A List of Firsts

To allow a practice of pure and true religion within society, Duke William of Aquitane founded the Benedictine church and monastery at Cluny in Burgundy, France, c. 910, under the belief that his donation of "transitory possessions" might merit him "everlasting rewards." At its zenith, the abbey church at Cluny was the largest in the Christian world until St. Peter's Basilica was erected at Rome in the 16th century.

William of Vercelli (aka William of Monte Vergine) was the founder of the Hermits of Monte Vergine, or Williamites, in 1119. His feast day is celebrated on June 25 in the Catholic community.

Guillaume Tirel (Taillevent) wrote "Le Viandier" for the cooks of Charles V in c. 1375; a manuscript considered the first professional cookery book published in France.

William Caxton produced the first book ever printed in English, Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, c. 1474. In 1477, he issued the first book known to have been printed in England, "The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers."

Scottish poet William Dunbar has the curious distinction of having been responsible for the first printed use of an obscene word, in his 1503 poem "Brash of Wowing."

In 1516, Duke Wilhelm IV of Bavaria introduced the Reinheitsgebot, or Beer Purity Law as it is better known, proclaiming that beer could only be brewed from barley, hops and water. This law guides the brewing process today and is believed to be the oldest provision still enforced to protect the consumer.

William Tyndale was the first person to translate and print the Bible in English, working between 1525 and 1535 in Germany and the Low Countries because he was forbidden to work in England.

After publishing "Libellus de re herbaria novus" (The New Little Book about Plants) in 1538, William Turner -- an English naturalist, botanist, and theologian -- earned recognition as the "father of English botany" because his was the first original botanical work in English to have a scientific basis. All previous English botanical works were based on European plants exclusively. The plant "turnera" is named for William Turner.

The first step towards establishing an independent state in the area now known as the Netherlands was taken in 1568, when a number of the provinces rebelled against Spanish rule. Prince William of Orange (Prince Willem van Oranje) is called the "father of the Netherlands" because he led this revolt against the Spanish and united the provinces. When the Kingdom of the Netherlands came into existence in 1814, the first king was William I, prince of Orange Nassau.

The Barents Sea, an extension of the Arctic Ocean lying north of Norway and Russia, is named for Dutch navigator William Barents (Willem Barentz), who attempted three searches for a northeast passage to Asia during 1594-1596.

The accredited "father of the science of electricity and magnetism" is the English physician and scientist, William Gilbert. In 1600, Gilbert published De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure ("On the Magnet and Magnetic Bodies, and on That Great Magnet the Earth"), six volumes printed in Latin that described the Earth as having the properties of a huge magnet. He coined the term "electricity" from the word "electron," the Greek word for amber. He was also the first person to use the terms electric force, magnetic pole, and electric attraction; and was the first to explain the magnetic compass. In physics, a unit of magnetomotive force, also known as magnetic potential, is named the gilbert in his honor.

Sailor William Adams (aka Miura Anjin, his Japanese name) was the first known Englishman to reach Japan, arriving on April 12, 1600 after a death-defying 20-month voyage.

Although there are suggestions that navigators from China, France or Portugal may have discovered parts of Australia, the Dutch navigator and colonial governor, Willem Jansz, made the first authenticated discovery of Australia in 1605 when commanding the Duyfken (i.e. the Little Dove).

The term Pilgrim was first used by William Bradford to describe the Leiden Separatists who were leaving Holland for America in 1620.

As ruling elder of the English Separatists church, William Brewster was a leader of the Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620.

English mathematician William Oughtred is credited as the inventor of the slide rule in 1622, and introduced the "x" symbol for multiplication as well as the abbreviations "sin" and "cos" for the sine and cosine functions. The Oughtred Society was established in his honor by a group of slide rule collectors dedicated to the preservation and history of slide rules and other calculating instruments.

William Harvey first described blood circulation in 1628, marking the beginning of the modern way we look at the heart and its diseases.

Roger Williams, banished from Massachusetts for his beliefs of religious freedom and tolerance, founded the colony of Providence, Rhode Island, in 1636.

William Paterson founded the Bank of England in 1694.

In 1688, William Cecil Dampier sailed to Australia in the pirate ship Cygnet and made the first landing by an English explorer in Australia.

The first person to use pi with its present meaning (i.e., to represent the ratio of the circumference to the diameter as 3.14159...) was Welsh mathematician William Jones in the 1706 publication Synopsis palmariorum mathesios, when he states 3.14159 andc. = pi

William Ged was a Scottish goldsmith who invented stereotyping in 1725, a process in which a whole page of type is cast in a single mold so that a printing plate can be made from it.

The baby carriage was invented in 1733 by English architect William Kent for the 3rd Duke of Devonshire's children. William H. Richardson patented an improvement to the baby carriage in the United States on June, 18, 1889.

The first known artificial refrigeration was demonstrated by Scottish scientist William Cullen in a laboratory performance at the University of Glasgow in 1748, when he observed that the evaporation of ethyl ether into a vacuum is accompanied by a fall in temperature.

William Heberden coined the term "angina pectoris" for chest pain linked with impaired circulation, in 1768.

William Ellery, William Floyd, William Hooper, William Paca, William Whipple, and William Williams signed the Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies on July 4, 1776.

In Williamsburg, Virginia, America's first scholastic fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa, was organized at the College of William and Mary in 1776.

It is believed the terms "lynch" and "lynching" are derived from the name of Captain William Lynch of Pittsylvania County, Virginia, who authored the lynch law circa 1780 as an agreement to punish criminals without due process of law.

Sir William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus in 1781.

Scottish engineer and political economist, William Playfair, is generally viewed as the inventor of most of the common graphical forms used to display data: line plots, bar chart and pie chart. Playfair's "The Commercial and Political Atlas," published in 1786, is described as the first major work to contain statistical graphs.

As a skillful cabinet-maker and member of the Town Council in Edinburgh, Scotland, Deacon William Brodie was a respected member of Scottish society in the 18th century. However, the Deacon had a secret night-time occupation, unknown to most gentlefolk, as the leader of a gang of burglars. It is said that his bizarre double-life, as the respectable tradesman and councillor by day and daring thief by night, inspired Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Convicted of his crimes, Brodie was hanged from a gibbet which he himself had only recently redesigned at the Tolbooth on October 1, 1788; proudly boasting to the crowd that the gallows upon which he was about to die were the most efficient of its kind in existence. On this occasion, legend has it that he was the first to suffer dissolution by his own device.

