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Pushbutton Phone Day

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On November 18, 1963, the first pushbutton telephone went on sale to the public. It may seem quaint now in the age of mobile phones, when many of us don’t even have landlines anymore. But this was cutting-edge technology in its day and remains an integral part of telecommunications history.

Industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss, working under contract to Bell Systems, devised the form of the Touch Tone™ Model 1500 telephone with the help of wooden models like this one.

pushbutton phone day

Tone dialing had been in use within Bell Systems’ switching network for several years. With the introduction of the Model 1500, tone dialing was made available to the general public. It featured the same footprint and handset as its predecessor but replaced the rotary dial with a 10-button keypad. (It had no # and * buttons; those keys were added in 1968 with the Model 2500.)

Bell set the stage for the rotary dial phone’s replacement when it showcased the new pushbutton phone’s speed and convenience at the 1962 World’s Fair in Seattle, Washington.

The Model 1500 was a natural evolution of the rotary dial telephone, which had represented a transformational piece of technology when it supplanted the old switchboard method of placing calls 44 years earlier. Prior to 1919, operators at centrally-located switchboards manually connected calls by inserting a pair of phone plugs into the appropriate jacks.

pushbutton phone day

A phone subscriber lifted the receiver off the hook and asked the operator to place a call. If the requested number was located on the operator’s switchboard, she would connect the call by plugging the ringing cord into the jack corresponding to the called customer’s line. If that line was on a different switchboard or in a different central office, the operator plugged into the trunk for the destination switchboard or office and asked the operator who answered (known as the “B” operator) to connect the call.

Operators were in the perfect position to listen in on conversations. Their assistance was required for anything other than calling telephones across a common party line. Back then, “party line” did not refer to one of the infamous 900 numbers that pegged credit card limits in the 1980s. (Here’s a fun compilation of ads for those.) Party lines were shared by residents, especially in rural areas, where demand outstripped supply, and were notorious for neighbors monitoring each others’ conversations for gossip fodder.

pushbutton phone day

First dial phone–1919

Rotary dial service eliminated the need for human switchboard operators. An “off-hook condition” was immediately detected when a caller lifted the handset. The sound of the dial tone signaled that the automatic exchange was ready to receive dialed digits. Pulse tones defined by the length of each rotation of the dial were processed, and a connection was established to the destination telephone.

Pushbutton Phone Day

The touch-tone system introduced in 1963 greatly improved upon the speed of the rotary dial’s pulse method of routing calls. It also entertained teenagers who enjoyed keying songs into their parents’ phones using its musical notes. This sometimes resulted in huge phone bills when one of those tunes happened to begin with a 1 or a number within a local area code that incurred long-distance charges.

The Pushbutton Telephone Songbook was published in 1971 to address the problem of how to safely play songs without incurring long-distance charges. The book sold more than 500,000 copies.PushButton Phone Day

Today’s cellular phones don’t need a dial tone because they parse and send whole phone numbers at once. Some include a simulated dial tone as a familiar aural cue to the owner that a “line” is available. Jitterbug phones, marketed directly to seniors, incorporate this comforting feature.

For the most part, these technologies are rapidly fading from memory. The phone is more ubiquitous than ever, having made the leap from our homes into our pockets. Many young people have never touched a rotary phone or heard a dial tone. So today, we salute the innovations that brought us to this moment in time.

Happy Pushbutton Phone Day!

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National #2 Pencil Day

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Today is National #2 Pencil Day. Though this holiday’s provenance is unclear, there’s no question that this classic writing instrument has made its mark on history. (Sorry, had to do it.)

There’s no lead in a pencil; its core is made of graphite. According to Britannica, it was initially believed to be a type of lead. We’ve used the misnomer “pencil lead” ever since. After the discovery of a large deposit in Borrowdale, England, in the 1500s, shepherds found that the black mineral was perfect for marking sheep—and humans quickly realized it worked on paper too.

In the late 1700s in France, Nicolas-Jacques Conté developed a process to mix clay with graphite to control its hardness. Over time, manufacturers around the world instituted their own grading variations, but here in the US, a simple system has prevailed. There are four basic designations, from #1 (softest and darkest) to #4 (hardest and lightest).

The #2 pencil won out because early machines like the Scantron that scored standardized tests required moderately dark, easily legible marks. (Remember filling in those multiple-choice bubbles?) The #2 had the perfect balance of darkness and smudge resistance while being soft enough to easily erase. More modern scanners didn’t have that issue, but the #2 was already established, and it has remained, well, #1 ever since.

An oft-repeated “fact” states that each standard pencil can draw a line about 35 miles long (or write roughly 45,000 words). On May 4, 2007, Keith Eldred of Hollidaysburg(!), PA, put pencil to paper to test that assertion. On June 9, he and a group of volunteers finished transcribing To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The novel has about 90,000 words. We love a good debunking!

