May 26, 1896 - Charles Dow, an American journalist and founder of the Wall Street Journal, published the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which was an index of the dollar average of 12 stocks from leading American industries. Today the Dow tracks 30 publicly owned companies and is among the most closely watched U.S. benchmark indices tracking targeted stock market activity. The "Industrial" portion of the name is largely historical, as many of the modern 30 components have little or nothing to do with traditional heavy industry. The value of the Dow is not the actual average of the prices of its component stocks, but rather the sum of the component prices divided by a divisor, which changes whenever one of the component stocks has a stock split or stock dividend, so as to generate a consistent value for the index. The companies currently included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average can be found here.

May 26, 1977 - George Willig, a toy maker living in Queen's, climbed the South Tower of New York City's World Trade Center. Willig accomplished his feat by making special clamps that fit into the window washing tracks of the building. The clamps were designed to lock into place when they were pulled down by his body weight. They would release when he decided to raise them. Willig began his climb at 6:30 a.m. on a Thursday morning. As he was climbing, two police officers were lowered down in a window washing basket to try to get Willig to give up. After Willig refused their request to join them in the basket the officers ascended the tower along side him for the remainder of his 3 ½ hour climb. When Willig arrived at the top the police helped him climb through a tiny window hatch and arrested him on charges of endangerment and criminal trespass. In the end, he was only fined $1.10 -- one penny for each of the skysraper's 110 floors. You can watch video footage of Willig's climb here.

May 22, 1930 - The Chrysler Building in Manhattan was completed and opened to the public. Standing at 1,046-feet high it was the tallest building in the world for eleven months before being surpassed by the Empire State Building. The Art Deco style building is striking in its appearance and is considered by many experts to be one of the finest buildings in New York City. William Van Alen, the building's architect, devised a strategy to capture the title of tallest building in the world (albeit for a short time). To beat out the rival building, he planned a dramatic moment of revelation: the entire seven-storey pinnacle, complete with special-steel facing, was first assembled secretly inside the building, and then hoisted into position through the roof opening and anchored on top in just 90 minutes.
 

 

"Heights by great men reached and kept were not obtained by sudden flight but, while their companions slept, they were toiling upward in the night."

 

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American Poet 

Heath is Reading

 

 

Catching Fire  

by Suzanne Collins