William Hill Brown wrote the first American novel, published in 1789, entitled, "The Power of Sympathy: Or, the Power of Nature Founded in Truth."

Titanium, the ninth most abundant element in the earth's crust, was discovered by a Cornish clergyman named (Reverend) William Gregor in 1791.

William Carey, who -- beginning in 1793 -- spent 41 years in India engaged in missionary activities, inspired the missionary movement of the nineteenth century and is often called the "father of modern missions".

Williams College, located at Williamstown, Massachusetts, was chartered as a college in 1793 and is named for Ephraim Williams, Jr.

Scottish-trained physician, Dr. William Thornton -- a self-taught architect, painter, and inventor, is recognized as the first Architect of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., after President George Washington gave formal approval of Thornton's designs on July 25, 1793. Dr. Thornton would also serve as the first "chief" and later "superintendent" of the U.S. Patent Office from June 1, 1802, until his death in 1828. Curiously, when Washington was burned by the British in 1814, Thornton convinced them not to burn the Patent Office because of it's importance to mankind.

In mid-1797, Tennessee Senator William Blount became the first person in the United States to be impeached by the House of Representatives, the first time it even exercised this power, and was simultaneously expelled from the U.S. Senate.

In 1799, while designing and digging canals in southern England, English engineer and surveyor William Smith became the first scientist to use fossils to identify and also determine the relative age of rock strata (layers). This stratigraphic ordering of fossils is now known as the principle of faunal succession. Smith used his knowledge of the regularity of the rock to produce the first geologic map of England; sometimes called "the map that changed the world." For this, William Smith became known as one of the principal founders of the Science of Geology and the "Father of English Geology."

English chemist, Dr. William Cruickshank, invented the first electric battery capable of mass production in 1802.

Inspired to work on rockets for military purposes in England, William Congreve designed the Congreve rocket in 1804. They were first employed against the French fleet at Boulogne in 1806, and the weapon remained in use until the 1850s. It was the use of Congreves against the United States in the War of 1812 which gave the line referring to the "rockets' red glare" in The Star Spangled Banner, which is the national anthem of the United States.

In an 1805 attempt to stop the legendary Barbary Pirates of North Africa from hijacking American ships, William Eaton led a "motley" band of six marines, a navy Lieutenant and two midshipmen; along with some European mercenaries, Arab cavalry and Bedouin fighters, on a secret mission to overthrow the government of Tripoli. Against all odds, this army defeated the local troops and successfully captured the Tripolitan port of Derne, laying the groundwork for the demise of the Barbary Pirates. The battle is recorded as the first land engagement of American troops outside the American continent, America's first covert operation abroad, and is commemorated in the first verse of the Marines' Hymn: "to the shores of Tripoli".

William Maclure is known as the "Father of American geology" and the "William Smith of America" because he published the first widely available geologic map of the United States in 1809. His crudely drawn, colored map accompanied Observations on the geology of the United States, published in the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society.

William Monroe, a cabinetmaker in Concord, Massachusetts, made the first American wood pencils in 1812, inventing a process still used today by which a graphite-clay mixture could be encased between two pieces of cedar wood. Monroe sold the first pencil made in America on July 2, 1812.

Historical sources attribute the origin of the term "Uncle Sam" to Samuel Wilson, who supplied barrels of meat stamped with the initials U.S. to soldiers in update New York during the War of 1812. In 1961, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution that recognized "Uncle Sam" Wilson as the inspiration for the symbol Uncle Sam.

In 1822, William A. Richardson left his ship when it put in at San Francisco Bay and became the first foreigner to settle in Yerba Buena (later renamed San Francisco). Richardson founded the city's first commercial establishment, a trading post, and built the first house in 1835. In 1838, he received a Mexican land grant for Rancho Saucelito (Little Willow Ranch), leading to the settlement of Sausalito in Marin County. Richardson Bay was named for him.

According to legend, the game of Rugby (football) originated in 1823 at Rugby School in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England; when pupil William Webb Ellis, " ... who with a fine disregard for the rules of football as played in his time first took the ball in his arms and ran with it thus originating the distinctive feature of the rugby game." Despite doubts about this claim, he has been immortalised by the "Webb Ellis Cup" (i.e., William Webb Ellis Trophy) that is presented to the winners of the Rugby World Cup.

The first flag to be named Old Glory was sewn in 1824 for Captain William Driver, a shipmaster from Salem, Massachusetts, who flew it on his ship while twice sailing around the world and on patriotic occasions. As the banner opened to the ocean breeze for the first time, he exclaimed, "Old Glory." Captain Driver kept his flag for many years, protecting it during the Civil War sewn inside a quilt. It was unfurled in 1862 when the Union troops occupied Nashville, Tennessee. It never flew again, but passed into legend and bequeathed its name to all American flags.

William Buckland published "Notice on the Megalosaurus or Great Fossil Lizard of Stonesfield" in 1824, which contained the first printed account of any recognized dinosaur. He names the fossil Megalosaurus ("great lizard").

William Sturgeon invented the electromagnet in 1825.

While attending the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway on September 15, 1830, British stateman William Huskisson was run over by an approaching locomotive and became the first person in world history to be fatally injured in a railway accident.

William Wallace, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh, invented an instrument called the Eidograph in 1831, used for the purpose of copying plans or other drawings on the same or on different scales. Professor Wallace was also the inventor of the Chorograph, an instrument for describing on paper any triangle having one side and all its angles given, and also for constructing two similar triangles on two given straight lines, having the angles given.

The secretion of gastric juice and its functions were first described by American army surgeon, William Beaumont, when asked to attend a Canadian fur trapper who had an opening in his abdomen that exposed the inside of his stomach. For several years, Beaumont made a series of remarkable studies on gastric secretion, the first ever made on a living person, which culminated in the groundbreaking book "Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice and the Physiology of Digestion," published in 1833, and set the basis for what we know about digestion today. Dr. William Beaumont is remembered as the "Father of Gastric Physiology."

William Whewell invented the English word "scientist" in 1833; before this time the only terms in use were "natural philosopher" and "man of science." The term "palaetiology" was coined in 1837 by Whewell to refer to those sciences which have as their object the reconstruction of the past based on the evidence of the present.

In December 1837, William Colenso completed the printing of the "New Testament in Mäori", which was the first book printed in New Zealand.

The fuel cell was first invented in 1839 by Sir William Robert Grove, a professor of experimental philosophy at the Royal Institution in London; making him known as the "Father of the Fuel Cell."