Per Guinness World Records, the longest pencil measured 1091.99 m (3582 ft and 7.73 in) and was achieved by BIC in Samer, France, on 10 October 2017. The pencil was made out of a graphite center encased in polystyrene, making it flexible and light so it could be easily assembled and then measured without having to hold it in a straight line and support the weight of the wood. Personally, we think this is cheating, and we’re surprised Guinness allowed it. BIC’s mechanical pencil is a cheat in itself, with its graphite snapping off so easily and its woefully inadequate eraser. But we digress.

What should you do today? Why not journal by hand, sketch and shade, write a note to a friend, jot down a grocery list, or just sharpen one and let the smell of pencil shavings take you back like a grade-school version of Proust’s madeleine.

No matter how you choose to celebrate, have a happy National #2 Pencil Day!

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July 26 is Esperanto Day

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international esperanto day

Dr. L.L. Zamenhof

Today is Esperanto Day. On July 26, 1887, Dr. L.L. Zamenhof published Dr. Esperanto’s Lingvo Internacia (International Language), also known as Unua Libro (First Book), a textbook about the new language he’d just invented.

Zamenhof didn’t create Esperanto as an intellectual exercise. It was his practical solution to an issue dividing people and cultures. He created a common language that would enable everyone to communicate freely, without the need for translation or governmental manipulation.

Esperanto is comparatively easy to learn due to its logical construction. It employs phonetic spelling and 16 basic rules of grammar that have no exceptions, thereby eliminating the frustration familiar to students of any other language. Because it uses the roots of European languages, mastering Esperanto as a second language can make it easier to learn a third.

Zamenhof wrote, “An international language, like a national one, is common property.”  He renounced his rights and placed his work in the public domain. He used the pen name “Doktoro Esperanto” (Doctor One-Who-Hopes). Students began to call it “Esperanto,” and the name stuck.

Today, approximately two million people speak Esperanto, and there are numerous magazines, books, clubs, and pen-pal programs devoted to it. Community members often seek each other out when traveling. Esperantists make friends around the world.

Dr. Zamenhof would be proud.

Fun fact:

In 1966, William Shatner starred in Inkubo (Incubus), the first and only film entirely shot in Esperanto. In his autobiography, Shatner wrote that he simply memorized his lines and never saw the completed film because he doesn’t watch his own performances. He joked in the book that he certainly wasn’t going to break that self-imposed rule to watch himself trying to speak Esperanto. (If you care to watch this scene, we think you’ll agree that he made the right decision.)

Shatner was cast in Star Trek soon after and never had a need to learn the language. Some Esperantists who’ve seen the horror film say his diction was off, and at times, the actors appeared to be reading from off-camera cue cards. We’re not sure how Dr. Zamenhof would feel about that.

Happy Esperanto Day!

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Bikini Day

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Today is Bikini Day. On July 5, 1946, French designer Louis Réard unveiled a two-piece swimsuit he named after a US atomic bomb test at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, conducted only five days earlier. He believed his swimsuit would cause an “explosive commercial and cultural reaction.”

Two-piece outfits were not new. In 1960, while excavating the ruins of a fourth-century Roman villa, archaeologists discovered a mural depicting ten women, informally referred to as “the bikini girls.” There’s no evidence to suggest the clothing was used for swimming.

bikini day

Villa Romana del Casale – “the bikini girls”

In the 1930s, European women began wearing two-piece bathing suits — a halter top and shorts — that bared a bit of midriff and covered the navel entirely. During World War II, fabric rationing led to similar designs in the U.S.

In 1946, Réard wasn’t the only French designer determined to capitalize on the jubilant postwar mood with fashion evoking an odd, bomb-loving nostalgia. Jacques Heim had designed a bathing suit in 1932, when exposing the belly button was still considered scandalous. He rereleased it in June 1946 with the name “Atome” in honor of the atomic bomb, and advertised it as “the world’s smallest bathing suit.”

bikini day

Jacques Heim’s “Atome”

Réard’s swimsuit was smaller, constructed of a little bra top, two triangular pieces of fabric, and string. He planned to unveil it three weeks later, on July 5th at the Piscine Molitor pool, promoting it as “smaller than the world’s smallest bathing suit.”

One issue threatened to derail Réard’s plan: He couldn’t find a professional model who would agree to wear the skimpy bikini. His solution turned out to be a stroke of marketing genius. He hired exotic dancer Micheline Bernardini, who had no problem with appearing nearly nude in public.

bikini day

Réard’s “bikini”

To demonstrate his confidence in the headlines his bikini would generate, he printed newspaper-style text across the suit’s material. The bikini was a hit, and so was Bernardini, who reportedly received 50,000 fan letters.

In less than ten years, the bikini became a familiar sight on beaches all over Europe. By the 1960s, it was popping up everywhere in the U.S. as well. Seventy years after its introduction, the design continues to dominate the market. Réard summed up its sexy allure when he stated:

“A bikini is not a bikini unless it can be pulled through a wedding ring.”

Happy Bikini Day!

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