On this date in photographic history, two firsts took place: in 1851, a total solar eclipse was photographed for the first time, and on this date in 1858, Gaspar-Felix Tournachon, a French photographer who was known as “Nadar” and who was probably the first-ever photojournalist among many other firsts in his photography career, took the first aerial photograph.

The newspaper cartoon above, made by the famous Honoré Daumier, captures some of the excitement that Nadar brought to the French public in his career. The photo or photos that he took that day over the village of Petit Bicêtre no longer exist, however.
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The Warner Brothers film A Wild Hare opened in theaters on this date in 1940. The cartoon featured both Elmer Fudd and the first appearance of his catch-phrase—”Be vewy, vewy quiet, I’m hunting wabbits”—and the first official appearance of Bugs Bunny.

A character that resembled the eventual Bugs Bunny character appeared in other Warner Brothers cartoons through the 1930s, but he was usually silent except for a guffawing laugh. In one cartoon, the character was referred to as “Happy Rabbit.”
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Iowa’s U.S. Senator Tom Harkin introduced a bill numbered S.933 on May 9, 1988. It was the final version of the bill that became the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush twenty-six years ago today (photo above).

Back in 1988, Sen. Harkin delivered part of his speech introducing the bill in ASL for his brother, who was deaf. Representative Patricia Schroeder said at the time, “What we did for civil rights in the ’60s, we forgot to do for people with disabilities.”

Advocates for the disabled had started to fight for such legislation several years before. After S.933 was introduced, the Senate took more than a year to consider the legislation; it finally passed the Senate on September 7, 1989 by a 76-8 vote. And then it went to the House. And there it sat.
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