Today is Betsy Ross’s birthday and I found an article on Have Fun With History about Betsy!
From havefunwithhistory.com:
Betsy Ross, born on January 1, 1752, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is a prominent figure in American history known for her role in the creation of the first American flag. While her life and contributions are often celebrated, some aspects remain shrouded in legend and debate. This brief introduction provides a glimpse into the life of Betsy Ross, a woman whose association with the American flag has left an indelible mark on the nation’s history and identity.
Betsy Ross Facts
1 Born on January 1, 1752, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Betsy Ross was born as Elizabeth Griscom in the bustling colonial city of Philadelphia. She was one of 17 children in her family, and her Quaker parents, Samuel Griscom and Rebecca James, raised her in the Quaker faith.
2 Married John Ross in 1773
In 1773, Betsy Ross married John Ross, who was an Anglican vestryman and an upholsterer by trade. Together, they established an upholstery business in Philadelphia. However, their marriage was short-lived due to John Ross’s untimely death in 1776 during the early years of the American Revolutionary War. Despite the brevity of their marriage, Betsy Ross continued to work in the upholstery trade after his passing.
3 Known for her role in creating the first American flag
Betsy Ross is most renowned for her association with the creation of the first American flag. According to legend, she was approached by a committee consisting of George Washington, George Ross (John Ross’s uncle), and Robert Morris in June 1776. They presented her with a rough design of the American flag, which had 13 stars and 13 stripes, representing the 13 American colonies. Betsy Ross is said to have suggested changes to the design, including the use of a five-pointed star and the arrangement of stars in a circle. While the exact historical accuracy of this story remains debated, it has become a cherished part of American folklore, and Betsy Ross is widely recognized for her association with the creation of the American flag.
4 Traditionally credited with suggesting design modifications for the flag
As previously mentioned, Betsy Ross is traditionally credited with suggesting design modifications to the American flag presented to her by George Washington and the committee. According to the legend, she proposed using a five-pointed star instead of a six-pointed one, as well as arranging the stars in a circular pattern. This circular arrangement made it easier to create the stars, as opposed to the more complex design of a star within a star. While there is some debate among historians about the accuracy of this specific account, there is no doubt that Betsy Ross was an accomplished flag maker, and her contributions to early American flag design are celebrated.
5 The first American flag she created had 13 stars and 13 stripes
Betsy Ross’s most famous creation was the first American flag, which she is believed to have sewn in 1776. This flag had 13 stars, representing the 13 original colonies, and 13 stripes, alternating red and white, symbolizing the same colonies. The design was intended to reflect the united efforts of the American colonies in their struggle for independence from British rule. The stars and stripes have since become iconic symbols of the United States and its history.
6 Operated an upholstery business with her first husband, John Ross
Betsy Ross and her first husband, John Ross, ran an upholstery business together in Philadelphia. Upholstery involved the crafting and repair of furniture, making draperies, and creating various fabric-based items. While John Ross was also involved in the early stages of the American Revolution, Betsy’s skills as a seamstress and upholsterer became particularly valuable during this time. After John’s death in 1776, Betsy continued to manage and operate the upholstery business on her own. Her ability to work with fabrics and textiles likely contributed to her involvement in flag-making, and she remained an active and skilled craftsman throughout her life.
7 Married three times in her lifetime
Betsy Ross had a complex personal life, marked by three marriages. Her first marriage was to John Ross in 1773. After his death in 1776, she married Joseph Ashburn in 1777. Tragically, Ashburn died while imprisoned by the British during the Revolutionary War. Betsy’s third marriage was to John Claypoole in 1783, and together they had five daughters. Betsy’s marriages were intertwined with the challenges and turmoil of the Revolutionary period.
