In 1896, the carousel was invented by an enterprising young fellow named C.W. Parker in Leavenworth, Kan. Farther east, in New York City, a chef put together a batch of veggies, stirred in some sauce, added soft noodles - and called it chop suey. Up in Niagara Falls, an engineer figured out a way to harness the energy of the tumbling waters to produce electricity.
McKinley was in the White House, matchbooks came into vogue, and the first automobile accident was recorded in the Big Apple.Oh, yes: George Burns played his first joke on his mother on the lower East Side in Manhattan. She'd been expecting a daughter.
It's not easy speaking to somebody who has played God - not once, but three times - and who has the first Social Security card ever issued: Roman numeral I. But whatever it is he has, Burns should bottle the stuff and share it with the rest of us. Then again, maybe we already know the secret ingredient: gin.
"I have two martinis every night," said the man who was born Nathan Birnbaum - way before the mob thought of making the stuff in bathtubs.
"I also smoke 15 cigars every day. What does my doctor say? I dunno. He's dead."
With his stage show, the 97-year-old Burns keeps a schedule that would kill a man 30 years his junior - which, incidentally, would make that man a senior citizen.
"I'll sing my songs, tell my jokes and smoke my cigars," Burns said from his California office, where he goes every morning. "I play Atlantic City twice a year. Nothing wrong with that. I like it. I don't believe in dying. I once died in Altoona. That was enough for me."
But when you get Burns to settle down for a moment and get serious, he's quick to tell you that there's just one person in his life that he owes everything to - and that person was his wife of 37 years, Gracie Allen.
"You wouldn't even be talking to me today if it wasn't for Gracie," he said in between puffs on a stogie. "She was the biggest thing that ever happened to me. She made it all possible.
"I first met her in 1923 when she and some friends came to see my vaudeville act. I don't even remember what my name was then, but I do remember that one of her friends - Mary Kelly, I think it was - told her that my partner was leaving the act and that maybe she should hook up with me.
"Now, Gracie at the time was an Irish dramatic actress, and I was doing comedy. But we gave it a try.
"And the first night, everything she said the audience found hysterical. I was the comedian, but Gracie was getting all the laughs. The next day, I took off my baggy pants."
They were soon wed, and few show-business acts have been as successful as Burns & Allen. Even today, their TV programs are still enchanting audiences on cable TV.
"And then, just as suddenly, she left me," Burns said, momentarily choking back a sigh. "But I still talk to her. Every time I go to her grave at Forest Lawn (a cemetery in California) I stay between 15 minutes and a half an hour. And I talk. And she listens. I know she listens. And I know she still takes care of me. I even ask her about her brother. Do I get answers? Who needs them? She talked nonstop for 40 years. It's just important to me that I talk to her - and I do that every month after placing a yellow rose on her grave."
His first recollection of:
-A president? "Roosevelt. That's Teddy, not Franklin. I even remember him as a police lieutenant in New York City."
-Mode of transportation? "Street cars. The ones with horses. They smelled funny, but they were better than skates."
-His immediate plans? "To keep doing what I'm doing. Listen, how would you like to wake up at my age and get out of bed with something to do? You fall in love with what you do, and that's what keeps you going.
"I get up at 8 o'clock and go to the office by 10. I stay there for several hours doing my work, and then I go off to the Hillcrest Country Club for a cup of soup or something and a few hands of bridge. At 3, I go home for a nap. By 5:30, I get back up, have a double martini and do what I have to do that night. I then go back home, take off my hair and go to bed."
After "Oh, God" and its two sequels, any more movies about the deity?
"Nah, I think that's enough. But I have been kicking around an idea where God takes a holiday and heaven goes wacko because there's nobody around who knows what to do.
"I was invited to do a movie with Jack Lemmon and Walter Mat-thau, but I turned it down. Why? Because they filmed it in Minneapolis. In the dead of winter. They had to be kidding."
A lot of people have been complaining that the state of comedy today revolves mostly around tasteless humor and filthy jokes - HBO's "Def Comedy Jam" as the prime example. But Burns pooh-poohs the naysayers.
"What's tasteless? What's dirty? Does the audience laugh? If the audience laughs, then it's successful. The kids have made somebody happy. For a moment, at least, they've helped them forget their troubles."
His advice to married men?
"Always let her get the laughs. If you're playing bridge, always let her take the bid."
And does he still plan to play the London Palladium on his 100th birthday?
"Sure. If the Palladium is still around."