By Danielle Daniels
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
AT&T Corporation (with “AT&T” being an abbreviation for its former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company) is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies.
During the Bell System‘s long history, AT&T was at times the world’s largest telephone company, the world’s largest cable television operator, and a regulated monopoly. At its peak in the 1950s and 1960s, it employed one million people and its revenue ranged between US$3 billion in 1950 ($39.7 billion in present-day terms) and $12 billion in 1966 ($112 billion in present-day terms).
In 2005, AT&T was purchased by Baby Bell and former subsidiary SBC Communications for more than $16 billion ($24 billion in present-day terms). SBC then changed its name to AT&T Inc. Today, AT&T Corporation continues to exist as the long distance subsidiary of AT&T Inc., and its name occasionally shows up in AT&T press releases.
THE MONOPOLY
Throughout most of the 20th century, AT&T held a monopoly on phone service in the United States and Canada through a network of companies called the Bell System. At this time, the company was nicknamed Ma Bell.
On April 30, 1907, Theodore Newton Vail became President of AT&T. Vail believed in the superiority of one phone system and AT&T adopted the slogan “One Policy, One System, Universal Service.” This would be the company’s philosophy for the next 70 years.[12]
Under Vail, AT&T began buying up many of the smaller telephone companies including Western Union telegraph. These actions brought unwanted attention from antitrust regulators. Anxious to avoid action from government antitrust suits, AT&T and the federal government entered into an agreement known as the Kingsbury Commitment. In the Kingsbury Commitment, AT&T and the government reached an agreement that allowed AT&T to continue operating as a telephone monopoly, subject to certain conditions, including divesting its interest in Western Union. While AT&T periodically faced scrutiny from regulators, this state of affairs continued until the company’s breakup in 1984.
THE BREAKUP
The United States Justice Department opened the case United States v. AT&T in 1974. This was prompted by suspicion that AT&T was using monopoly profits from its Western Electric subsidiary to subsidize the cost of its network, a violation of antitrust law.[34] A settlement to this case was finalized in 1982, leading to the division of the company on January 1, 1984, into seven Regional Bell Operating Companies, commonly known as Baby Bells. These companies were:
- Ameritech, acquired by SBC in 1999, now part of AT&T Inc.
- Bell Atlantic (now Verizon Communications), which acquired GTE in 2000
- BellSouth, acquired by AT&T Inc. in 2006
- NYNEX, acquired by Bell Atlantic in 1996, now part of Verizon Communications
- Pacific Telesis, acquired by SBC in 1997, now part of AT&T Inc.
- Southwestern Bell (later SBC, now AT&T Inc.), which acquired AT&T Corp. in 2005
- US West, acquired by Qwest in 2000, which in turn was acquired by CenturyLink (now Lumen Technologies, Inc.) in 2011
Post-breakup, the former parent company’s main business was now AT&T Communications Inc., which focused on long-distance services, and with other non-RBOC activities.
AT&T acquired NCR Corporation in 1991. AT&T announced in 1995 that it would split into three companies: a manufacturing/R&D company, a computer company, and a services company. NCR, Bell Labs and AT&T Technologies were to be spun off by 1997. In preparation for its spin-off, AT&T Technologies was renamed Lucent Technologies. Lucent was completely spun off from AT&T in 1996.
TODAY’S ALMANAC
According to Scottish custom, the first Monday of the new year was the time to give children and servants a small gift, or handsel. Literally something given into the hands of someone else, the gift itself was less important than the good luck it signified. The handsel was popular as a new year’s gift from the 14th to 19th centuries, but it also had a broader application to mark any new situation. It continues today in the form of a housewarming gift to someone moving into a new home.
Happy New Year’s Day! January was named for the Roman god Janus, the two-faced god of beginnings.
Janus looks simultaneously to the future and the past, a fitting symbol for this first day of the year. It’s natural for us to reflect on the past year and also look forward to the new. The weather of the first 12 days of the year is said to be indicative of the following 12 months. Also, Janus was known as the protector of gates and doorways, bridges, and passageways, which also symbolize beginnings and ends.
