Famous First Facts is a book listing "First Happenings, Discoveries and Inventions in the United States". The current version of the book — the sixth edition (ISBN 0-8242-1065-4), published in December 2006 — includes more than 7,500 entries on 1,300 pages, organized by five different indexes.[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]
The first edition led to a 1938-39 radio show hosted by Kane on the Mutual Broadcasting System.[4]
The second edition of the book was published in 1950, the third in 1964, the fourth in 1981 and the fifth in 1997.[5]