February #FunFactFriday

The second month of the year provides a number of milestones for the communications industry, including the birth of both Facebook and YouTube.  Here are some Fun Facts for things that occurred during the month of February:

• The first 45 RPM vinyl record is released (Feb. 2, 1949).
• Percival Prattis becomes the first African American news correspondent admitted to the press galleries of both the United States House of Representatives and the Senate (Feb. 3, 1947).
• Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard sophomore, launched The Facebook, which he had developed in order to connect Harvard students with one another (Feb. 4, 2004).
• Reader’s Digest was first published (Feb. 5, 1922).
• The Beatles made their American debut on The Ed Sullivan Show with 73 million Americans watching (Feb. 9, 1964).
• The birthday of Malvin R. Goode (Feb. 13, 1908), who became the first African American television news correspondent for ABC in 1962. It happened that the lead ABC correspondent was on vacation during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Goode was called upon to report in his absence.
• The last original “Peanuts” comic strip appeared in newspapers one day after the death of Charles M. Schulz, it’s creator (Feb. 13, 2000).
• President John Knox Polk becomes the first sitting president to have his photograph taken (Feb. 13, 1849).
• YouTube is founded in San Bruno, Calif., by three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim (Feb. 14, 2005).
• Ladies Home Journal is first published (Feb. 16, 1883).
• NBC TV begins its first nightly newscast (Feb. 16, 1948).
• Rogers Neighborhood debuts on television (Feb. 19, 1968).
• Thomas Davenport patents the first electric printing press (Feb. 25, 1837).
• The final episode of “M.A.S.H.” is aired (Feb. 28, 1983).
• “Llama Drama” captures the attention of America via Twitter, with 220,000 tweets (Feb. 26, 2005).
• “Yellowstone,” the name of the current wildly popular Paramount series, becomes the first National Park (Feb. 29, 1872).