American Society of Legislative Clerks & Secretaries Professional Development Seminar - September 16-20, 2009

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Seattle's Claims to Fame

• Seattle sells more sunglasses per capita than any other major city in the nation.
   

• The first Dick and Jane children's book series was created by Seattle's Elizabeth Julesburg under the pseudonym Elizabeth Montgomery.
   

• From 1958 to 1981, Julius Pierpont (J. P.) Patches who lived in the city dump, wore a black rumpled hat and a yellow patchwork coat, portrayed by Chris Wedes (b. 1928), hosted the longest-running children's TV show in American history.
   

• Nancy Pearl, executive director of the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library, started the city-reads-a-book movement, "If All Seattle Read the Same Book," in 1996 that sparked similar programs around the world including Chicago's "One Book, One Chicago."
   

• The motor for the revolving restaurant in the Space Needle has the highest gear ratio in the world - 360,000 to 1.
   

• The Space Needle is fastened to its foundation with 72 bolts, each of which is 9m (30 feet) long - must be a record!
   

• The world's first espresso cart was established below the Seattle Monorail terminal at Westlake Center in 1980.
   

• Seattle was the first city in the world to pump Muzak into stores and offices. (a dubious distinction.)
   

• Seattle was the first city in the US to play a Beatles song on the radio.
   

• The Wave, a ubiquitous sight at sporting events around the globe, was born by UW cheerleader Rob Weller at a University of Washington vs. Stanford University football game on October 31, 1981 in Seattle at UW's Husky Stadium - the Huskies won 42-31 (Go Dawgs!).
   

• In 1917 the Seattle Metropolitans won three games of a four game series over the Montreal Canadiens to become the first U. S. team to win hockey's coveted Stanley Cup.
   

• The 2001 Seattle Mariners won 116 games, tying the 1906 Chicago cubs for the most games won in a single season in major league baseball history.
   

• The term "flying saucer" first came into being when, on June 24, 1947, Seattle pilot Kenneth Arnold described the nine brilliant, boomerang-shaped bogies he saw above Mount Rainier.
   

• On the afternoon of July 4, 1947, Frank Ryman, an off-duty U.S. Coast Guard Yeoman, snaps the first photograph of an alleged flying saucer from the yard of his home in Lake City, north of Seattle.
   

• Jefferson Park Golf  Course, in Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood, opened in 1915 as the country's first public golf course.
   

• The world's first gas station opened in 1907 at Western Ave. and Holgate St. (Standard Oil Co. yard).
   

• The Happy Face icon first appeared in Seattle.
   

• Seattleite Jim Whittaker is renowned as the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest (29,028 feet) on May 1, 1963.
   

• K2, the legendary ski maker on Vashon Island, invented the world's first fiberglass skis in 1965.
   

• The world's first hydroplane racing boat was built in Seattle.
   

• On August 7, 1955, Alvin M. "Tex" Johnston, flying at more than 400 miles per hour just 400 feet above the water, stuns the crowd at the Seafair Gold Cup hydroplane race on Lake Washington by twice barrel (or aileron) rolling the prototype Dash-80, the precursor to the Boeing 707.
   

• Seattleite and Tacoman Dale Chihuly, world renown glass sculptor and founder of the prestigious Pilchuck Glass School, was the first person to be proclaimed a "Living National Treasure" by president George Bush in 1992.
   

• Seattle boasts more glassblowing studios than any other city in the US and second only to the island of Murano near Venice, Italy.
   

• In 1926 Bertha Landes was elected mayor of Seattle and became the first female mayor of a major American city.
   

• Seattle was the first American city to put police on bicycles.
   

• More people in Seattle commute to work via bicycle than any other city in the United States - could be due to 30 miles of bike-pedestrian trails, 90 miles of signed bike routes and 16 miles of bike lanes on city streets.
   

• Seattle has the nations largest movie going population per capita.
   

• The Seattle International Film Festival, held annually mid-May to mid-June, is the largest film festival in the nation.
   

• The Seattle Fringe Theatre Festival holds the title of longest continuously producing festival of fringe theatre in the United States.
   

• Seattle's Coliseum Theatre (Banana Republic) was opened by vaudeville magnate Alexander Pantages in 1915 and was the first movie palace (then silent films) built in the US.
   

• Seattle has the largest percentage of library card holders in the nation (80%) yet spends double the national average on books every year.
   

• Seattle has the country's highest percentage rate of residents with a college degree, and one of the highest rates of home internet access.
   

• In 1979, Seattle U was the first school in the nation to offer a Master's Degree in software engineering.
   

• According to a recent Peter Jennings report, there are a million millionaires in the world today, and 10,000 of them are at Microsoft.
   