Interesting, January was originally the 11th month, not the 1st, until at least 153 B.C. In Rome, this month was often a time of peace when the gates of the temple were closed. Only when the gates were open was Rome at war.
Janus am I; oldest of potentates!
Forward I look and backward.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
It’s a Leap Year! Here are the rules for leap year, just to set the record straight. A year is a leap year if it is divisible by 4, but century years are not leap years unless they are divisible by 400. A person born today is called a leapling. And always remember this: Leap year was ne’er a good sheep year.”
Question of the Day
When did ancient cultures celebrate the new year?
* The original Roman calendar contained only ten months, with the new year starting on March 1.
* The ancient Celts celebrated the new year (Samhain) beginning at dusk on October 31.
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Nipper
Puzzle of the Day
Why do birds fly south in the winter?
Born
- Paul Revere (patriot) –
- Betsy Ross (patriot) –
- E.M. Forster (novelist) –
- J. Edgar Hoover (director of U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation) –
- Hank Greenberg (baseball player) –
- J.D. Salinger (author) –
- Carole Landis (actress) –
- Terry Moore (actress) –
- Don Novello (actor) –
- Kathleen Casey-Kirschling (official first baby boomer in United States) –
- Nancy Lopez (golfer) –
Died
- Johann Christian Bach (composer) –
- Maurice Chevalier –
- Ray Walston (actor) –
- Julia Phillips (first woman to win an Oscar Award [for co-producing the movie The Sting”]”) –
- Shirley Chisholm (an advocate for minority rights who became the first black woman elected to Congress) –
- Patti Page (singer) –
- Donna Douglas (actress) –
Events
- First U.S. flag, The Grand Union, was displayed by George Washington; it became the unofficial national flag, preceding the 13-star, 13 stripe version–
- Legislative Union of Great Britain with Ireland under the name of United Kingdom became effective–
- President John Adams held the first New Year’s reception in the White House–
- Importation of enslaved people into the U.S. officially banned –
- First recorded ten-pin bowling match played at Knickerbocker Alleys, NYC–
- The Emancipation Proclamation became law, marking the end of legalized slavery in the U.S.–
- State of New York introduced the electric chair for capital punishment–
- The U.S. government opened an immigrant processing station at Ellis Island, New York–
- First Rose Bowl football game played at Pasadena, California–
- U.S. Parcel Post service began–
- The British battleship Formidable was sunk in the English Channel by a German submarine with the loss of 600 lives (WW I)–
- Fiorello La Guardia is inaugurated as mayor of New York–
- The U.S. Navy commissioned its first woman doctor, Mary Sproul–
- Kurt Waldheim inaugurated as Secretary General of the United Nations–
- John Ehrlichman, H.R. Haldeman, and John Mitchell were found guilty of obstructing justice in the Watergate Incident–
- Episcopal Church of the U.S. ordained its first woman priest–
- American Telephone & Telegraph Co. officially divested itself of 22 Bell System subsidiaries–
- First U.S. electronic highway toll collection, in Oklahoma–
- The Coney Island Polar Bear Club observed its 100th anniversary the same way it celebrated the previous 99—with a New Year’s Day plunge in the Atlantic Ocean–
- A strong earthquake rocked Mexico City and Acapulco–
- New England Patriots quarterback Doug Flutie converted the first successful drop kick in an NFL game since 1941–
- Twelve-year-old Aidan Murray Medley caught a 551-pound bull shark just north of Palm Beach Inlet, Florida–
Weather
- Twenty-four degrees below zero F in Northfield, Vermont–
- Bethlehem, New Hampshire, recorded a temperature of -20 degrees F–
- VanBuren, Maine, recorded a temperature of -32 degrees F–
- Six day Great Plains and N. Rockies blizzard began, most adverse conditions in history of west–
- Maybell, Colorado, set a record low temperature of -60 degrees F–
COURTESY www.almanac.com
