Cream colored background with blue band around the edge, and blue text above and below an illustration of a blue lettuce head.

White background with image of a fish in center with black text under image. Blue text surrounds top and bottom of image.

White text and white and red image of a smiling coffee cup with eyes on a red background

Image of blue, red and white macaroni and cheese box with cigarettes coming out of the box and red text at the top and near the bottom of the button. Background is white with rust stains on the sides and bottom borders. 

Sepia-toned photograph of a Victorian-era woman's head and shoulders on an orange background

Red and blue text on a white background; the number "1" is illustrated to look like the button on a touch-tone phone

By the year 1912, phone calls could be made as far apart as New York and Colorado and by 1915 the technology for calls that stretched fully across the country had been invented. By no means easily accessible or widespread, people had to go to specialty phone boxes and human operators that would route calls in order to conduct long distance calls. It wasn’t until 1951 that telephone companies had advanced to the point that direct dialing long distance calls became an option on the phones people had in their businesses and homes. The first long distance direct dial call was between the mayor of Englewood, New Jersey and the mayor of Alameda, California on November 10, 1951.

White text on a red background

Red text on a white background with a blue rim

White background with an illustration of the heads of the four members of the Monkees surrounding a black Monkees text logo with black text above and below 

The Monkees was the name of a band created for a TV show by the same name in 1966. The band was comprised of Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork. The show ran on NBC from 1966-1968, but the pop rock band gained real popularity, with hit songs such as “I’m a Believer.” The television program won two Emmys in its first year and the group had four albums hit the Billboard chart in one year. In the 1980s, the group toured and made special appearances around the country; in 1996, they released a reunion album. In the years after the death of Jones and Took, Nesmith and Dolenz went on tour as the Monkees once more in 2021.