1877 US in baseball; metaphorical usage from 1896, more generally from 1930. Since at least 1870, baseball teams would reissue tickets in case of postponement due to rain, which became known as rain checks.
Update: In fact, the latest update of iPhoto is using Helvetica Neue. And now there's Avenir, a Linotype typeface and Apple's new favorite. It was designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1988, inspired by two old school typefaces created in the 20s: Erbar by Jakob Erbar and Futura by Paul Renner.
And it is called the âAtti patternâ for the more simple and very obvious reason that it was invented by a man called Atti: Raphael (also known as Ralph) Atti (born of Italian parents in New York in 1900). At the time he was inventing this golf ball, the same Raphael Atti was a persistent typewriter inventor. On this day in 1929, Atti applied for the first of five typewriter patents all related to a noiseless typewriter.