Among the origins of the traditional New Year’s Eve “ball drop” was Dudley Observatory in Albany, where each morning a worker started up a dynamo (generator) and at exactly 12 noon flipped a switch that energized an electromagnet that pulled up a metal ball to the top of a pole on the roof of the Capitol building.
Every night at midnight, the worker flipped the switch again causing the ball to drop. (You can read about it here). [Read more…] about The Emergence of New Year’s Eve Parties in America, 1820-1929
