1939 – The First Food Stamp Program

The idea for the first Food Stamp Program (FSP) is credited to various people, most notably Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace and the program’s first Administrator Milo Perkins. The program operated by permitting people on relief to buy orange stamps equal to their normal food expenditures. For every $1 worth of orange stamps purchased, 50 cents worth of blue stamps were received. Orange stamps could be used to buy any food.  Blue stamps could only be used to buy food determined by the Department to be surplus.

The first recipient was Mabel McFiggin of Rochester, New York on May 16, 1939.  The first retailer to redeem the stamps was Joseph Mutolo, and the first retailer caught violating the program was Nick Salzano in October 1939. Over the course of nearly 4 years, the first FSP reached approximately 20 million people at one time or another in nearly half of the counties in the United States, peak participation was 4 million, at a total cost of $262 million. The program ended in the spring of 1943 “since the conditions that brought the program into being–unmarketable food surpluses and widespread unemployment–no longer existed.”

( Milo Perkins )

1961 through 1964 – Pilot Food Stamp Program

The 18 years between the end of the first FSP and the inception of the next were filled with studies, reports, and legislative proposals.

Prominent Senators actively associated with attempts to enact an FSP during this period were: Aiken, La Follette, Humphrey, Kefauver, and Symington. From 1954 on, Congresswoman Leonor K. Sullivan strove unceasingly to pass food stamp program legislation. On September 21, 1959, P.L. 86-341 authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to operate a food stamp system through January 31, 1962.

The Eisenhower Administration never used the authority. However, in fulfillment of a campaign promise made in West Virginia, President Kennedy’s first Executive Order called for expanded food distribution and, on February 2, 1961, he announced the initiation of Food Stamp pilot programs. The pilot programs would retain the requirement that the food stamps be purchased, but eliminated the concept of special stamps for surplus foods. A Department spokesman indicated the emphasis would be on increasing the consumption of perishables. Isabelle Kelley, who was part of the four-person team that designed the new program, became its first director and the first woman in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to head an action program.

Mr. and Mrs. Alderson Muncy of Paynesville, West Virginia, were the first food stamp recipients on May 29, 1961. They purchased $95 in food stamps for their 15-person household. In the first food stamp transaction, they bought a can of pork and beans at Henderson’s Supermarket. By January 1964, the pilot programs had expanded from eight areas to 43 (40 counties, Detroit, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh) in 22 states with 380,000 participants.

Thought for Today: “History is the great dust-heap … a pageant and not a philosophy.”

— Augustine Birrell, English author and statesman (1850-1933).

The first meetings were from September 5 to October 26, 1774

The Second Continental Congress was a meeting of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies in America that united in the American Revolutionary War.

It convened on May 10, 1775, with representatives from 12 of the colonies in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania shortly after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, succeeding the ( First Continental Congress which met in Philadelphia from September 5 to October 26, 1774. (

The Second Congress functioned as a de facto national government at the outset of the Revolutionary War by raising armies, directing strategy, appointing diplomats, and writing petitions such as the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms and the Olive Branch Petition

All thirteen colonies were represented by the time the Congress adopted the Lee Resolution which declared independence from Britain on July 2, 1776, and the congress agreed to the Declaration of Independence two days later.

Source: wiki

1608 – John Smith was elected president of the Jamestown, VA colony council.

1794 – America’s first non-denominational college was charted. Blount College later became the University of Tennessee.

1813 – The first defeat of British naval squadron occurred in the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. The leader of the U.S. fleet sent the famous message “We have met the enemy, and they are ours” to U.S. General William Henry Harrison.

1845 – King Willem II opened Amsterdam Stock exchange.

1846 – Elias Howe received a patent for his sewing machine.

1847 – The first theater opened in Hawaii.

1862 – Rabbi Jacob Frankel became the first Jewish Army chaplain.

1897 – British police arrest George Smith for drunken driving. It was the first DWI.

1899 – A second quake in seven days hit Yakutat Bay, AK. It measured 8.6.

1913 – The Lincoln Highway opened. It was the first paved coast-to-coast highway in the U.S.

1919 – New York City welcomed home 25,000 soldiers and General John J. Pershing who had served in the First Division during World War I.

1919 – Austria and the Allies signed the Treaty of St.-Germain-en-Laye. Austria recognized the independence of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

1921 – The Ayus Autobahn in Germany opened near Berlin. The road is known for its nonexistent speed limit.

1923 – The Irish Free state joined the League of Nations.

1926 – Germany joined the League of Nations.

1935 – “Popeye” was heard on NBC radio for the first time.

1939 – Canada declared war on Germany.

1940 – In Britain, Buckingham Palace was hit by German bomb.

1942 – U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt mandated gasoline rationing as part of the U.S. wartime effort.

1943 – German forces began their occupation of Rome during World War II.

1948 – Mildred “Axis Sally” Gillars was indicted for treason in Washington, DC. Gillars was a Nazi radio propagandist during World War II. She was convicted and spent 12 years in prison.

1950 – Eddie Cantor began working on TV on the “Colgate Comedy Hour” on NBC.

1951 – Britain began an economic boycott of Iran.

1953 – Swanson began selling its first “TV dinner.”

1955 – “Gunsmoke” premiered on CBS.

1955 – Bert Parks began a 25-year career as host of the “Miss America Pageant” on NBC.

1956 – Great Britain performed a nuclear test at Maralinga, Australia.

1961 – Mickey Mantle tied a major league baseball record for home runs when he hit the 400th of his career.

1963 – Twenty black students entered public schools in Alabama at the end of a standoff between federal authorities and Alabama governor George C. Wallace.

1972 – Gayle Sayers (Chicago Bears) retired from the National Football League (NFL).

1974 – Lou Brock (St. Louis Cardinals) set a new major league baseball record when he stole his 105th base of the season.

1977 – “Mickey Finn” appeared in the comic pages for the last time.

1979 – U.S. President Carter granted clemency to four Puerto Rican nationalists who had been imprisoned for an attack on the U.S. House of Representatives in 1954 and an attempted assassination of U.S. President Truman in 1950.

1981 – Pablo Picasso’s mural Guernica was received in the town of Guernica.

1984 – The Federal Communications Commission changed a rule to allow broadcasters to own 12 AM and 12 FM radio stations. The previous limit was 7 of each.

1989 – Hungary gave permission to thousands of East German refugees and visitors to immigrate to West Germany.

1990 – Iran agreed to resume full diplomatic ties with past enemy Iraq.

1990 – Iraq’s Saddam Hussein offered free oil to developing nations in an attempt to win their support during the Gulf War Crisis.

1992 – In Minneapolis, MN, a federal jury struck down professional football‘s limited free agency system.

1998 – Mac Davis received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1998 – Northwest Airlines announced an agreement with pilots, ending a nearly two-week walkout.

1999 – A bronze sculpture of a war horse just over 24 feet high was dedicated in Milan, Italy.

2002 – Florida tested its new elections system. The test resulted in polling stations opening late and problems occurred with the touch screen voting machines.

2002 – The “September 11: Bearing Witness to History” exhibit opened at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

2002 – Switzerland became the 190th member of the United Nations.