After delivering the longest presidential inaugural address in history, William Henry Harrison caught pneumonia and, a month later on April 4, 1841, became the first United States President to die in office. The longest address was followed by the shortest presidency.

On May 3, 1841, William Hobson became the first governor of New Zealand, serving until his death on September 10, 1842.

William Martin was appointed the first Chief Justice of New Zealand in 1841.

The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) was founded on June 6, 1844, in London by English merchant (Sir) George Williams as a place to help other young working men find God through prayer and Bible study.

William Henry Fox Talbot published "The Pencil of Nature" in 1844, which was the first commercial book to be illustrated with actual photographs. His name is preserved in various scientific fields: "Talbot's Curve" in mathematics; "Talbot's Law" in physics, and the "Talbot" (a unit of luminous energy); in botany, two species are named after him; and, in astronomy, a crater of the moon is named after him.

One of Auckland, New Zealand's founding fathers, Captain William Crush Daldy, was an adventurous sea captain who traded throughout the Pacific and was captain of the first ship to carry New Zealand produce to England in 1845.

Dentist William Morton used ether as an anesthetic for the first time on a patient in 1846.

On June 14, 1846, a group of Americans raised the famous Bear Flag in Sonoma, CA, and made William Brown Ide the first and only "President" of the (short-lived) California Republic.

Lord William Thomson Kelvin developed the Kelvin Scale in 1848, a temperature scale that measures the ultimate extremes of hot and cold.

The first cheese factory in the U.S. to make cheese from scratch was started in Rome, New York, in 1851 by Jesse Williams.

Elected Vice President of the United States in 1852, William Rufus de Vane King was sworn into office by a special act of Congress on March 4, 1853, while in Havana, Cuba, where he had gone in search of a cure for his tuberculosis. He died in April 1853, shortly after returning to his home in Alabama, making William R. King the only Vice President in history to have been inaugurated outside the United States, and the only one never to have made it to Washington, DC to fulfill the duties of his office.

In 1853, William Wells Brown wrote "Clotel; or, The President's Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States," becoming the first African-American to publish a novel. Brown was also the first African-American to publish a play, a travel book, a military study of his people, and a study of black sociology.

While attempting to synthesize the antimalarial drug, quinine, English chemist William Henry Perkin accidentally produced instead the first ever synthetic dye called aniline purple, better known as mauveine (mauve), in 1856. The color mauve became the most desirable shade in the fashion houses of Paris and London, and his discovery sparked new interest in industrial applications of chemistry research, "applied chemistry," which later brought about the development of explosives, perfume, photography, modern medicine, and today's plastics industry.

On October 28, 1859, William Hall became the first Black person, and the first Nova Scotian, to receive the Commonwealth's highest award for bravery, the Victoria Cross.

In 1859, Harriet Wilson wrote "Our Nig; Or, Sketches From The Life Of A Free Black," becoming the first African-American woman to publish a novel.

While several sources attribute the 1860 founding of the Pony Express to William H. Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B. Waddell, others suggest the idea orginated with Colonel William W. Finney. In the early morning hours of April 4, 1860, Billy Hamilton left Sacramento, California, in a driving rain headed to St. Joseph, Missouri, becoming the the first eastbound rider of the Pony Express.

William Barton Rogers founded the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1861.

In 1861, William Crookes discovered the metallic chemical element thallium, which led indirectly to his invention of the radiometer in c. 1875.

In 1861, English orthopedic surgeon, William John Little, published the first paper describing the neurological problems of children with spastic diplegia, just one of several disorders that affect control of movement and today are grouped together under the term cerebral palsy. Spastic diplegia is still sometimes called Little's Disease. Sir William Osler, a British medical doctor, is believed to have coined the term "cerebral palsy" in 1888.

Robert S. Williams of Kentucky invented the Williams Rapid-Fire Gun in 1861, the first crude predecessor of the machine gun and one of the first practical rapid-firing breech loading artillery pieces used in battle (during the Civil War). The Williams guns tended to jam when hot and were eventually abandoned.

The first low-carbohydrate diet book, Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public, was written in 1863 by English carpenter and undertaker William Banting. It became one of the most famous books on obesity ever written. Not long after Banting was published, the verb "to bant" entered the English language and people losing weight said they were "banting." Today, William Banting is remembered as the "Father of the Low-Carbohydrate Diet."

William A. Bullock invented the web rotary printing press (machine) in 1863, which helped revolutionize the printing industry due to its great speed and efficiency. In a bizarre accident a few year later, Bullock was killed by his own invention.

In 1864, William Sellers developed a comprehensive system for the design of screw threads for machine bolts and hex nuts that, over subsequent decades, became a ubiquitous standard known as the United States Standard Screw Threads.

William Booth founded The Salvation Army in July 1865.

The U.S. Secret Service was established on July 5, 1865, as a branch of the U.S. Treasury Department, under the direction of its first chief, William P. Wood.

In 1866, disguised as a man named William Cathay, Cathay Williams enlisted in the Army and is the only documented African-American woman who served in the U.S. Army prior to the official introduction of women.

In 1867, Dr. William G. Bonwill invented the "dental mallet," used to implant gold fillings into drilled out teeth, which was one of a handful of devices that revolutionized dental care.

William Seward reached agreement with Russia to purchase the territory of Alaska in 1867 -- a deal ridiculed as "Seward's Folly."

William F. Semple invented and patented chewing gum in 1869.

On January 18, 1871, Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, was proclaimed the first Emperor of Germany in the hall of mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, following the victory of Germany over France in the Franco-Prussian War. His grandson, (Kaiser) Wilhelm II, who abdicated the throne in November 1918, was the last Emperor of Germany.

While employed in the office of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, William Still became involved with aiding fugitives from slavery, often providing board and room for many of the fugitives who rested in Philadelphia before resuming their journey to Canada. He kept comprehensive records of these contacts and, in 1872, published The Underground Railroad, which chronicles how he helped 649 slaves escape to freedom via the Underground Railroad. For these efforts, William Still was known throughout the country as the "Father of the Underground Railroad."

In 1872, William Whiteley founded the first department store in London.

In 1873, William Olser first identified the blood cells that would later be named platelets.

In 1873, William Torrey Harris and assistant Susan Blow opened the first public school kindergarten in the United States, in St. Louis Missouri.

Holding the post of hangman (i.e., Official Executioner of Great Britain) from 1829-1874, William Calcraft is recognized as the longest serving English executioner -- and one who is noted for using the shortest rope in the business. Incidentally, William Marwood introduced the "long drop" method of hanging in 1872.

Canadian lawyer and statesman, Sir William Buell Richards, served as the first chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada from 1875 to 1879.

