How well do you know your presidents? We’ll see. As always the answers are listed below.
George Washington only left America’s shores one time. Where did he go?
Who said, “Let us begin by committing ourselves to the truth – to see it like it is, and tell it like it is – to find the truth, to speak the truth, and live the truth?”
What American President owned dogs named Drunkard, Tipler, and Tipsy?
Who was the first American President to win the Nobel Prize?
Who was the first President born outside the original 13 states?
Where was the first presidential mansion located?
What three animals were party symbols in the 1912 presidential race?
What two brothers were nominated for president at the convention in 1884?
What president won election after three unsuccessful bids for the nomination?
What was George Washington’s shoe size?
Who was honored with the first ever toast made at a White House dinner?
HAIL TO THE CHIEF
Answers
Barbados, West Indies in 1751, Richard M. Nixon 1968, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1906, Abraham Lincoln, At 1 Cherry Street in NYC, Elephant, Donkey, and Bull (For the Bull Moose Party), General Tecumseh Sherman and Senator John Sherman of Ohio, James Buchanan in 1856, Thirteen., and last: Lafayette on September 6, 1825.
Here are a few semi-interesting trivia facts about a mish/mosh of subjects.
MAURY WILLS
“It Pays to Steal” is the title of Maury Wills’s 1963 autobiography. He was a famous base stealer.
The original name for the TV series, “The Rifleman” was “The Sharpshooter” in 1958.
The birthplace of George Washington in Virginia was Pope’s Creek Plantation in 1732.
The name of Boca Raton in Florida means “Rat’s Mouth” in Spanish.
The Detroit Lions NFL team was originally named “The Portsmouth Spartans” in 1934.
DETROIT LIONS
The Jamaican name of Ian Flemings home was “Goldeneye” where he wrote his first James Bond novel.
A well-known slogan used by Mad Magazine was “Humor in a Jugular Vein”.
Mel Brooks famous movie “Blazing Saddles” took place in the town of Rock Ridge.
The thespian puppet from Sesame Street was Meryl Sheep.
The term Zip Code was introduced in 1963 and means Zone Improvement Plan.
🐶🐶🐶
One of My Favs
Snoopy of “Peanuts” fame had a number of siblings. He had two sisters, Belle and Molly. He also had five brothers: Andy, Marbles, Rover, Olaf, and Spike.
My father always insisted that I learn as much American history as I could. He felt that any real citizen of this country should learn as much about it as possible. I’ve always loved learning American history and todays quiz takes it to another level. This is presidential trivia that most people are unaware of but I’m sure you’ll still find it very interesting. It’s my great pleasure to share it with you. As always, the answers are listed below.
Which American president has the greatest number of cities and towns in the US named after him?
What salary did Ben Franklin advocate for the presidency during debates in 1787?
How short was George Washington’s second inaugural address – the shortest in US history?
Who was the first President to receive a salary of $100,000?
What American President had an electric horse installed in his White House bedroom and rode it almost daily?
Who was the first President elected when women nationwide had the right to vote?
What First Lady was edited out of her movie debut?
President Nixon kept a music box in his Oval Office desk. What song did it play?
Both President John Tyler Jr. and his father John Tyler Sr. served as governor in what state?
Who was the only President born in Illinois, the “Land of Lincoln”?
After Spiro T. Agnew resigned from office in 1973 what entertainer loaned him $230,000 for living expenses and payment of Internal Revenue Service fees?
(Answers)
James Madison with 27, None, 135 words, Harry S. Truman, Calvin Coolidge, Warren G. Harding in 1920, Pat Nixon, Hail to the Chief, Virginia, Ronald Reagan, Frank Sinatra.
I can tell that today is not going to be a fun day. First of all, this is a “change of season” month, and I find from years of experience that “change of season” months usually suck. The clouds are gray, the sky is gray, the garden plants are all dead, all the “cool” birds have headed south for the winter, and I’m hip deep in effing leaves. Here’s my good survival tip for living in Maine. You must always and I do mean always have an electric blanket somewhere nearby for heat emergencies at this time of the year. Last night I earned a “7” out of ten on my electric blanket. I was awakened at 5:30 a.m. not for my normal bathroom visit but because my teeth were chattering so loud, I was waking up the cat. I’m just not ready for this crap weather and the coming winter. Maybe it’s just old age creeping up on me which tends to be happening more and more these days.