8 Widowed multiple times, her husbands had ties to the Revolutionary War
All three of Betsy Ross’s husbands had direct or indirect connections to the American Revolutionary War. John Ross died early in the war, Joseph Ashburn was a sailor who suffered the hardships of wartime captivity, and John Claypoole was a veteran of the Continental Army. Betsy’s personal life was deeply affected by the conflicts and challenges of the Revolutionary period.
9 Died on January 30, 1836, at the age of 84
Betsy Ross lived a long life and passed away at the age of 84. Her death occurred on January 30, 1836, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her legacy, particularly her association with the creation of the American flag, continued to be celebrated after her death, and she remains a notable figure in American history.
10 Buried at the Free Quaker Burying Ground in Philadelphia
Betsy Ross was buried at the Free Quaker Burying Ground in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Free Quakers were a group of Quakers who broke away from the mainstream Quaker community during the American Revolution because they supported the American cause. Betsy Ross’s burial at this historic site is a testament to her affiliation with the Free Quakers and her enduring connection to the Revolutionary period.
In 1973, four years before becoming the 39th president of the United States, Jimmy Carter filed a report of a UFO sighting in Georgia in 1969. He called it “the darnedest thing I’ve ever seen.” He promised, if elected president, to disclose government information about UFOs, but backpedaled while in office.
Abraham Lincoln was a licensed bartender
Before he became the 16th president, Abraham Lincoln was a bartender and bar owner. He partnered with a friend to buy a bar in Illinois but gave it up to become a lawyer shortly thereafter. He remains officially the only U.S. president to be a licensed bartender.
John Adams named his dog Satan
Plenty of U.S. presidents have had dogs as pets in the White House, but only one had a dog named after the devil himself. Satan was one of the pooches belonging to the second U.S. president, John Adams. No word on whether Satan lived up to its name.
We had a 24-hour president
Ever hear of President David Rice Atchison? If the answer is no, that’s probably because he was only president for a day. In 1849, the inauguration of Zachary Taylor landed on a Sunday, and the religious incumbent refused to be sworn in on a holy day. He had Atchison stand in for him.
James Monroe attacked his rival with red-hot tongs
After backing down from running against James Monroe in the presidential election, William H. Crawford accepted a position as his secretary of the Treasury. During a fight between the two men, the fifth U.S. president chased the politician out while brandishing a set of tongs from his fireplace.
Thomas Jefferson had a comically positioned bed
Jefferson famously served out his tenure at his estate, Monticello. Though his home was vast in size, he preferred to squeeze his bed into a tiny alcove that provided zero room at the foot and head of the bed. He’s thought to be the originator of the alcove bed layout.
Presidents Day is technically called Washington’s Birthday
Presidents Day has a more complex history than one might think. After George Washington died in 1799, his supporters recognized his birthday as a day of remembrance. In 1885, his birthday became a federal holiday for the country. Later, in 1968, a new bill made certain federal holidays on Mondays and combined birthday celebrations for Washington and Lincoln into Presidents Day. According to the United States Code, however, that February holiday is technically still called Washington’s Birthday and never officially changed to Presidents Day. Federal code permits local governments and private businesses to name federal holidays whatever they want, so most states call it Presidents Day.
Three presidents married while in office
President John Tyler remarried in 1844 after the death of his first wife. Woodrow Wilson also remarried after the death of his wife, in 1915. And before his wedding, Grover Cleveland was one of two White House bachelors. (The other was James Buchanan, who never married.) Cleveland is also the only U.S. president to marry in a White House ceremony.
Martin Van Buren made “OK” popular
Experts don’t definitively know the origin of “OK.” People suggest it has origins in Native American language or Sub-Saharan African language, among other possibilities. They do know that Martin Van Buren helped popularize the expression. One of his nicknames was “Old Kinderhook,” the town he was from in New York. During his election campaign in 1840, people held signs with, and chanted, “OK.”
