Oddball U.S. History

I borrowed a few little known-facts about American history that are interesting, amusing, or somewhat relevant to the present. They’re from a book published in 1980 called One-Night Stands with American History by Richard Shenkman and Kurt Reiger.

Here’s one that seems a bit relevant: Thomas Jefferson once described the White House as “a great stone house, big enough for two emperors, one pope and one grand lama in the bargain.” We now have someone living there who might be considered any one of the above three.

The median age in 1800 was sixteen.ouseHou

The Pilgrims didn’t land on Plymouth Rock. It was only suggested that they did when in 1741, Thomas Faunce told a crowd that his father had once pointed out to him a rock where he said the Pilgrims had landed.

The Puritans in 1659 made it illegal to celebrate Christmas by taking off from work or feasting and any who did so would be fined five shillings.

Until 1863, Santa Claus didn’t look anything like he does now. Thomas Nast drew him as we now think of him, but until then he was described as a smiling man, tall, slender, with brown hair.

When Kentucky and Vermont joined the Union in the 1790’s, two stripes were added to the thirteen on our flag, but it was then mandated by Congress that any new states would be indicated by adding a star. The fifteen stripes were also reduced to the original thirteen some time later.

By the end of the Civil War, there were almost as many blacks fighting for the Confederacy as for the Union—93,000 to 100,000. This is a detail that makes absolutely no sense to me. Why were 93,000 blacks fighting for the Confederacy?

Ulysses S. Grant had this to say when he saw a beginning golfer trying unsuccessfully to hit a golf ball: “That does look like very good exercise, but what is the little white ball for?”

Before he was elected president, Grover Cleveland admitted that he had an illegitimate son, an admittance that led to his opponents jeering, “Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa?/Gone to the White House, Ha, Ha, Ha!”

The only non-white to be elected vice-president of the U.S. was Charles Curtis, a Kaw Indian who served under Herbert Hoover.

When F. Scott Fitzgerald told Ernest Hemingway that he thought his penis was too small, Hemingway took him on a tour of nude statues to reassure him.

For the ten years before that day of infamy in 1941, every graduate of the Japanese Naval Academy had to answer this on his final examination: “How would you carry out a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor?”

In 1957, Ford Motors spent $20,000,000 promoting its failed automobile, the Edsel. I might here note that my wife and I owned a used Edsel in 1960. Funny looking but still a good car.

1949 was the first year in the 20^th century in which a Negro was not lynched.

Joseph Heller originally wanted to call his novel Catch-18, but when he found out that Leon Uris was coming out with a novel with that number in the title, he switched it to Catch-22, giving us one of the best-known, most often-used terms in our modern dictionary.

And finally, here’s one that today seems relevant. In the 1960’s when Congress was revising the immigration laws, Vice President Hubert Humphrey was given this advice from an Indian living on a New Mexico reservation: “Be careful in revising those immigration laws of yours. We got careless with ours.” You should heed that lesson, Donald.