The first tract housing in the United States was built in Levittown, New York. The city itself was named after the building firm Levitt and Sons headed by Abraham Levitt and his sons William and Alfred.

The town was built on what used to be potato farms and while they were not a manufactured home, each home was built with speed, efficiency and cost-effectiveness in mind. The homes were all built on concrete slabs and utilized pre-cut lumber shipped from California. By July, 1948 30 houses a day were being constructed. Half of the first 2,000 homes were rented within two days.

Levitt and Sons decided to introduce a ranch home in 1949 that would be for rent, not for sale. The home would be larger, more modern and sale for $7,990. The homes were also built on a concrete slab, but included an attic, but no garage. Radiant heating was also included. There were five models available, but the only actually difference were window placement and exterior color choice. By 1950 the new models included a car port and a built-in television set and the 1951 model included a partially finished attic. Over 17,500 homes were built in the area by 1951.

Three other communities were built in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico.

Before there were thousand of diet fads and online information about the best diet pills, there was TOPS – Take Off Pounds Sensibly.

TOPS was founded in 1948 by Esther Manz of Wilwaukee, Wiconsin. America was just coming out of the Depression in the 40s, so the ideal American woman was not the thin waifs that you see today, but a founder, fuller more curvaceous woman.

Esther wanted to set up a support system for overweight and obese people that could help them lose weight. TOPS expanded its program over the years to include helping those with bulimia and anorexia, as well as other weight related programs.

TOPS has over 10,000 chapters in the United States. Club members who maintain their goal weight get extra recognition. Meetins emphasize nutrition and exercise and published materials are given to members. Membership fees are only $25 per year.

We have been talking about taking a trip to Rome for several years now. My husband’s father is from Italy and my husband would love to travel there and see where his roots come from. After watching the film Angels & Demons recently, I would love to visit the sites seen in the movie. In the movie, Robert Langdon visits various sites in Rome to try and prevent several murders. The path he takes was supposedly made by a secret group called the Illuminati.

After searching the internet for airfares, europass rates and international travel insurance, I came across an actual do-it-yourself tour put together by Sharon Holton-Schmitt of the Milwaukee European Travel Examiner. Part one of the tour takes you to St. Maria del Popolo Church in the Piazza del Popolo

St. Peter’s Square

St. Maria della Vittoria Church

and the Trevi Fountain.

This is only part one of the tour, so I am patiently waiting for part two to be published! Sounds like fun!

Recently, the New York Yankees have had to cut prices on their premium seats. Why? There seem to be some empty seats. The price of New York Yankees tickets for front seats is over $2,000 and other seats are well over $500 and $1000. An upper stand seat to the 1953 World Series sold for $7.00. What a difference!

Since I was thinking about Vegas vacations, I got to wondering what does “Las Vegas” mean anyway. Las Vegas actually means “the meadows.” When I think of Las Vegas, I think of a desert and not a meadow. The name came from a group of explorers, who came across a green area after walking through the desert. Thus, the name Las Vegas stuck.

Doesn’t look too much like a meadow, does it?

You might not have realized it, but Mount Everest is not called Mount Everest anymore! The Mountain was named Everest by the British in 1865 to honor Sir George Everest who was the Surveyor-General in the Survey of India. Everest had mapped and measured the peak in 1852.

However, China claims that the peak was first mapped by Tibetan officials in 1717. The mountain was called Qomolangma (pron. Chomolungma), its Tibetan name.

I wonder, does anyone offer travel insurance if you want to climb Mount Everest, I mean Mount Qomolangma?

Now that the Olympics are in full swing, I am reminded of the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. Remember the Olympic Park Bombings? The FBI originally thought that Richard Jewell, a private security guard working in Centennial Olympic Park, was the bomber. On July 27 at about 1:00am, Jewell noticed a suspicious package and beginning moving away from it. The package turned out to be a bomb which injured 100 people and killed one.

Jewell’s name was dragged though the mud for 12 weeks when he was eventually cleared of all charges. The FBI’s theory was that he moved people away from the bomb and then set it off to cast himself as a hero. They were wrong. Reporters camped outside Jewell’s apartment and recorded his every move. Jewell later sued the FBI and several medial organizations. CNN and NBC did settle with Jewell.

It turned out that the real bomber was Eric Robert Rudolph who pleaded guilty to the bombing in April 2005.

Richard Jewell died on August 29, 2007 due to natural causes (he had had kidney failure and diabetes). He was 44 years old.

Back in the 1930s dust was everywhere! They didn’t have any Air O Swiss humidifiers and I am not sure it would have matter anyway. The farmers were more concerned about their crops than their personal comfort.

The Dust Bowl or dirty thirties was a time of severe dust storms that caused agricultural and ecological damage to the United States and Canada prairies from about 1930 to 1936. There was also a severe drought at the time. Farmers were also not practicing crop rotation and this caused damage to once fertile fields. There was so much dust that at times that clouds of dust could be seen as far east as New York City. Areas of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas were affected for a total of 100,000,000 acres.

By 1940, 2.5 million people had moved out of the affected areas into neighboring states. Almost 200,000 alone moved to California. The plight of these people has been memorialized by John Steinbeck in his book (and subsequent movie starring Henry Fonda), Grapes of Wrath.

Google Maps is driving by your home! They are updating their maps and are taking pictures of houses and neighborhoods. To see if you house is on the map, simply go to Google Maps and type your address in the search maps box. If there is a picture of your house, it will show up! It won’t be long before this technology is also ported to a GPS and you will actually be able to see the destination before you get there!

Wilmington, North Carolina was once a sleepy town until Frank Capra, Jr. showed up in 1983 looking for an antebellum house to burn down for his movie “Firestarter.” After looking at various Wilmington real estate, he found the perfect house. In fact, he loved the house so much, they decided not to burn it down, but built a replica instead on the property which was incinerated.

By the end of filming, Capra and his producer, Dino DeLaurentiis decided that this town was the perfect place for a movie studio which they built. Over the years the studio has changed hands several times, but it still survives. Wilmington residents claim that the film and the studio have made for a great arts environment. A local film, art and beer tasting event is held each year in May. Wilmington is also still a great place to shoot a film.