Two hundred years ago today, Irma Chine of White Plains, New York, was
performing her normal housekeeping routines. She was interrupted by
British soldiers who, rallying to the call of their supervisor, General
Hughes, sought to gain control of the voter registration lists kept in
her home. Masking her fear and thinking fast, Mrs. Chine quickly divided
a nearby apple in two and deftly stored the list in its center. Upon
entering, the British blatantly violated every conceivable convention,
and, though they went through the house virtually bit by bit, their
search was fruitless. They had to return empty handed. Word of the
incident propagated rapidly through the region. This historic event
became the first documented use of core storage for the saving of registers.