As the years go by, I’ve given a lot of thought to my final days, and I’ve discovered that only two things really matter at that point. If you want to leave some sort of legacy all you need to do is leave two things: a self-written epithet for your headstone or (for you urn people) a really cool quote for your final words. Today’s post is a list of the final words of a few well-known people. Some are profound and some are not, you be the judge.
H. G. Wells (1866-1946) stated to his nurse: “Go away. I’m all right.”
Brigham Young (1801-77) stated “Amen”.
George Washington (1732-99) stated to his doctor, “Doctor, I die hard, but I’m not afraid to go.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) “Please put out the light.”
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) “Drink to me.”
Elizabeth I (1533-1603) “All my possessions for a moment of time.”
So how would you all like to have a homework assignment. If you’re so inclined, send me your epitaph and last words and hopefully by then I’ll have mine done and will I’ll post them.
I have three statements to make to start this post: I love T-shirts, I’m a proud American, and I have little or no use for politicians. That being said I wore one of my favorite T-shirts while food shopping yesterday. I have at least eighty T-shirts with all sorts of designs concerning musical groups to chintzy advertising logos, and I love them all. Yesterday’s shirt stated plainly “I love my country, but I fear my government”. I often get comments from passersby about the messages on my shirts, but this one apparently caught the attention of a number of people. They weren’t upset with me for wearing it, they were patting me on the back for wearing it proudly. Our founding fathers were very open about the responsibility of the citizenry to keep an eye on the government. Unfortunately, in recent years that is no longer the case. These days everyone can complain until their blue-in-the-face but unless your part of the politically elite you’re wasting your breath. Maybe it’s time to review some of the history of this country and the revolution that spawned it.
On June 12, 1775, the British offered a pardon to all colonists who would lay down their arms. There would be only two exceptions to this amnesty: Samuel Adams and John Hancock, if captured they were to be immediately hanged.
“July 4th” could just as easily have been celebrated on July 2nd. It was on that date in 1776 that the Second Continental Congress voted our independence from England. John Adams, in fact, wrote: “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America.” He believed that it would be celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary festival. “It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and Illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this day forward forever more.”
On July 4, 1776, King George III wrote in his diary, “Nothing of importance happened today.” He had no way of knowing what had just occurred that day in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
And one signatory of the Declaration of Independence appended his address: Charles Carroll “of Carrollton,” Maryland. He wanted to be sure that the British, if they wanted to hang him, knew full well where to look for him.
It wasn’t until January 19, 1777, that the national Congress made public all of the names of the men who affixed their signatures to the Declaration of Independence. One reason for the delay may have been the knowledge that if the war effort failed, the signatories would have sealed their fate as traitors.
I’m willing to bet you couldn’t find five current politicians in this country that would even consider doing half of the things the Founders dealt with at that time. Their pride in this country during its formation in the 1700’s seems to be a long dead memory. I wonder what would happen if tomorrow the British decided to retake America and threatened to hang all of our politicians who refused to surrender. I fear the roads to Canada would be clogged with carloads of fleeing representatives from this great nation. What do you think? I also wonder how long it would take the Canadians to close their borders for their own protection.
Over the last three years I’ve been forced by circumstance to become somewhat knowledgeable about the medical profession and its many practices. It’s not something I ever wanted to know but fear is a great motivator. It motivated me to do a great deal of research to find out exactly what all my health problems were and suggested remedies. The following 10 items will give you a short education on trivia concerning the medical profession that you might find interesting. It’s much better to read them in a blog posting than in person.
The first contraceptive diaphragm – centuries ago – were citrus rinds – halves of oranges for example.
Male embryos, fetuses, and babies have a higher incidence of morbidity than females. Correspondingly, there is a higher rate of language disability among boys than girls.
Ketchup once was sold as a patent medicine. In the 1830s it enjoyed a measure of popularity in the United States as Dr. Miles Compound Extract of Tomato.