The first psychological research laboratory was founded by Professor Wilhelm Max Wundt at Leipzig, Germany, in 1878.

William Horlick, from Racine, Wisconsin, made the first malted milk drink, which was patented on June 5, 1883.

William W. Grant performed what's believed to be the first appendectomy in 1885.

William Seward Burroughs invented the first practical adding and listing machine, submiting a patent application for his "Calculating Machine" in 1885.

American architect and engineer William Le Baron Jenney designed the ten-story, fully metal-framed Home Insurance Building in Chicago, IL, that was built in 1885 and is considered the first American skyscraper, thus becoming known as the Father of the American skyscraper.

The word spoonerism owes its origin to the unintentional syllable juggling of cleric and scholar William Spooner. First recorded in the Oxford Dictionary in 1885, spoonerism is defined as "an accidental transposition of the initial sounds, or other parts, of two or more words, often with an amusing result."

William Ellsworth "Dummy" Hoy, who began his professional career in 1886, was the first hearing-impaired (i.e., "deaf") major-league baseball player and the reason umpires adopted hand signals to go along with the vocal calls of "out," "safe," and "strike."

The first time students in America wore caps and gowns for graduation was at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, in 1887.

In 1889, William Friese Greene developed the first "moving pictures" on celluloid film and is credited by some as the inventor of cinematography.

Scottish inventor William Kennedy Laurie (W.K.) Dickson is credited with the invention of the motion picture camera while under the employ of Thomas Edison. It is believed that Dickson produced the world's first film, "Dickson Greeting", in 1891.

William Painter invented the Bottle Cap (bottle-sealing device, aka Crown Cap) in 1891, as well as the the machinery to manufacture it, and the method to attach it to bottles.

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams became the first person to perform a successful open-heart surgery in 1893.

Frederick William Rueckheim invented the popcorn candy "Cracker Jack," first mass-produced and sold at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.

The first chili powder was created in 1894 when German-American café owner William Gebhardt in New Braunfels, Tex. ran pepper bits through a small home meat grinder three times and then dried the ground pepper into a powder. The Gebhardt brand of chili powder is today regarded by many chili cooks as a premium chili powder.

William H. Danforth founded the Ralston Purina Company in 1894.

In 1895, William G. Morgan created the game of volleyball, which he originally called "mintonette" because he got the idea for the game from badminton, at a YMCA in Holyoke, Mass.

Sir William Ramsey discovered the chemical element, Helium, in 1895.

In 1895, the world's first electric power tool, an electric hand drill, was constructed by Wilhelm Emil Fein in Stuttgart, Germany.

William Monroe Trotter became the first African-American, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard University in 1895. He founded the Boston Guardian, a militant newspaper, in 1901, for the purpose of "propaganda against discrimination" and would go on to become perhaps the most militant of the known civil rights activist of the 19th century.

In 1896, William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois became the first African-American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard. He is considered a founding father of The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (1909).

The electric stove was first patented in the United States by William S. Hadaway, Jr., of New York City in 1896.

W.K. Kellogg invented the first cereal flakes -- later to become known as "Kelloggs Corn Flakes" -- in 1898.

On August 8, 1898, William Richard Kreutzer became the first forest ranger on the Pike National Forest in the State of Colorado and, reportedly, was the first person in the nation to hold the title "United States Forest Ranger." Kreutzer Peak, located in Tincup, Colorado (near Gunnison) is named to honor this original "lone" ranger.

William Kemmler, guilty of butchering his lover with a hatchet, became the first person executed by electricity (i.e., the electric chair) on August 6, 1890, at Auburn State Prison NY.

In 1899, English physicist William du Bois Duddell was asked to investigate the sound produced by carbon arc lamps -- an electric precursor to the light bulb used in England and throughout Europe -- and found that by controlling the oscillations in the circuit with a keyboard, he could alter the pitch, and arguably the first fully electronic instrument, called the "Singing Arc," was born.

On May 23, 1900, Sergeant William Harvey Carney was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions on July 18, 1863 at Fort Wagner, S.C., during the Civil War, making him the first African-American to perform in a combat action that resulted in the awarding of the Medal of Honor.

Willis Haviland Carrier invented the air conditioning machine in 1902, earning distinction as the "father of cool."

American businessman William Phelps Eno is called the "Father of Traffic Safety" for his many innovations in road safety and traffic control. He wrote a city traffic code for New York in 1903, the first such code in the world, but also designed traffic plans for New York, London, and Paris; thus, becoming known as a world-renowned expert on vehicular traffic. Eno invented stop signs, one way streets, taxi stands, traffic circles, pedestrian safety islands, crosswalks, and bus stops. He is also credited for developing the ideas of "slow traffic keep right", "passing on the left only", pavement markings, the driver's license, vehicle registration, traffic cops, and issuing citations for traffic violations. He wrote the first manual of police traffic regulations. Curiously, William Phelps Eno didn't trust automobiles and never learned to drive: he had a chauffeur drive him wherever he wanted to go.

Willem Einthoven, a Dutch physiologist, invented the electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) in 1903. He was awarded the 1924 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery.

In 1903, William S. Harley partnered with Arthur Davidson to found the "Harley-Davidson Motor Company" and produced the first Harley-Davidson motorcycle in a shed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

After playing several roles in the motion picture "The Great Train Robbery" (1903), Broncho Billy Anderson (née Max H. Aronson) gained enormous popularity in a series of hundreds of Western shorts, playing the first real cowboy hero and becoming known as the first star of the Western film genre.

Called one of the greatest cowboys that ever lived, Bill Pickett is credited with inventing the rodeo event called bulldogging, also known as steer-wrestling, in 1903. In 1971, Pickett became the first African-American Cowboy to be inducted into the National Cowboy and Rodeo Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.

On September 10, 1904, just west of Mission City in British Columbia, a Canadian Pacific Railway train was held up by Billy Miner & his gang in Canada's first great train robbery! Billy Miner, The Gentleman Bandit, carried out the only two train robberies in Canadian history and is believed to have first said the phrase "hands up".

William Emerson Brock founded the Brock Candy Company in 1906.

In 1906, Williamina (Paton Stevens) Fleming was elected to the Royal Astronomical Society, becoming the first American woman to be so elected.

William Sydney Porter (O. Henry) was the first to use the term "filet mignon" in his book The Four Million, in 1906.

The idea of daylight savings (i.e., DST) was first proposed seriously by William Willett in the pamphlet, "Waste of Daylight," published in 1907.

