Famous first facts: a record of first happenings, discoveries, and inventions in American history is a book listing "First Happenings, Discoveries and Inventions in the United States". The book's seventh edition (ISBN 978-1-61925-468-8), published in March 2015 — includes more than 8,000 entries on 1,400 pages.[1]
The book was originally published by H. W. Wilson Company in 1933, weighing in at 757 pages and selling for $3.50.[2] The book was created by Joseph Nathan Kane, a freelance journalist who had assembled 3,000 "firsts" into a text that had been rejected by 11 other publishers before it was accepted by its current publisher. The book became a library reference standard.[3][4]
The first edition led to a 1938–39 radio show hosted by Kane on the Mutual Broadcasting System.[5]
The second edition of the book was published in 1950, the third in 1964, the fourth in 1981 and the fifth in 1997.[6] The sixth edition (1,300 pages) was published in 2006, and the seventh edition (1,400 pages) was published in 2015.[1]
A version focused on world history was published in 2000 (titled Famous first facts, international edition: a record of first happenings, discoveries, and inventions in world history).[7]
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