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Subscribe to Today's highlights RSS feed Share this on Twitter Share this on Facebook Monday, November 23, 2009 Answer of the day

Why is it called a jukebox? Although no one is really sure, the popular theory is that "jukebox" comes from the word "jook," an African word meaning "mischievous" or "wicked." In the American South, descendents of African slaves used the term "jook house" for a shack that was used for dancing, celebrating and carousing. On this date in 1889, Louis Glass and William S. Arnold placed a coin-operated Edison cylinder phonograph in the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco. The cabinet had been refitted with a coin mechanism: the customer would drop in a nickel and hear a tune. It was called a Nickel-in-the-Slot, later shortened to "nickelodeon." There were no speakers; patrons listened to the music through one of four listening tubes, which looked like stethoscopes. Manufacturers of the item called them "automatic phonographs" or "coin-operated phonographs." Use of the word jukebox only dates back to sometime around the 1930s.
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