William Crapo Durant founded General Motors Corporation on September 16, 1908.

Sonora Smart Dodd first proposed the idea of a "father's day" in 1909, to honor her father, William Smart, a Civil War veteran and widowed father of six children. The first Father's Day celebration was held on the 19th of June, 1910; making William Smart, in some odd way, the "father of father's day."

William Howard Taft inaugurated the tradition of presidents "throwing out the first ball" at professional baseball games, on April 14, 1910.

In 1911, William Frederick ("Willie") Hoppe became the first billiards player to give an exhibition at the White House.

In 1911, German psychologist (Lewis) William Stern -- attempting to classify people according to types, norms, and aberrations -- developed the idea of expressing intelligence test results in the form of a single number; one relating mental age (MA) to chronological age (CA), and is credited with coining the term Intelligence Quotient (IQ). His simple formulation: IQ = (MA/CA) x 100.

With the publication of his song "The Memphis Blues," on September 28, 1912, W.C. Handy brought the African-American folk tradition into mainstream music and changed the course of American popular song. The achievement of being the first to distribute blues music throughout the U.S. led to him being named, "Father of the Blues."

On March 5, 1913, William Cox Redfield became the first secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

On March 6, 1913, William Bauchop Wilson became the first secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor.

In 1915, William Henry Bragg and (his son) William Lawrence Bragg became the only father and son team to jointly win the prestigious Nobel Prize (in physics, for their roles in X-ray crystallography). William Lawrence Bragg, just 25 years old at the time, is the youngest person to receive a Nobel prize.

Woodrow Wilson became the first U.S. president to toss the ball into the field, to open a World Series match, in 1915. (Boston Red Sox played the Philadelphia Phillies.)

The Fox Film Corporation was founded in 1915 by Austro-Hungarian-born William Fox (Wilhelm Fried), leading to the creation of the mighty Twentieth Century-Fox studios in 1935.

In 1916, William E. Boeing founded the Pacific Aero Products Company; a year later, he changed the name to the Boeing Airplane Company. The Boeing Company would become the largest and most successful commercial aircraft manufacturer in the world.

William J. Flynn became the first person to use the title, "Director of the Bureau of Investigation" in 1919; prior to this, the FBI operated as Special Agents of the Department of Justice. On July 26, 1908, these agents were ordered to report to Chief Examiner Stanley William Finch -- which is an event celebrated as the beginning of the FBI.

The present-day "ghost town" of Holy City, California, -- once a booming community on "The Old Santa Cruz Highway" -- was founded in 1919 by "Father" William E. Riker, considered by many as "The Comforter" and the greatest self-promoting cult leader of his time. Travelers were urged to visit the town by the numerous billboards along the highway, reading, for example: William E. Riker: The only man who can save California from going plum to hell! I hold the solution!

In Game 5 of the 1920 World Series held on September 10, 1920, Cleveland Indians second baseman Bill Wambsganss leapt in the air to snag a line-drive, stepped on second base to force one runner, and then tagged the runner from first; becoming the first (and only) player to make an unassisted triple play in a World Series game.

The only person in the United States to hold its two highest offices is William Howard Taft. He was the 27th president from 1909-13, and Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1921-30.

Paul Revere Williams, "architect to the stars," became the first African American member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1923.

The verb debunk was coined by William E. Woodward, who introduced it in his 1923 novel "Bunk".

William Moulton Marston, a pioneer in the field of behavioral assessment, created the systolic blood-pressure test in 1924, which lead to the development of the polygraph (lie detector). Under the pseudonym of "Charles Moulton," he also created the Wonder Woman comic strip in 1941.

In 1928, after 20 years of making ice cream, William Dreyer partnered with candy-maker Joseph Edy to establish a small ice cream factory on Grand Avenue in Oakland, California, that would eventually become a leading manufacturer and distributor of the packaged ice cream product called "Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream." In 1929, Dreyer added walnuts and bite-sized pieces of marshmallows walnuts to his chocolate ice cream to make the first batch of Rocky Road, a name intended to give folks something to smile about in the face of the Great Depression and one of the best-selling ice cream flavors of all time.

Premiering on November 18, 1928, Walt Disney's "Steamboat Willie" was the first animated film to be synchronized with sound.

William Samuel Paley founded the Columbia Broadcasting System (i.e., CBS TV network) in 1929.

The term essentialism as an educational philosophy -- meaning the "traditional" or "Back to the Basics" approach to education -- was originally popularized in the 1930s by the American educator William Chandler Bagley, who is consequently known as the "founder of essentialism."

With the 1931 premier of Afro-American Symphony by the Eastman Rochester Philharmonic, William Grant Still became the first African American composer to have a symphony performed by an American orchestra. Still would continue to add to his list of firsts; being the first African American to conduct a major symphony orchestra, the first African American to have an opera (Troubled Island) performed by a major opera company (1949), and the first to have an opera (A Bayou Legend) performed on national television (1981).

Vitamin B-5, commonly known as pantothenic acid (and later, the "stress vitamin"), was discovered in 1933 by the American biochemist, Dr. Roger J. Williams.

Nightclub owner, bootlegger, moneylender, numbers runner, and political heavy, William Augustus "Gus" Greenlee formed the Negro National League in 1933, which was one of the final attempts to establish an African-American baseball league. A year earlier, as owner of the Pittsburgh Crawfords (whose 1935 team is most often identified as the greatest black baseball team of all-time), he constructed "Greenlee Field" in Pittsburgh, PA, the first black-owned and black-built major baseball field in the United States. Greenlee and William "Woogie" Harris are credited with introducing the numbers racket to Pittsburgh in 1926.

In 1933, Harry E. Williams created the first pinball game with electricity; called Contact, which was also the first game with sound and the first to run off batteries. (Later, Williams also invented the infamous tilt mechanism.)

On August 15, 1934, William Beebe and Otis Barton dove in the bathysphere to a record-breaking descent of 3,028 feet (off the coast of Bermuda), becoming the first people to directly observe deep-sea life.

In 1935, the first cars to be known as Jaguar (i.e., SS Jaguar) were produced by founding father William Lyons (later Sir William Lyons).

Bill Wilson (and Dr. Bob S.) founded Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) on June 10, 1935.

College basketball player William "Dolly" King of Long Island University (in Brooklyn) became the first African American to compete in the National AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) Tournament in 1937.

William T. Dillard Sr. founded one of America's largest retail chains, Dillard Department Stores, in 1938.

