How a New York native looking for a different approach to dieting began Weight Watchers.

Andy Warhol rented a decommissioned firehouse near his home to use as his first studio.

The Beatles made their first trip to America and their first appearance on American television sixty years ago this week.

New York City was the first place in the nation to pass laws protecting the rights of freelancers.

A Christmas concert played by tubas first happened in New York 50 years ago. Now it’s an annual—and global—event.

The Tootsie Roll is a New York original. Some details about its origin, however, are a bit fuzzy.

Margaret Sanger, who opened the first birth control in America in Brooklyn on October 16, 1916, has fallen out of favor because of her association with the eugenics movement.

The intrepid Jessie Tarbox Beals was the first published female photojournalist in America.

The Barbie doll was first seen at the 1959 American International Toy Fair in New York City.

Wordle began as a quick game for a software engineer and his partner. It became an overnight sensation.

A Queens mother, Jeanne Manford, founded the first support group for families and friends of LGBT people 50 years ago.

The New York Stock Exchange dates its origin to the signing of the Buttonwood Agreement in 1792. The first corporate stock traded was the Bank of New York.

When Joseph Pilates opened his first studio in America, he probably didn’t imagine it still would be offering his mind-body control methodology almost a century later.

Time magazine debuted 100 years ago this month. It was the first weekly news magazine in the US.

Bedford-Stuyvesant, a Central Brooklyn neighborhood, was in bad shape in the mid-1960s. Thanks to the nation’s first community development corporation, it’s now a desirable place to live.

Hakeem Jeffries, the first Black minority leader of the House of Representatives

The first eye bank in the world was the brainchild of a New York ophthalmologist.

You’ll never guess Angela Buchdahl’s occupation!

A New Yorker created the first electric iron when many homes were not yet wired for electricity.

New York City has renamed a Harlem intersection in honor of Althea Gibson, the first Black tennis player to compete at the US National Championship.