SIGNIFICANT DATES IN THE HISTORY OF AIR CONDITIONING
- 1830s-- Physician John Gorrie blows a fan over ice to cool malaria patients at the U.S. Marine Hospital in Apalachicoloa.
- 1881-- Ventilating fans and 436 pounds of ice per hour used to cool president James A. Garfield's White House bedroom as he lay dying from an assassin's bullet.
- 1902-- Willis Carrier, a 25-year-old engineer,creates the first modern air-conditioning system for a Brooklyn,NY,printing plant.
- 1906-- Stuart Cramer, an engineer in Charlotte, N.C. working on a cooling system for textile mill,coins the term"air conditioning".
- 1917-- The Empire Theater in Montgomery, Ala., becomes among the first air-conditioned cinemas.
- 1928-- U.S. House of representtatives is air conditioned. The Senate,White House and U.S. Supreme Court follow in the next few years.
- 1929-- B&O Railroad cools the first passenger coach.
- 1930's-- Residential air conditioning introduced.
- 1939-- Packard offers first car with factory installed air.
- 1945-- First air-cooled buses-electric "trackless trolleys"-introduced in Atlanta.
- 1951-- Window-unit makes AC affordable to the masses.
- 1970-- More than half of Southern homes have air conditioning.
- 2001-- About 96 percent of Southern homes are air conditioned, along with about 80 percent nation wide.