In 1938, after thirty two years and more than 2000-feet of tunneling, William Henry "Burro" Schmidt finished a tunnel through Copper Mountain in the El Paso Mountains, California, achieving what Ripley's Believe It or Not called in the 1940s, "The greatest one man mining achievement in history. He dug the tunnel 2,000 feet long in order to facilitate the shipment of ore".

In 1939, William R. Hewlett invented the audio oscillator, the first practical method of generating audio signals needed in communications, geophysics, medicine, and defense work.

Appointed to the court in 1939, William Orville Douglas is the longest-serving Supreme Court justice in U.S. history. Douglas retired in 1975, after thirty-eight years on the Supreme Court.

The term "Holy Moley", used by Captain Marvel in the comics when the superhero encountered something astonishing, was coined by William Winston Woolfolk III, c. 1940s. Mr. Woolfolk has been called "The Shakespeare of Comics."

Dr. Wilhelm Reich, father of orgone energy (also known as chi or life-energy) and the science of orgonomy, developed a controversial device named the Orgone Accumulator in 1940. Calling the accumulators a sham and orgone-energy nonexistent, the FDA issued a complaint for an injunction against Reich in 1954 and, 2 years later, he was jailed for contempt of the injunction. Reich died in his jail cell of a heart failure. In his last will and testament Reich ordered that his works be sealed for fifty years, in hopes that the world would someday be a place better to accept his wondrous machines.

On August 16, 1940, American pilot William Meade Linsley ("Billy") Fiske III became the first "official" U.S. combatant to die in World War II.

In July of 1941, Willys-Overland Truck Company was awarded a contract by the U.S. Army to manufacture a large number of fast, lightweight all-terrain vehicles to replace the aging motorcycle and side cars from World War l. The Willys new vehicle (Military model MB) would become known as the Jeep: the most used, reliable, and favorite vehicle of the armed forces.

On 11 July 1941, William Joseph "Wild Bill" Donovan was appointed the head of a new, civilian office attached to the White House called the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI), which constituted the nation's first peacetime, nondepartmental intelligence organization (later, to become the Office of Strategic Services [OSS]). As COI and OSS Director, Donovan is remembered as the father of modern American intelligence.

Ted Williams was the last (professional) baseball player to hit better than .400 for a season, batting .406 in 1941. In 1958, at age 40, Ted Williams also became the oldest batting champ in major league history, with a .388 average for the year.

The U.S. Civil Air Patrol was established on December 1, 1941, just days before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, after being conceived in the late 1930s by legendary New Jersey aviation advocate Gill Robb Wilson.

The inaugural broadcast of "Voice of America" (VOA) originated from New York City on February 24, 1942, when announcer William Harlan Hale, speaking in German, signed on: "Here speaks a voice from America. Everyday at this time we will bring you the news of the war. The news may be good. The news may be bad. We shall tell you the truth."

William Edward Hanford co-invented the process for making the multipurpose material polyurethane in 1942.

In 1943, American composer William Howard Schuman won the inaugural Pulitzer Prize for Music for his cantata, A Free Song.

After developing the first dialysis machine, or articifial kidney, in 1943 -- while in German-occupied Holland during World War II, Dr. Willem J. Kolff would go on to develop the heart-lung machine, the intra-aortic balloon pump heart assist device, the artificial eye and the artificial heart made famous by its first human recipient, Barney Clark, in 1982. For this work, Dr. Kolff is known as the "Father of Artificial Organs."

In 1944, German designer and manufacturer of aircraft Willy Messerschmitt produced the Me262 fighter, the first jet plane flown in combat.

In 1946, at the All American Bar in Los Angeles, California, "Wino Willie" Forkner founded the Boozefighters Motorcycle Club, the first of the so-called outlaw motorcycle clubs in America.

In 1946, William H. Hastie, Jr., became the first black Governor of the Virgin Islands. Three years later, in 1949, he became the first black Federal Appeals Judge in the United States.

In 1947, William Bradford Shockley led a team of scientists in producing the first transistor and was later credited as the "Father of Silicon Valley."

In 1947, William Leon ("Bill") Garrett became he first African-American basketball player in the Big Ten Conference.

Willie Francis, a convicted murderer in the state of Louisiana, is famous for being the first and only person executed in the electric chair twice. After the chair malfunctioned on May 3, 1946, reportedly because the actual executioners were drunk at the time they threw the switch, Francis' lawyer filed an appeal that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that it would be cruel and unusual to force Francis to be electrocuted a second time. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Francis had to be returned to the chair and, on May 9, 1947, the state of Louisiana again electrocuted Willie Francis, this time effectively. The Francis case was the first known incident of a failed execution by electrocution in the United States.

Obsessed with the idea of establishing an organization to set a standard set of rules and regulations to help promote stock car racing, William Henry Getty ("Big Bill") France called to order the first meeting of the National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) at the Streamline Inn Motel in Daytona Beach, Florida, on December 12, 1947. Due to his vision, William Henry Getty France is considered the founding father of NASCAR, the most popular form of motorsports in the United States.

In 1948, Willem Adolph (W.A.) Visser't Hooft became the first general secretary of the World Council of Churches, an international, interdenominational organization of all major Protestant, Anglican, and Eastern Orthodox Christian churches.

Maurice V. Wilkes designed EDSAC, the forerunner of the modern PC, in 1949, and is credited as the inventor of computer labels, macros, and microprogramming.

William B. Ruger founded Sturm, Ruger & Co. in 1949; a business that would become the largest and most respected manufacturer of sporting firearms in the U.S. The first firearm produced by Ruger, the Standard .22 Automatic, has become the world's favorite .22 pistol.

In 1950, William Rosenberg opened the first store known as Dunkin' Donuts in Quincy, Massachusetts.

On August 1, 1952, Kemmons Wilson opened the first Holiday Inn hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, earning distinction as the "Father of the Modern Innkeeping Industry."

Journalist Bill Soberanes was the founder of the organized (competitive) sport of Armwrestling as we know it today. The matches began in 1952 at Gilardi's saloon in Petaluma, California. As the founder of the International People Meeters-People Finders Club, it is reported that Soberanes coined the words "peopleologist" and "peopleology."

MAD magazine, America's longest running humor publication, was founded by publisher William M. "Bill" Gaines in 1952.

In 1952, Rev. William F. "Bill" Kirkpatrick became the first human to get the Salk polio vaccine.

Sir William Hamilton invented the modern waterjet propulsion system in 1953.

Dr. Eric Eustace Williams became the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago in 1956.

