John Samuel Blankenbeker (born 1835)

In 1835, in the year that John Samuel Blankenbeker was born, on June 2nd, P. T. Barnum and his "circus" began their first tour of the U.S. He had paid $1,000 for an elderly slave named Joice Heth, who he claimed was 161 years old and a former nurse for George Washington. Touring the northeast of the U.S., he made more than $1,000 per week. Joice died the next year - at about 80 years old.

In 1842, in January, William E. Clarke - a medical student at Berkshire Medical College - became the first person to use an inhaled anesthetic. He administered the anesthetic to pull a tooth.

In 1877, on March 2nd, the U.S. presidential election of 1876 was ended with the selection of Rutherford B. Hayes as the winner. Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote in November 1876 but 20 votes in the electoral college were in dispute. An informal agreement was made in which Hayes agreed to remove federal troops from South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana, ending Reconstruction in the South. So, on March 4th, Rutherford B. Hayes became the 19th President of the United States.

In 1902, the modern air conditioner was invented by Willis H. Carrier. The company that he worked for needed to find a way to control humidity and by solving this problem, Carrier created a system that could be used for cooling the rooms of a house. The Sun Belt thanks him!

In 1942, from January 7th through April 9th, the Battle of Bataan was fought in the Philippines. At the end of the battle, the U.S. and Filipino forces surrendered and a three-year occupation of the Philippines by Japan began. Between 60,000 and 80,000 American and Filipino soldiers surrendered and were marched around 60 to 69 miles - most were beaten, abused, or killed. Named the Bataan Death March, it was later declared to be a war crime.