• The Seattle based Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with assets over $24 billion, is the largest foundation in history and is dedicated to improving people's lives by sharing advances in health and learning with the global community.
   

• Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center receives more funding from the federal government than any other cancer research facility in the nation.
   

• The largest wireless network in the world (Wi-Fi 802.1x for you techno geeks) is at Microsoft's corporate headquarters campus.
   

• In 1921, the progressive Seattle Symphony had Madame Mary Davenport-Engberg, the world’s first woman to conduct a symphony orchestra (in Bellingham, Washington), as its conductor.
   

• Seattle's Pacific Northwest Ballet has the highest per capita dance attendance in the US.
   

• The first general strike in the nation was in Seattle in 1919 - it lasted five days, February 6-11, as 60,000 shipyard workers walked off their jobs.
   

• Seattle was the first major US city to provide free bus service in its central business district.
   

• The dog toothbrush was first used in Seattle.
   

• Gas Works Park, built in 1906, became the first industrial site / park conversion in the country in 1962.
   

• Northgate shopping mall, built in 1950, became the world's first regional covered shopping mall.
   

• In 1983, Barney Clark, a dentist from nearby Des Moines, was the first person in the US to receive a permanently implanted artificial heart.
   

• The best major city in the US to have a heart attack - 50% know CPR.
   

• The Farmer's Market at Pike Place Market, since 1907, is the longest continuously operating farmer's market in the US.
   

• The nation's first Skid Road was built the early 1850s by loggers down then Mill Street which is now Yesler Way in Pioneer Square.
   

• Pioneer Square has the country's largest collection of Victorian and Romanesque architecture.
   

• The Mercer Island Floating Bridge (now I-90), built in 1950 was the first floating bridge in the world.
   

• The Evergreen Point Floating Bridge (SR-520) is the longest floating bridge in the world.
   

• The Mount Baker tunnel (I-90) is the longest soft earth tunnel in the world.
   

• Harbor Island is the largest man made island in the US.
   

• In 1914 Smith Tower at 42 stories became the tallest building west of the Mississippi River, then the Space Needle in 1962 at 60½ stories and Columbia Tower in 1985 at 76 stories.
   

• The Seattle Aquarium is the world's first aquarium with a salmon ladder, to have born a sea otter in captivity and to have born a giant octopus (65 pounds) in captivity.
   

• The Washington State Ferry System is the largest Ferry System in the US and the state's number one tourist attraction.
   

• The Coleman Dock / Washington State Ferry Terminal - Pier 52 is the busiest ferry landing in the US.
   

• Seattle's Elliott Bay is home to the world's largest tugboat races held annually in May.
   

• One out of every five Seattleites owns some kind of boat, causing local mariners to call Seattle the boating Capitol of the world.
   

• Seattle's houseboat population is the largest east of the Orient.
   

• The gas turbine Victoria Clipper IV catamaran that shuttles between Seattle and Victoria, BC is the fastest passenger vessel in the western hemisphere.
   

• Nearby Snoqualmie Falls plunges 100 feet further than Niagara Falls.
   

• The only NBA basketball game to be called off due to rain was in Seattle on January 5, 1986.
   

• Seattle was rated the #1 vacation destination in the nation by Rand McNally  - 1997.
   

• Money magazine's "The Best Places to Live in America 1998" ranked Seattle #1 large city in the west.
   

• Seattle has been acclaimed "the most honest city in America" by Reader's Digest.
   

• Seattle is the only city in the United States where a successful commercial classical radio station, Classic KING-FM (98.1 FM), is owned by a non-profit corporation.
   

• KOMO TV (ABC - Channel 4 in Seattle) became the first station in the world to broadcast daily local news in digital high definition television (HDTV) on May 18, 1999 at 5:00 PM and the first in the US to broadcast daily local news in wide screen format digital HDTV on February 16, 2000.
   

• The world's first GameWorks (high-tech super arcades), created by movie mogul Steven Spielberg, opened in Seattle in 1997.
   

• SAFECO Field, with its retractable roof, opened July 15, 1999 as home of the Seattle Mariners baseball team and is the first ballpark in the major leagues to have first-of-their-kind running play-by-play scoreboards on the first and third base sides in addition to the main scoreboard and four auxiliary boards all featuring the speed in MPH of each pitch.
   

• At seven acres of continuous-pore concrete, the Kingdome boasted the world's largest self-supporting roof. Built in 1976, the Kingdome was demolished in March 26, 2000 at 8:30 AM by implosion. Seahawks Stadium for football and soccer opened in August 2002 on the same site as the Kingdome.