1898: the Year of Sinfonia

As Sinfonians, we know that 1898 was a very special year in history. Yet, aside from the founding of our great fraternity, a number of other notable things were begun or happened in that year.

As our contribution to Sinfonian lore on the Web, Epsilon Nu has added this page to our web site, where we document everything we notice that has in common with Phi Mu Alpha the year 1898. Also, submit your own 1898 sightings, and we'll add them to the page & credit you.

Other things founded in 1898
• Barq's Root Beer. Ouch! It's got bite!
• Pepsi-Cola. The choice of a new generation (can't figure out which generation that is, though).
• Entenmann's Baked Goods. Check your grocer for these delectable pastries. Try them with a Barq's!
• Eckerd Drugs. Where America's musicians get their Prozac!
• Zeta Tau Alpha Fraternity founded on Oct. 15 at Virginia St. Female Normal School in Farmville, Va. A fine group of ladies. We love our school's chapter!
• Wakita, Oklahoma, the fictional town demolished in the 1996 box-office smash Twister. Rent the flick and see for yourself! (big screen & home theater surround highly recommended)

Stuff that happened in 1898
• Pavlov began his studies of conditioned reflex in dogs. Ding!
• Surrealist Painter Rene Magritte (1898-1967), subject of the Paul Simon song Rene And Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War was born in Belgium.
• On Feb. 15, a mysterious explosion destroyed the USS Maine, an American battleship harbored in Havana, Cuba, touching off the Spanish-American War. submitted by Ben Cunningham, EN Alumnus
• Composer Roy Harris (1898-1979) was born in Chandler, OK. His Third Symphony was the first American symphony to be performed in China (1973). submitted by John A. Boyd, EN Alumnus
• Jacob Gershovitz (1898-1937) was born in East New York. He rose from his humble beginnings as a Tin Pan Alley song plugger to become one of America's greatest composers. Better known by his assumed name, George Gershwin, he would go on to write such jazz flavored classics as Porgy and Bess and Rhapsody in Blue. submitted by John A. Boyd, EN Alumnus
• At the request of John Philip Sousa, the C.G. Conn Company began production of the sousaphone. Although the Conn instruments were the finest sousaphones ever built, Colonel Conn would later top this achievement by introducing the far superior Conn 20-J tuba to a grateful nation.
• John Patterson, chief railway engineer, shot two man-eating lions that had killed and eaten over 130 workers on his railroad construction crew in Tsavo, Kenya. The hunt for these lions was the subject of a 1996 motion picture, The Ghost and the Darkness, starring Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas.

Stuff that happened on Oct. 6
• 1917 - A new word cropped up in the American lexicon this day: Jazz. The "Literary Digest" described jazz as music that caused people to, "shake, jump and writhe in ways to suggest a return to the medieval jumping mania." Thanks to The History Channel
• 1927 - The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson in blackface, premiered in New York City. The songs Jolson sang have since become part of American music culture: Toot Toot Tootsie (Goodbye), Blue Skies, Waiting for the Robert E. Lee and, of course, My Mammy. Thanks to The History Channel
• 1976 - Rick Dees & his Cast of Idiots are awarded a gold record for their single Disco Duck.
• 1992 - Date that Captain Michael Raynor (played by Mark Hamill) arrives in the present, after slipping through a wormhole in time, in the awful Canadian sci-fi epic Time Runner.