1879 James Ritty, saloon keeper of Dayton Ohio, patented the first cash register to reduce pilfering by bar tenders. Bars, I have known a few.
1890 The Prince of Wales opened the first London Underground station in a deep-level tube line, the City and South London Railway, between King William Street (close to today’s Monument station) and Stockwell. Electric locomotives towed carriages with small opaque windows, nicknamed padded cells. Used the Tube many a time.
1922 Archaeologist Howard Carter found the entrance of the tomb of King Tutankhamen. A water-boy stumbled under a load and dislodged stones that revealed a cut step. Carter had been digging in Egypt for nearly thirty years and realised the potential significance of such a step, covered it with earth, and telegraphed Lord Carnarvon, his patron, to come and have a look. Seen King Tut artefacts at museums here and there, Sydney and Berlin.
1924 Nellie Taylor Ross and Miriam Ferguson were elected the first and second women governors of Wyoming and Texas, respectively. The sky did not fall in either state, despite that being widely predicted. Nor did either of their male opponents commit suicide at the shame. Been to both states.
1993 The Maastricht Treaty established the European Union, paving the way for the free movement of people and goods and the Euro. In the end of year round up in 1993, the ABC Television news did not feature this treaty but did include bus crashes in India, and grass fires in California. Ah news-judgement is what the national broadcaster is famous for. Drove to Maastricht once to confer with a colleague about a project and found the geography in that area is hilly, very unlike elsewhere in the Netherlands.
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