Today in History: September 1

1878: The Telephone Dispatch Co. of Boston, Massachusetts, hires Emma M. Nutt to be the first female telephone switchboard operator in the U.S.

1887: Emile Berliner gets a patent for the flat-disc gramophone, the ancestor of the later record player.  Edison and RCA will later adopt Berliner’s trademark, a dog listening to His Master’s Voice.

1914: The last passenger pigeon curls up its toes and becomes extinct.

1922: WBAY Radio in New York City debuts The Radio Digest, the first regularly scheduled broadcast news program.

1931: Lecil Travis “Boxcar Willie” Martin is born in a tool shed six feet from the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad tracks at Sterrett, Texas.  When he can’t land a record contract with a major label, he’ll turn to television ads, eventually chalking up four platinum and fifteen gold records for K-Tel Records.

1967: Article 2 of the U.C.C. goes into effect in Texas.

1977:  After two flop albums, singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie signs a record deal with Chrysalis Records, which bought the band’s whole label, Private Stock, for $500,000.  “Heart of Glass” will shortly make Blondie the first punk band to have a crossover disco hit.