“Billy Possums” was meant to replace “Teddy Bears”
President Theodore Roosevelt inspired the name “Teddy Bears.” Roosevelt chose not to shoot a bear on a hunting trip, asking to put down the already injured bear humanely instead. Newspapers made cartoons of the event, and Morris Michtom, a candy shop owner, asked Roosevelt’s permission to sell stuffed bears in his shop and call them “Teddy Bears.” Once William H. Taft became president, toy makers worried that the bears wouldn’t be as popular. They came up with an alternative toy to name after Taft—”Billy Possums.” In 1909, the U.S. president ate possum in Georgia, inspiring the rival toy that never came close to the popularity of the Teddy Bear.
Ronald Regan consulted with an astrologist while in the White House
Joan Quigley was Ronald and Nancy Reagan’s astrologist while they were in the White House. Quigley only met the president once, but she did communicate regularly with the first lady. Quigley was reportedly responsible for timing conferences, speeches, takeoffs and landings, and even the State of the Union address. The president kept a color-coded calendar of good and bad days according to astrological rules and circumstances, based on information from Quigley. In her book, Quigley even claims she could have predicted the assassination attempt on his life—but at the time she hadn’t drawn up his charts.
George H.W. Bush inspired a Japanese slang word
In 1992, George H.W. Bush vomited on the prime minister of Japan at a state dinner in Tokyo while in Asia for a 12-day trip. After the incident, the term Bushu-suru—”do a bush”—became a popular Japanese slang word for vomiting.
John Quincy Adams kept a detailed, 51-volume diary
Here’s the last of our president facts: John Quincy Adams began keeping his 14,000-page journal in 1779 at the age of 12. He continued until shortly before his death in 1848. People can read the whopping 51 volumes online.
In November 1910, six men – Nelson Aldrich, A. Piatt Andrew, Henry Davison, Arthur Shelton, Frank Vanderlip and Paul Warburg – met at the Jekyll Island Club, off the coast of Georgia, to write a plan to reform the nation’s banking system. The meeting and its purpose were closely guarded secrets, and participants did not admit that the meeting occurred until the 1930s. But the plan written on Jekyll Island laid a foundation for what would eventually be the Federal Reserve System.
The Need for Reform
At the time, the men who met on Jekyll Island believed the banking system suffered from serious problems. The Jekyll Island participants’ views on this issue are well known, since before and after their conclave several spoke publicly and others published extensively on the topic. Collectively, they encapsulated their concerns in the plan they wrote on Jekyll Island and in the reports of the National Monetary Commission.
Like many Americans, these men were concerned with financial panics, which had disrupted economic activity in the United States periodically during the nineteenth century. Nationwide panics occurred on average every fifteen years. These panics forced financial institutions to suspend operations, triggering long and deep recessions. American banks held large required reserves of cash, but these reserves were scattered throughout the nation, held in the vaults of thousands of banks or as deposits in financial institutions in designated reserve and central reserve cities. During crises, they became frozen in place, preventing them from being used to alleviate the situation. During booms, banks’ excess reserves tended to flow toward big cities, especially New York, where bankers invested them in call loans, which were loans repayable on demand to brokers. The brokers in turn loaned the funds to investors speculating in equity markets, whose stock purchases served as collateral for the transactions. This American system made bank reserves immobile and equity markets volatile, a recipe for financial instability.
In Europe, in contrast, bankers invested much of their portfolio in short-term loans to merchants and manufacturers. This commercial paper directly financed commerce and industry while providing banks with assets that they could quickly convert to cash during a crisis. These loans remained liquid for several reasons. First, borrowers paid financial institutions – typically banks with which they had long-standing relationships – to guarantee repayment in case the borrowers could not meet their financial obligations. Second, the loans funded merchandise in the process of production and sale and that merchandise served as collateral should borrowers default. The Jekyll Island participants also worried about the inelastic supply of currency in the United States. The value of the dollar was linked to gold, and the quantity of currency available was linked to the supply of a special series of federal government bonds. The supply of currency neither expanded nor contracted with seasonal changes in demands for cash, such as the fall harvest or the holiday shopping season, causing interest rates to vary substantially from one month to the next. The inelastic supply of currency and limited supplies of gold also contributed to long and painful deflations.