Remember 'Pop Rocks'? The candy that caused a mild "exploding" sensation and "sizzling" noise in the mouth was invented by General Foods research scientist William A. Mitchell in 1956.

In 1956, Charles E. (Chuck) Williams founded the first Williams-Sonoma store for cooks in Sonoma, CA.

In 1957, Dutch Gold Honey, Inc., founded by W. Ralph Gamber, became the first company to package honey in plastic honey bear containers (i.e., the Honeybear).

Ted Williams set the Major League Baseball record for reaching base safely in 16 consecutive plate appearances in 1957.

When he stepped on the ice on January 18, 1958, Willie O'Ree -- playing for the Boston Bruins -- became the first black player in the National Hockey League (NHL).

William Hanna, as part of the legendary Hanna-Barbera team, created "The Huckleberry Hound Show" in 1958, which was the first fully animated series on television; that same year, the show became the first cartoon series ever to win the Emmy Award (for outstanding achievement in the field of children's entertainment). In 1960, the pair launched "The Flintstones," the first cartoon sitcom to play in primetime television. The famed partners are widely credited with having founded the animated television industry.

Wilson Greatbatch invented the implantable cardiac pacemaker in 1958 and, later, a corrosion-free lithium battery to power it.

In 1958, U.S. Army Master Sergeant William Daniel became the first sentinel to earn the Tomb Guard Identification Badge, as a guard for the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, which is one of the least-awarded insignias in the Army.

Bill Coors developed the first all-aluminum beverage can in 1959.

In 1960, Billy Wilder became the first filmmaker to win three Academy Awards in a year; earning best director, best screenplay and best picture awards for the movie "The Apartment."

Wilma Rudolph became the first American woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympics on September 7, 1960.

In professional baseball's 1960 Fall Classic, Bill "Maz" Mazeroski became the first player ever to end the World Series with a home run, giving the Pittsburgh Pirates a dramatic 10-9 victory over the New York Yankees on October 13, 1960. Maz's homer is the only one ever that has ended a World Series Game 7.

Will Henry (Henry Wilson Allen) became the first person to receive the prestigious (Levi Strauss) Saddleman Award from Western Writers of America in 1961 for outstanding literature.

Hank Williams, Sr., was the first artist inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame (with 2 others) in 1961 and is often credited with introducing country music to the general public.

William J. "Bill" Bowerman, legendary University of Oregon track coach from 1949-1972, is known as "the man who brought jogging to America," after becoming an overwhelming supporter of the activity during a 1962 trip to New Zealand with the University of Oregon's four-mile relay team.

William K. Rouverol co-invented the controversial Votomatic machine, an automated vote counting system with punch card ballots, at the University of California in 1962.

Sir William Alexander Bustamante became Jamaica's first prime minister when the island gained independence in 1962 and held office until his retirement from active politics in 1967.

William Powell Lear was a self-taught American electrical engineer and industrialist who, over a 20 year period, secured more than 100 patents for aircraft radios, communications and navigation equipment. In 1962, he organized the Lear Jet Corp. to produce small jet aircraft for private use, becoming the the first mass-manufacturer of corporate jet aircraft in the world. Although his name is most often associated with the LearJet, his first commercial venture was in 1922 when he designed a nonbattery home radio receiver with a built-in speaker and built the first workable car radio. He created the Learmatic Navigator in 1940, an ultra-high frequency device that provided aircraft pilots a way to automatically hold a course by tuning in radio broadcasts of any kind and, in the post-WWII years, invented a device allowing fully automatic landings in low visibility conditions. In 1962, Lear designed an autopilot for the Caravelle jetliner -- making possible the first completely automatic blind landing of a passenger airplane. Flying into Moscow in June 1956, Lear became the first private pilot allowed to land in the Soviet Union. Lear had been interested in audio recordings as early as 1946 and created the eight-track tape player in the early 1960s.

William Henry Hartnell was the first actor to play the lead role of the Doctor in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who from 1963 to 1966.

The first weekly drama to star a black actor on network television debuted in 1965; i.e., "I Spy" starring Bill Cosby.

On 11 July 1966, William O. Wooldridge was sworn in as the first Sergeant Major of the Army, a unique rank in the United States Army.

In 1966, William Felton (Bill) Russell became the first African-American head coach in a major professional sport (with the Celtics) and, in 1973, would become the first black general manager in pro sports (with the Seattle Supersonics).

A classic work in cultural economics, William J. Baumol's book (together with William Gordon Bowen) Performing Arts: The Economic Dilemma (1966) first described the "cost disease of the services," which is often referred to as "Baumol's disease" or "Baumol's law."

In 1967, TV's "first interracial kiss" occurred on a Star Trek episode titled "Plato's Stepchildren," which called for Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) to kiss Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols).

Major William A. Anders was member of a 3-person crew on Apollo 8, launched as the first manned mission to the Moon in 1968 -- the astronauts also provided the first live TV coverage of the lunar surface and the first pictures of Earth from deep space.

The Environmental Protection Agency began operating under Director William Ruckelshaus in 1970.

With the debut (on NBC) of "The Flip Wilson Show" on September 17, 1970, Clerow "Flip" Wilson became the first black American to have a weekly prime-time television show under his own name.

On September 21, 1970, quarterback Bill Nelson became the first person to put points on the board in the first-ever telecast of Monday Night Football. Nelson's 8-yard TD pass to Gary Collins helped the Cleveland Browns defeat the New York Jets, 31-21.

On September 30, 1971, Hall of Fame outfielder Ted Williams became last man to manage a baseball game for the Washington Senators at RFK Stadium in D.C. Fans stormed the field late in the game and, despite a 7-5 lead, Washington forfeited to the New York Yankees. The team moved in the off-season and became the Texas Rangers.

In 1972, Billie Jean King was named Sports Illustrated "Sportsperson of the Year," becoming the first woman to be so honored.

Willye White became the first athlete to compete for the United States in five Olympics, in 1972.

On January 27, 1973, Lt. Col. William B. Nolde became the last American soldier listed as having been killed in combat in Vietnam.

In 1973, Professor William S. Hendon founded the "Journal of Cultural Economics" and, with wide support among the increasing numbers of cultural economists, he organized the first international research conference on cultural economics in 1979. Professor Hendon started an Association for Cultural Economics to institutionalize the organization of such conferences.

In 1976, Billy "White Shoes" Johnson set NFL Pro Bowl records for the longest "Punt Return" (90 yards) and the most "Punt Return Yards" for a single game (159 yards).

Bill Lucas of the Atlanta Braves became the first black major league (baseball) general manager in 1977.

