Innholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2015 i Cobblestone American History and Current Events for Kids and Children

Carl Stotz came up with the idea of introducing kids in his community to organized baseball. He thought it would be a good way to show the concepts of teamwork, fair play, and good sportsmanship. That’s how Little League Baseball began in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, in 1939. Today, Little League Baseball is played in all 50 states and in more than 100 countries around the world! Since 1974, the league has been open to boys and girls. Children ranging from 4 years old playing at the local level to 18 years old playing on an international level can enjoy baseball thanks to the programs offered by Little League Baseball and the Babe Ruth League. Both Little League and Babe Ruth also offer softball leagues for girls.…

Whether you run a race, bounce a basketball, or hurl a baseball home, you do it because it’s fun. Some scientists claim that play is a natural instinct—just like sleep. That might explain why sports are likely to be as old as humanity. Sports may have begun as a form of survival. Prehistoric man ran, jumped, and climbed for his life. Hunters separated themselves by skill, and competition flourished. Wall paintings dating from 1850 B.C. depicting wrestling, dancing, and acrobatics were discovered in an Egyptian tomb. The ancient Greeks revolutionized sports by holding the world’s first Olympic games at Olympia in 776 B.C. But it wasn’t until the early 19th century that sports as we know them came into play. (Pardon the pun!) Modern sports such as cricket, golf, and…

Salty ocean smells mingle with the aromas of sweet cotton candy and Nathan’s Famous hot dogs. The legendary Cyclone roller coaster lurches along its tracks—then takes a heart-stopping plunge. Riders whoop and scream with excitement. Further down the boardwalk, the sound of a carousel starts. Patrons pitch balls at moving targets, hoping to win a prize. Welcome to Coney Island, the nation’s first truly modern amusement area. Located on the southern tip of Brooklyn, New York, Coney Island has been the place to go for fun for more than a century. The inspiration for amusement parks such as Coney Island sprang from an exciting event in 1893—the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. It was one of the first venues where people experienced a variety of attractions in one large space.…

Some people are better than others at finding an activity, game, or sport that is entertaining and relaxing. The act of playing provides an opportunity to learn, be curious, and show creativity. Can you imagine a world without play? Picture Credits: Angela Waye/ Shutterstock.com (cover); LOC: vintage card players (2); serg_dibrova/Shutterstock.com: falling cards (2); Andrey Yurlov/Shutterstock.com: volleyball game (2); LOC: Civil War-era card game (4), Snake game (6), Rambles game (6); Filip Fuxa/Shutterstock.com: modern games (7); Ivonne Wierink/Shutterstock.com: game pieces (7); Eugene Onischenko/Shutterstock.com: stadium (10–13); PhotoBalance/Shutterstock.com: bat (10); LOC: vintage baseball team (10), kids playing ball (11), Taft at ballgame (12); Will Hughes/Shutterstock.com: baseball game (13); Jeff Thrower/Shutterstock.com: child baseball catcher (13); LOC: leapfrog (14), marble game (15); Lonely Walker/Shutterstock.com: pavement inset (14–15); xpixel/Shutterstock.com: bottle caps (15); Thomas…

Games today are big business, but the first board games produced in the United States faced a tough market. Many 19th-century Americans had strong religious beliefs, and they considered games of chance sources of corruption. Early games often included a virtue-versus-vice morality lesson. One of the first games to be successful during those early years was The Mansion of Happiness, designed by brothers William and Stephen B. Ives in 1843. Another early game creator was John McLoughlin, whose two sons, John and Edmund, founded the McLoughlin Brothers Company in 1858. Then came Milton Bradley, who introduced his first game, The Checkered Game of Life, in 1860. Within a year, it sold 45,000 copies, making it the first game to be successful on a large scale. When the Civil War broke…

In the 1940s, James Wright was experimenting to find a new substance to replace rubber. When Wright combined boric acid with silicone oil, the resulting material was rubbery and bounced. By 1950, Silly Putty was being sold as a toy. In the 1950s, while working in his family’s company that produced soap and wallpaper cleaner, Joseph McVicker realized that the wallpaper cleaner could work as modeling clay for children. Play-Doh became an instant success. In the mid-1940s, naval engineer Richard James was working on a project to design a spring that could be used on boats to keep objects stabilized. When he accidentally dropped one of his springs, James’s idea for a walking toy spring was born: the Slinky. (His wife came up with the name!) For years, the Frisbie…

When archaeologists dig up the remains of ancient Roman cities, they often find tops, balls, and marbles used by people 2,000 years ago. Amazingly, these simple, low-tech toys are still used by kids today. It comes as no surprise, however, that kids in the 21st century have turned in their checkers and Monopoly sets for joysticks and virtual reality headgear. Every year, tens of millions of computer and video games are sold in America. Without doubt, high-tech amusement is here to stay. In the Beginning During the 1970s, Nolan Bushnell, an engineer working in California’s Silicon Valley, dreamed about the possibilities of connecting a computer to a television. He spent his evenings and weekends building a simple coin-operated device he called “Pong,” a video version of Ping-Pong. Bushnell took his…

Many popular modern board games were invented in the United States. But some of our favorite games came from other countries and have deep historic roots. These games are easy to learn how to play, but they require skill to win. Battle on Wood Backgammon is believed to have originated in Mesopotamia around 3000 B.C. It was played by the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Rome, and Persia. The Persians called it takhteh nard, which means “battle on wood.” Backgammon is a Welsh word meaning “wee battle.” The game—in which two players take turns rolling dice in a race to be the first one to get their 15 pieces off the board—was so popular in Europe that religious leaders banned it as “the devil’s folly.” But then a new version was…

Americans have strong loyalties and emotions when it comes to the game of baseball. It is a sport that is cherished across the generations. Players of all ages can participate, from t-ball up to the major leagues. Fans are intensely involved in losses, wins, records, and personalities. They thrive on the dramatic moments when one pitch or hit can mean the difference between victory and defeat. Great moments—from awesome plays to disastrous errors—are etched in memories. So how did this classic American game, affectionately considered America’s pastime, get started? Believe it or not, baseball’s closest ancestors are two English games that may date to about 400 years ago—rounders and cricket. Rounders is somewhat like softball, where the bowler (pitcher) throws underhand, and the offense tries to hit the ball and…

Why do we like to play? Hide-and-seek doesn’t help people find food or create shelter. But our brains have developed to value play. So it must be important to our survival, right? The brain is made up of interconnected neurons, which are nerve cells that constantly send electrical signals back and forth between other neurons and the muscles in our bodies. Different parts of the brain control different activities. Scientists have found that three-dimensional imaginative play—chasing a soccer ball, or drawing a picture, or building a model plane—uses nearly every area of the brain simultaneously. The cerebellum controls how we move, whether kicking a ball or sketching with a pencil. We use the frontal lobe when we decide where to aim the ball or what to draw next. Emotions—joy at…