Victims of disease -people and animals – are buried underground, and yet the soil remains fairly free of disease germs. Germs are destroyed by the bacteria and other microscopic organisms living in the soil.
For every ounce of alcohol you drink, it takes an hour to regain full driving faculties, that is, normal, alert, clearheaded reactions. If you have 5 ounces of alcohol around 8 PM, you should not drive until at least 1 AM the following day.
Influenza was so named because the cause of the disease was supposedly the evil “influence” of the stars. This “influence” was believed also to be the cause of plagues and pestilences.
Opium frequently was used as a pain killer by army doctors during the U.S. Civil War. By the end of the war, according to conservative estimates, 100,000 soldiers were addicted to opium – at a time when the total population of the country was only 40 million.
In 1777, George Washington had the entire Continental Army – then 4000 men- vaccinated. This action was considered controversial at the time because few American doctors believed in vaccination. It may have saved the Army as a fighting force.
The use of antibiotics did not begin in this century. Early folk medicine included the use of moldy foods or soil for infections. In ancient Egypt, for example, infections were treated with moldy bread.
About 8 ounces of lamb’s blood were injected into the veins of a dying boy, temporarily restoring him, in the first blood transfusion on record. It was performed in 1667 by Gene Baptiste Dennis, physician to King Louis XIV of France.
As you’re probably aware I collect weird and odd trivia. I stumbled upon a book by a Mr. Russ Kick titled “50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know”. It’s a collection of somewhat obscure facts collected by Kick. I’ll list ten of the facts from the book without the accompanying lengthy explanations provided to prove his points. Some facts appear outrageous, but it seems his research was well done. If you want to check his facts, then you’ll need to find and buy the book or do some lengthy research online.
Barbie is based on a German sex doll
Fetuses masturbate
George Washington embezzled government funds
Scientists are re-creating the highly lethal 1918 Spanish Flu virus
Several thousand Americans were held in Nazi concentration camps during WW2
Well over 300,000 tons of chemical weapons have been dumped into the sea
Men have clitorises
Native Americans were once kept as slaves
James Audubon killed all the birds he painted
The Environmental Protection Agency lied about New York’s air quality after the 9/11 disaster.
Being stuck in this house and this bed is driving me crazier than usual. Now that the Cov-19 has come and gone I still have a twenty-pound cast on my leg. I’m still limited by some door sizes which are too small for this freaking wheelchair to get through. Let me apologize, I immediately start to whine and feel sorry for myself when things aren’t going my way. It’s just human nature I suppose. I decided I would find a few items of trivia to help breakup your day. These are a mish-mosh of items collected totally at random. I hope you enjoy them.
An Egyptian papyrus, dated at approximately 1850 B.C., gives us the earliest record of a method to prevent pregnancies. It required putting into the vagina a concoction of honey, soda, crocodile excrement, and some sort of gummy substance.
Between the mid-1860’s and 1883, the bison population in North America was reduced from an estimated 13 million to a few hundred.
Not a single bank existed anywhere in the thirteen colonies before the American Revolution. Anyone needing money had to borrow from an individual.
After twenty years as a faithful unpaid servant of the Duke of Windsor, Walter Monckton was rewarded with a cigarette case on which his name was engraved – and misspelled.
In the seventeenth century, and principally during the period of the Thirty Years War, approximately sixty million people in Europe died from smallpox.
A conventional sign of virginity in Tudor England was a high exposed bosom and a sleeve full to the wrists.
If all of the water vapor in the Earth’s atmosphere were condensed at the same time, there would be enough water to cover the United States (including Alaska and Hawaii) with twenty-five feet of water.
The British erected in London’s Trafalgar Square a statue of U.S President George Washington, whose armies overthrew British rule in the colonies.
When John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, it was not a federal felony to kill a President of the United States.
For fear he might conceal a joke in it was one reason why Benjamin Franklin was not entrusted by his peers with the assignment of writing the Declaration of Independence.
I continue to be fascinated by history. American history is my favorite especially reading stories of the Founding Fathers. I’ve gathered together a few interesting historical facts that are not commonly known about them.