"A Contract with God", written in 1978 by Will Eisner, helped break the comics medium from a "juvenile ghetto of superheroes and funny books"; thereby, earning distinction for Eisner as the "father of the graphic novel."

When writing a story about a blind user of text-to-speech technology in 1982, author John M. Williams coined the phrase "Assistive Technology" to describe products benefiting people with disabilities.

Willem DeVries implanted the first permanent artificial heart into a patient in 1982.

Vanessa Williams became the first African-American woman to be named Miss America in 1983.

At the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, William Dean ("Bill") Johnson became the first American skier ever to win an Olympic downhill medal.

William Gibson is credited with coining the phrase cyberspace, in his novel "Neuromancer" (published in 1984), and is seen as one of the founders of the cyberpunk movement in science fiction.

William J. Schroeder became the first artificial heart recipient to be discharged from the hospital in 1985, as he moved into an apartment in Louisville, Ky. Among all artificial heart recipients, Schroeder lived the longest, surviving 620 days with a Jarvik-7 heart until his death in 1986.

Wilma Mankiller became the first woman chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1985.

Hoyt Wilhelm became the first reliever inducted into Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame in 1985.

On October 21, 1985, William ("The Refrigerator") Perry became the heaviest man (at 308 lbs.) in NFL history to score a touchdown off a set play, leading the charge in a 23-7 win over the Green Bay Packers.

In 1986, at age 54, Bill ("Willie") Shoemaker became the oldest jockey to win the Kentucky Derby. He was also the first jockey to win more than one hundred $100,000 purses.

Doug Williams became the first black quarterback to start a Super Bowl on January 31, 1988, playing for the Washington Redskins against the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXII. Williams also became the first black quarterback to win MVP honors.

In 1988, Mary Wilson became the first female rock star to receive a lifetime achievement award from the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame.

In 1989, television news anchor Mary Alice Williams became the first woman to win a national Emmy Award for anchoring the evening "NBC Nightly News."

On November 7, 1989, President George Bush proclaimed that May 25th would be celebrated as National Tap Dancing Day, honoring the anniversary of the birth of great tap dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.

On November 21, 1990, Bill Irwin, with his Seeing Eye dog Orient, became the only blind person to complete the 2,168-mile Appalachian Trail, hiking from Georgia to north central Maine.

On May 22, 1991, William Saroyan was the first and only individual to be jointly honored by the USA, as part of its Literary Arts Series, and the USSR Postal Services, on their Commemorative Postal Stamps.

On April 4, 1993, William Jefferson Clinton became the first U.S. President to throw the first pitch from the pitcher's mound -- and make it to the catcher.

Willie L. Brown, Jr. became the first African American mayor of San Francisco in 1996.

Danyell Elaine Wilson, U.S. Army Sergeant, became the first African American woman to guard the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, in 1997.

Manager William "Buck" Schowalter led the Arizona Diamondbacks to their first game in franchise history in 1998.

Texas running back Ricky Williams won the 1st AP College Player of the Year Award in 1998.

On December 16, 1998, during Operation Desert Fox in Iraq, Lt. Kendra Williams, USN, became the first U.S. woman combat pilot to bomb an enemy target.

Sir Francis Owen Garbatt Williams became the first Formula One team owner to receive a knighthood in January 1999, when he was recognized for his services to motor sport. Williams is founder and manager of the WilliamsF1 Formula One racing team.

Buffalo Bills guard, Billy Shaw, was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1999, becoming the first Hall of Famer to spend his entire career in the AFL.

Bobby Williams became Michigan State's first black football coach on Dec. 5, 1999, and was the first to lead a public Big Ten school.

William Jefferson Clinton was the first U.S. president to participate in an online chat, which was moderated by the Democratic Leadership Council and held November 9, 1999. President Clinton also became the first president to shop online in December 1999, when he went Christmas shopping from his desk in the Oval Office. On February 14, 2000, President Clinton participated in the first online chat with a news organization in history, hosted by CNN.com. He was the first U.S. President to deliver a live Internet webcast addressed to the nation in 2000.

The Soyuz TM-31 spacecraft, carrying Navy Captain William M. Shepherd and 2 Russian astronauts, arrived at the International Space Station on November 2, 2000, making Capt. Shepherd the commander of the first crew to live aboard the International Space Station.

On October 28, 2001, Matt Williams became the first Major League Baseball player to hit a home run with three different teams in the World Series. He hit home runs with the San Francisco Giants in 1989, the Cleveland Indians in 1997, and the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001.

In February 2002, Venus Williams became the first African-American tennis player, man or woman, to reach No. 1 on either the ATP's or WTA's computer rankings.

Billy Miller, playing for the NFL's Houston Texans, scored the first touchdown in franchise history on September 9, 2002.

Ronald Wilson Reagan became the first living U.S. President to have an aircraft carrier named in his honor, when the USS Ronald Reagan was commissioned into service on July 12, 2003.

On July 29, 2003, Red Sox third basesman Bill Mueller became the first player in Major League Baseball history to hit two grand slams in a game from both sides of the plate; i.e., as a switch-hitter, Mueller hit one slam batting left and another batting right.

On October 12, 2003, special teams player Randal Williams grabbed an opening-game onside kick and returned 37 yards for a touchdown just three seconds into the game, making it the quickest score in NFL history, and helping the Dallas Cowboys to a 23-21 win over the Philadelphia Eagles.

On October 21, 2003, with a ninth-inning, three-run homer in Game 3 of the World Series, New York Yankees center fielder Bernie Williams became the all-time leader in postseason home runs and runs batted in.

Bill Rancic, a cigar company owner, became the first winner of reality TV show "The Apprentice," on April 15, 2004.

On May 31, 2005, Vanity Fair magazine published an article in which William Mark Felt revealed himself to be the Watergate scandal whistleblower called "Deep Throat."

On Wednesday, October 19, 2005, Hurricane Wilma became the most intense Atlantic storm ever recorded; i.e., a Category 5 hurricane packing 175 mph wind.

On January 7, 2006, when New England beat Jacksonville 28-3 in a NFL wild-card game, Willie McGinest set a single-game playoff record with 4 1/2 sacks and a career record with 16 post-season sacks.

In Super Bowl XL held on Sunday, February 5, 2006, Pittsburgh half back Willie Parker helped the Steelers to a 21-10 win over the Seattle Seahawks by scampering 75 yards for a TD that set Super Bowl records for the longest run from scrimmage and the longest rushing touchdown in the game's 40-year history.