Famous First Facts

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.{{cite book |url = http://www.hwwilsoninprint.com/facts_first7.php |title = Famous First Facts |year = 2015 |edition = 7th |location = New York |publisher = H. W. Wilson Company |isbn = 978-1-61925-468-8 |access-date = December 7, 2016 }}

The book was originally published by H. W. Wilson Company in 1933, weighing in at 757 pages and selling for $3.50.{{cite news |url = https://www.nytimes.com/1933/05/14/archives/famous-first-facts-a-rec-ord-of-first-happenings-discov-eries-and.html |title = Famous First Facts: A Record of First Happenings, Discoveries and Inventions in the United States. By Joseph Nathan Kane. Illustrated. 757 pp. New York: The H.W. Wilson Company. $3.50. |work = The New York Times |date = May 14, 1933 |access-date = June 26, 2008 }} 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.{{cite news |last = Severo |first = Richard |url = https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEFDB1E39F934A1575AC0A9649C8B63&scp=1&sq=%22joseph%20nathan%20kane%22&st=cse |title = Joseph Nathan Kane Dies; Master of Minutiae Was 103 |work = The New York Times |date = September 27, 2002 |access-date = June 26, 2008 }}{{cite magazine |first = Donald |last = Altschiller |title = In Praise of Reference-Book Authors |magazine = The Chronicle of Higher Education |date = February 12, 2012 |url = http://chronicle.com/article/In-Praise-of-Reference-Book/130702/?sid=cr }}

The first edition led to a 1938–39 radio show hosted by Kane on the Mutual Broadcasting System.{{cite news |url = http://www.hwwilson.com/print/JNkane_profile.htm |title = Joseph Nathan Kane |work = Current Biography |access-date = June 26, 2008 }}

The second edition of the book was published in 1950, the third in 1964, the fourth in 1981 and the fifth in 1997.{{cite book |first1= Janet |last1 = Podell |first2 = Steven |last2 = Anzovin |title = Famous First Facts |edition = 6th |location = New York |publisher = H. W. Wilson Company |year = 2006 |page = vii }} The sixth edition (1,300 pages) was published in 2006, and the seventh edition (1,400 pages) was published in 2015.

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).{{Cite web |title=Famous first facts : international edition {{!}} WorldCat.org |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/780053775 |access-date=2023-06-04 |website=www.worldcat.org |language=en}}