America's Lost Treasures: Los Angeles
Facts About the Artifacts in This Episode
Photo: 34-star American flag (View larger version)
Antique Firearms
- Starting in the late 18th century, the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts was the primary manufacturer of firearms for the United States military.
History of the American Flag
- The last state to join the union was Hawaii in 1959.
- The first state to join the union was Delaware in 1787.
- A secret committee including General George Washington approached widow and upholsterer Betsy Ross in 1776 about creating a flag. She was shown a rough diagram of a six-pointed star. She quickly cut a five-pointed star and was then commissioned to sew the first American flag.
- In September of 1814, during the War of 1812, soldiers at Fort McHenry raised a huge American flag to celebrate a key victory over British troops. This inspired Francis Scott Key to write a song about broad stripes and bright stars that eventually became the United States’ national anthem.
Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Fossils
- During the Jurassic period, vegetation was more lush than in later eras.
- The Stegosaur and Tyrannosaurus dinosaurs never met. The Jurassic Stegosaur was extinct for about eighty million years before the Tyrannosaurus appeared during the Cretaceous period.
- The fist reptiles appeared during the Paleozoic era, about 570 million years ago.
- The first dinosaurs came much later, around 245 million years ago, during the Triassic period.
- Many scientists now believe that one of the reasons dinosaurs became extinct was due to a meteorite hitting the earth at the end of the Cretaceous period.
- The stegosaur weighed approximately four tons but is believed to have had a brain no larger than the size of a dog’s brain.
C-Melody Saxophone
- Saxophonist Rudy Wiedoeft was instrumental in making the C melody sax famous in the early 1920s.
Thomas Edison and the Lightbulb
- In 1879, Thomas Edison discovered that a carbon filament in an oxygen-free light bulb glowed but did not last long. He eventually created a bulb that could burn for 1500 hours.
- Thomas Edison drew up 1,093 successful U.S. patent applications in his lifetime, the first when he was 21.
