Everyone knows John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826, fifty years to the day of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, but did you know James Monroe, the 5th President also died on the 4th, five years later (July 4, 1831)
Dying on the 4th
July 28, 2014President who didn’t speak English
March 22, 20141000 miles an hour
October 25, 2013Chaplin and Hitler
May 23, 2013General Order No. 11
March 26, 2012General Order No. 11 was issued by General Ulysses S. Grant on Dec. 17, 1862 expelling all Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky. The order was issued because Grant thought the black market in cotton was run “mostly by Jews and other unprincipled traders.” It was revoked a few weeks later by President Lincoln.
Australia
March 23, 2012Babies Born Every Second
March 17, 2012Youngest Person on Earth
March 17, 2012Diet Pepsi Floats
July 8, 2011Drop a can of Pepsi and a can of Diet Pepsi into a tub of water. Will they both float? Will they both sink? Will one sink and the other one float?
Perhaps, surprisingly, the diet Pepsi can will float while the Pepsi can will sink.
How can this be since they both are 12 oz? It is because the 12 oz. is a measure of volume, not of weight.
The Pepsi can weighs more because it uses corn syrup for its sweetener, while the Diet Pepsi uses a powdered chemical sweetener, which weighs less.
Hitler’s Nephew
January 10, 2011William Patrick Hitler (later Stuart-Houston) nicknamed Willy, was the nephew of Adolf Hitler. Born to Adolf’s half-brother Alois Hitler, Jr., and his first wife Bridget Dowling. William fought for the US during World War II against his uncle and was awarded a Purple Heart and a World War II Victory Medal.
Born on the Same Day
January 8, 2011Kokura
August 29, 2010Kokura, an ancient town in Japan, had been the primary target of the nuclear weapon “Fat Man” on August 9, 1945, but on the morning of the raid, the city was obscured by clouds and smoke from an earlier fire-bombing of the neighboring city of Yahata. Since the mission commander Major Charles Sweeney had orders to only drop the bomb if the target was sighted, he was ordered to proceed to the secondary target of Nagasaki, where the weapon was dropped.
State furthest east and west?
August 24, 2010Alaska is the state that is farthest north, east, and west while Hawaii is farthest south. The reason that Alaska is farthest east and west is due to the fact that the Aleutian Islands cross the 180° meridian of longitude, placing some of the islands actually in the Eastern Hemisphere and thus degrees east of Greenwich (and the Prime Meridian).
See the jagged international date line – the line darts west to accommodate Alaska, but the 180th meridian still splits up Alaska into east and west hemispheres, making it both the farthest east and west.
The Incredible Unbreakable Egg
June 27, 2010World’s Rarest Animal
June 27, 2010Almost President Lafayette?
March 16, 2010John Cazale
November 13, 2009Crazy Mary Todd?
October 28, 2009In Three Best Picture Nominees
October 26, 2009US President in the Confederacy
October 26, 2009Franklin Pierce’s Children
June 21, 2009 Franklin Pierce, the 14th US President, from 1853 to 1857, had a life that was beset by tragedy. His wife, Jane, was never comfortable with the public life of the politician. Their first child, Franklin Pierce, Jr., died three days after birth in 1836. their second child, Frank Robert Pierce (August 27, 1839 – November 14, 1843) died at the age of four from epidemic typhus. Jane suffering from depression convinced her husband to resign his Senate seat and return back to New Hampshire, which he did in 1841.
Their son, Benjamin “Bennie” Pierce was born April 13, 1841. He became the most important person in his parentsi lives. But in 1852 he was nominated as a dark horse candidate in the Democratic National Convention and was elected President.
On January 16, 1853, two months before the inauguration, his son Benjamin was killed, at the age of 11, in a railway accident in Andover, Massachusetts. The Boston & Maine noon express, traveling from Boston to Lawrence, was moving at 40 miles per hour when an axle broke. The only coach, in which Franklin Pierce and his wife were also riding, went down an embankment and broke in two. Benjamin was the only one killed.
Jane Pierce was overcome with melancholia and distanced herself from her husband during his presidency. Franklin Pierce is considered one of the worst of all the US presidents.
Ulysses S. Grant – Artist
May 22, 2009Very few people are aware of Ulysses S. Grant’s artistic ability. He was a very accomplished painter and paid a lot of attention to detail. While he was a cadet at West Point, he completed many paintings and sketches which still survive. Though self-effacing, Grant was proud of his ability to paint, and as President spoke of the satisfaction he derived from producing something “artistic.” In the 1870’s, he told his neighbor, George Childs, that he had liked painting and drawing while he was at West Point.
Bee Hummingbird
May 21, 2009
A Bee hummingbird weighs only about 1.8 grams, less than a penny. Its tiny wings beat 80 times per second. Using all that energy requires them to eat half their body weight in food each day as well as drink 8 times their body weight in water.
Liger
May 21, 2009When a male lion and a female tiger breed you get a Liger – the largest of all felines. A liger looks like a giant lion with diffused stripes and some male ligers grow sparse manes. These massive creatures are 10 feet long on average and weigh about 700 lb. Ligers have been bred in captivity, deliberately and accidentally, since shortly before World War II. The largest liger alive today is appropriately named Hercules and lives in Jungle Island in Miami.
