2,370 pound Paris skyline made entirely out of President Butter and absolutely nothing else holding it together from the inside or outside. It featured the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and all that other cool Paris stuff.