Notable Last Facts

A "Notable Last" is any historically significant event, person, place or thing that marks the end of its kind or its era. A Notable Last might be the last speaker of a now-extinct language, the last surviving witness to a historic event, the last work produced by a major artist, theatrical performer, author or musician, or the last remaining example of a once-prevalent style or object, such as an automobile, airplane or motorcycle. Or it might be the last journey of an aircraft or ship. Or the last surviving building of a type of architecture. Librarian Bill Brahms started to accumulate information for Notable Last Facts and Last Words of Notable People, in the early 1990s as a graduate library student at Rutgers University. While reviewing core reference sources in a class on reference librarianship, the topic of notable "firsts" was discussed and an excellent encyclopedic resource was demonstrated. This prompted Bill to ask: Where would one go to look up famous or notable "lasts?" When his question yielded nothing definitive, the idea (or rather the need) for an extensive basic reference work on "lasts" was born.