People don’t often look back on the early 1900’s for advice, but what if we could actually learn something from the Lost Generation? The New York Public Library has digitized 100 “how to do it” cards found in cigarette boxes over 100 years ago, and the tips they give are so practical that millennials reading this might want to take notes.
Back in the day, cigarette cards were popular collectibles included in every pack, and displayed photos of celebrities, advertisements, and more. Gallaher cigarettes, a UK-founded tobacco company that was once the largest in the world, decided to print a series of helpful how-to’s on their cards, which ranged from mundane tasks (boiling potatoes) to unlikely scenarios (stopping a runaway horse). Most of them are insanely clever, though, like how to make a fire extinguisher at home. Who even knew you could do that?
The entire set of life hacks is now part of the NYPL’s George Arents Collection. Check out some of the cleverest ones we could find below. You never know when you’ll have to clean real lace!
If the Iowa caucuses were a pop quiz on how well the nation is prepared for the 2020 elections, it looks like almost everyone failed. Or at least that they need to do a lot more remedial work.
The meltdown was extensive. A smartphone app purchased by the Iowa Democratic Party for precincts to use to report caucus votes didn’t work as planned. A backup hotline system also failed, leaving party officials scrambling on Tuesday to answer questions and produce results, as candidates and the public tried to figure out what was going on.
Some election watchers were not surprised.
Douglas Jones, a computer scientist at the University of Iowa, was one of many who have warned for weeks that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to introduce a new technology at such a critical time — with the eyes of the nation on the first presidential voting of 2020.
“Caucus chairs in many cases apparently were attempting to download and install the app on their phones on caucus night. That’s extraordinarily difficult to do that kind of thing under pressure,” says Jones. “Downloading an app at the last minute is crazy.”
On this day, 5 February 1973, 3000 cleaners and other workers at the Durban Corporation (the Durban municipal authority) went on strike. They were joined by 16,000 workers in other departments the following day, and a further 11,000 the day after that. They returned to work on 8 February.
They were part of a wave of strikes in the city, mostly demanding pay increases, which took place that year.
They united Black, Indian and biracial workers, shook the white authorities to the core, and kickstarted organised working class opposition to apartheid. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1342345162617297/?type=3
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