Facebook was originally named TheFaceBook and it was developed by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg. The first use of the FaceBook was on the Harvard campus and it was limited only to Harvard students. Soon the FaceBook spread like wild fire around the other major U.S. Universities. Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard and pursued his facebook dream. It went onto become the 4th most-trafficked website in the world with more than 90 million active users.
President Leslie King?
May 20, 2009Where did soccer come from?
May 19, 2009There are many legends about the invention of soccer, but most people agree that the game began in England. According to one legend, English workers during the 11th century were digging on the site of an early battle against Danish invaders, when they found the skull of a slain Danish soldier.
The workers began kicking the skull around, and some boys who saw the workers made up a game to play with the skull. Later, a cow’s bladder was used instead of the skull. The game that grew up became known as “kicking the Dane’s head” or “kicking the bladder.”
During the next century, many towns held annual matches of the new game. Often, one town would play a neighboring town, with hundreds of players on each team. The team that kicked the bladder into the middle of the opposing team’s town was the winner.
The sport was very rough at the time, and English rulers tried to outlaw it. But the game continued to grow in popularity. New rules were established in the 19th century, and published as “Rules for the London Football Association.”
The game then became known as “association football,” and from “association” came the word “soccer.”
Columbus
May 19, 2009Christopher Columbus, who is credited with discovering the New World, never set foot in North America. On his first two voyages to the New World, Columbus landed on a number of Caribbean islands. On his third voyage, he touched South America, and his fourth journey took him to Central America.
Pennsylvania Dutch?
May 19, 2009The Pennsylvania Dutch, or Amish people, aren’t Dutch at all. They came to America from Germany, and at first were called Pennsylvania Deutsch — the German word for Germany is Deutschland, and German people are Deutsch. Since that word sounded to most Americans like Dutch, Pennsylvania Deutsch soon became Pennsylvania Dutch.
1840 – 1960
May 19, 2009Every President of the United States elected in the years 1840, 1860, 1880, 1900, 1920, 1940 and 1960 died in office.
William Henry Harrison, died of pneumonia on April 4, 1841
Abraham Lincoln, was assassinated on April 14, 1865 – he died the next day
James Garfield, was shot by an assassin on July 2, 1881 and died of complications from his injuries on September 19, 1881
William McKinley, was also shot by an assassin on September 6, 1901 and died eight days later
Warren G. Harding, died of a heart attack on August 2, 1923
Franklin D. Roosevelt, died of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1945
John F. Kennedy, was assassinated on November 22, 1963
Zachary Taylor, died of a gastrointestinal illness on July 9, 1850, and was elected in 1848 is the only President to die in office not elected in those years.
Ronald Reagan, who was elected in 1980, broke the pattern.
Tlachtli
May 19, 2009The Aztecs played a sport called called tlachtli which was something like a cross between volleyball, soccer, and basketball. But to some players, tlachtli could be much more dangerous than any of those sports are today.
Two stone rings were set about 20 feet above the court, one on each of the side walls. If a player could knock the ball through one of these rings, his team won the match immediately. The player scoring the goal was allowed to seize the possessions of any spectator he could catch!
Members of the losing team did not fare so well. In some matches, the captain of the losing team was beheaded.
Not Owned by Anyone
May 18, 2009The Tin Man
May 6, 2009Oz
May 2, 2009Hannibal
May 2, 2009The First Computer Bug
April 5, 2009The Qwerty Keyboard
April 5, 200910 Months?
April 5, 2009The Roman calendar originally had ten months and September, October, November, and December are the Latin words for seven, eight, nine and ten. Roman emperor Numa Pompilius then inserted two more months, January and February at the beginning and all the other months shifted two places.
100000 Bill
April 4, 2009Gerald Ford
April 2, 2009Most Dangerous Animal?
April 2, 2009What animal kills the most people in the US every year?
Approximately 130 people are killed in deer/vehicle collisions each year.
Startling
April 2, 2009There is an English word with nine letter that lets you remove one letter from it until there is only one letter left, and each group of letters along the way is also a word.
Startling
Starting
Staring
String
Sting
Sing
Sin
in
I
Green Eggs and Ham
April 2, 2009Alaska is Big!
April 2, 2009Mona Lisa
April 2, 2009Oldest and Youngest
April 2, 2009Amish Men
April 2, 200915 Stripes
April 1, 2009Unlucky 27
April 1, 2009Cigarette Commercials
April 1, 2009The Quick Fox
April 1, 2009The sentence “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” uses every letter in the English language.
The Declaration
April 1, 2009Grant and Lee and Slavery
April 1, 2009Died on the Same Day
April 1, 2009Harper and Truman
March 31, 2009Almost
March 29, 2009“Almost” is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.
Lincoln/Kennedy Coincidences
March 29, 20091. Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846. John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.
2. Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860. John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.
3. Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808. Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.
4. LINCOLN and KENNEDY each has 7 letters.
5. ANDREW JOHNSON and LYNDON JOHNSON each has 13 letters.
6. JOHN WILKES BOOTH and LEE HARVEY OSWALD each has 15 letters.
7. Both Presidents were shot on a Friday in the head.