T Jjak M Fas (born 1855)

In 1855, in the year that T Jjak M Fas was born, on June 29th, The Daily Telegraph began in London. The newspaper began as The Daily Telegraph and Courier and still has the reputation of being a quality paper.

In 1868, on October 28th, Thomas Edison - age 21 - applied for his first patent. It was for the electric vote recorder and was designed to make voting quicker and the counting of votes more accurate. Congress didn't like the idea so Edison's voting machine was never used.

In 1880, on February 2nd the city of Wabash, Indiana became the third city in the world to be lit by electricity.

In 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist fire occurred, one of the deadliest industrial disasters in U.S. history. 146 workers (123 women and 23 men, many of them recent Jewish and Italian immigrants) died from the fire or by jumping to escape the fire and smoke. The garment factory was on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of a building in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. Doors to stairwells and exits had been locked in order to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to prevent theft, so they couldn't escape by normal means when the fire broke out. Due to the disaster, legislation was passed to protect sweatshop workers.

In 1942, due to World War II, automobile production in the United States was stopped on February 1st. A tire rationing program had begun the month before. Detroit - the main hub of car manufacturing - was ordered to free up assembly lines for military production. The president of the Automobile Manufacturers Association said “The automotive industry is in this war all the way". Some dealerships had to close and others expanded their repair shops. The used car market boomed (as did a black market in used cars).