5 March: Cleveland, Ohio

On this date in 1836 Cleveland, Ohio was incorporated as a city. 10 things you might not know about Cleveland:

1. The city is named after Moses Cleaveland, a surveyor from Connecticut. It’s said that the reason it’s not called Cleaveland today is because the town Newspaper couldn’t fit that on its masthead and so they dropped the “a”, although this is probably an urban myth as there’s evidence that the original surveyors used to shorten the name.

2. Cleveland is the largest city on Lake Erie, the second-most populous city in Ohio, and the 54th-most populous city in the USA with a population of 372,624 in 2020.

3. In 1879, Cleveland became the first city to have a public square lit by Electricity. General Electric moved their base there in 1892, and Thomas Edison was born about 60 miles from Cleveland.

4. Some more firsts. The first rock and roll concert in the world took place in Cleveland in 1952. The first car in the US was sold there in 1898; the first indoor shopping mall opened in 1890, and is still open today, and the first Blood transfusion in 1905.

5. In 1967, Cleveland was also the first major US city to elect an African American mayor, Carl B. Stokes.

6. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster are two Cleveland natives who are known for creating Superman. It’s said they created the character at Siegel’s house at 10622 Kimberly Avenue in the early 1930s. Another famous Clevelander is Margaret Hamilton, better known as the Wicked Witch of the West in Wizard of Oz.

7. One of the city’s nicknames is "The Forest City".

8. Cleveland is home to more Slovenian Americans than anywhere else in the nation. Hence there are Slovenian celebrations which take place in Cleveland which don’t happen anywhere else outside Slovenia. One such is Kurentovanje, an annual celebration that chases away winter to make way for spring. Also, Ljubljana is one of the 28 cities Cleveland is twinned with.

9. Other places Cleveland is twinned with include its namesake, Cleveland in the UK, Alexandria in Egypt, Bangalore in India, Bratislava in Slovakia, Cape Town in South Africa, Gdańsk in Poland, Kigali in Rwanda, Mayo in Ireland, Rouen in France, Taipei in Taiwan and Vicenza in Italy.

10. The Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland has the world’s largest bank vault Door (91 tons) and the largest hinge ever built (43 tons).