Not until 1826 were fireworks used to celebrate the Fourth of July. Coincidentally, it was the very day that two of the founding fathers died, but their demise did not interfere with the national celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It took four days for the news of John Adams death to reach Washington and two days for the capital to learn of Thomas Jefferson’s death.
British ships in the English Channel fired a salute of 21 guns when word reached them that the countries erstwhile great adversary, President George Washington, had died in the States.
Thomas Jefferson chose not to attend ceremonies marking the death of George Washington in 1799, nor did he write a note of condolence to Washington’s widow. This enmity stemmed from the last year of Washington’s second term as the United States President, when he suspected Jefferson of being responsible for scurrilous attacks in the press on him. Jefferson denied responsibility and Washington accepted his word, but there was a chill between them thereafter.
Ben Franklin wanted the turkey, not the eagle, to be the United States national symbol. He considered the eagle “a bird of bad moral character” because it lives “by sharping and robbing”.
Thomas Jefferson was a smuggler of sorts. He went into northern Italy, in 1787, to see the machines used there for cleaning rice seed and was able to filch and bring back to the United States samples of rice that he gave to planters in Georgia and South Carolina. He also picked up information about the olive tree.
A former US vice president, Aaron Burr, was charged with treason for trying, it was said, to separate the western lands from the United States and establish his own rule in the early 1800s. He was acquitted, but his image remained tarnished.
George Washington seldom slept more than three or four consecutive hours in any day during the Revolutionary War.
Signing a memorial to Congress for the abolition of slavery was the last public act of Benjamin Franklin.
I have to admit that after reading the many and varied facts about the founding fathers I appreciate them even more. A group of colonists, some with education but many without, had the will and fortitude to fight for what they believed and to create this country. I wish I had the power of time travel so I can go back to the 1700’s and bring all of those gentlemen to the present day. I’m fairly certain they wouldn’t be at all happy.
Yesterday as I was creating my lunch, I threw in a healthy dash of soy sauce. It’s my only way of eating salt without totally violating my doctors’ orders. In my humble opinion food has very little taste without it. Try eating popcorn or corn on the cob without salt. Ridiculous!!!! Since it sends my blood pressure through the roof, I’m forced to obey but not entirely. Rather than continuing to drone on about my salt issues here are a few facts about salt (trivia wise).
Each year, 9,000,000 tons of salt, more than 10% of all the salt produced in the world, is applied to American highways for road deicing. The cost of buying and applying the salt adds up to $200 million dollars.
Salt helped build the Erie Canal. A tax of 12 1/2% on New York State salt, plus tolls charged for salt shipments, paid for nearly half of the $7 million dollar construction costs.
There is a salt mine in the Polish town of Wieliczka, near Kraków, that has been in operation for nearly 1000 years.
Enough about salt, I just threw in a few tidbits for the fun of it. Let’s try something else like military history. It was in the Army that I was first forced to eat salt tablets. Talk about mixed messages. Good for me then, not so much now.
The British and French armies in World War I did not advance more than 3 miles at any point on the western front in the whole year of 1915. Those three miles costed the French army alone nearly 1.5 million men.
The Japanese kamikaze pilots of World War II were given privileged treatment and considered to be heroes. All volunteers, they underwent rigorous training that prepared them for their suicide missions. If they refused to stay in the corps, they were shot as traitors.
The Crusaders were able to conquer Acre, a coastal city 80 miles north of Jerusalem, in July 1191, only after 100,000 men on both sides had been killed.
Through the six-year war of independence ranged enraged over most of the 13 colonies, George Washington’s Continental Army never consisted of more than 22,000 troops at any one time.
On the eve of World War II, the US Army ranked, with reserves counted, 19th among the world’s armed forces. This placed the United States after Portugal but ahead of Bulgaria.
Let’s enjoy our last few weeks of summer. Things here in Maine can finally return to normal after the tourists begin leaving after Labor Day. People have been telling me that we’re in for a difficult winter. I really don’t mind all that much because I hate hot weather. I’ve made the statement many times that if “climate change” continues to make things warmer in Maine, I’ll be moving to northern Canada to live in an igloo. LOL
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