Furthermore, Jekyll Island participants believed that an array of antiquated arrangements impeded America’s financial and economic progress. For example, American banks could not operate overseas. Thus, American merchants had to finance imports and exports through financial houses in Europe, principally London. American banks also struggled to collectively clear checks outside the boundaries of a single city. This increased costs of inter-city and interstate commerce and required risky and expensive remittances of cash over long distances.
In an article published in the New York Times in 1907, Paul Warburg, a successful, German-born financier who was a partner at the investment bank Kuhn, Loeb, and Co. and widely regarded as an expert on the banking systems in the United States and Europe, wrote that the United States’ financial system was “at about the same point that had been reached by Europe at the time of the Medicis, and by Asia, in all likelihood, at the time of Hammurabi” (Warburg 1907).
Just months after Warburg wrote those words, the country was struck by the Panic of 1907. The panic galvanized the US Congress, particularly Republican senator Nelson Aldrich, the chair of the Senate Finance Committee. In 1908, Aldrich sponsored a bill with Republican representative Edward Vreeland that, among other things, created the National Monetary Commission to study reforms to the financial system. Aldrich quickly hired several advisers to the commission, including Henry Davison, a partner at J.P. Morgan, and A. Piatt Andrew, an economics professor at Harvard University. Over the next two years, they studied banking and financial systems extensively and visited Europe to meet with bankers and central bankers.
The Duck Hunt
By the fall of 1910, Aldrich was persuaded of the necessity of a central bank for the United States. With Congress ready to begin meeting in just a few weeks, Aldrich — most likely at Davison’s suggestion — decided to convene a small group to help him synthesize all he had learned and write down a proposal to establish a central bank.
The group included Aldrich; his private secretary Arthur Shelton; Davison; Andrew (who by 1910 had been appointed assistant Treasury secretary); Frank Vanderlip, president of National City Bank and a former Treasury official; and Warburg.
A member of the exclusive Jekyll Island Club, most likely J.P. Morgan, arranged for the group to use the club’s facilities. Founded in 1886, the club’s membership boasted elites such as Morgan, Marshall Field, and William Kissam Vanderbilt I, whose mansion-sized “cottages” dotted the island. Munsey’s Magazine described it in 1904 as “the richest, the most exclusive, the most inaccessible” club in the world.
Aldrich and Davison chose the attendees for their expertise, but Aldrich knew their ties to Wall Street could arouse suspicion about their motives and threaten the bill’s political passage. So he went to great lengths to keep the meeting secret, adopting the ruse of a duck hunting trip and instructing the men to come one at a time to a train terminal in New Jersey, where they could board his private train car. Once aboard, the men used only first names – Nelson, Harry, Frank, Paul, Piatt, and Arthur – to prevent the staff from learning their identities. For decades after, the group referred to themselves as the “First Name Club.”
An additional member of the First Name Club was Benjamin Strong, vice president of the Bankers Trust Company and the future founding chief executive officer (then called governor, now called president) of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. But it is unlikely Strong attended the meeting on Jekyll Island. In his autobiography, Vanderlip recalls him attending, but no other account indicates Strong’s presence. Most scholars and journalists who have written about the issue, including Bertie Charles (B.C.) Forbes — the founder of Forbes magazine and the journalist who first revealed the meetings in an article in 1916 — have concluded Strong did not attend (Forbes 1916). Strong had worked closely with the Jekyll Island attendees in other venues, however, and his ideas were certainly present at the meeting even if he was not there in person. After the meeting, as the First Name Club revised the plan and prepared it for publication, Strong was frequently consulted and according to Forbes, “joined the ‘First-Name Club’ as ‘Ben’” (Forbes 1922).
The Plan Takes Shape
Aldrich and his colleagues quickly realized that while they agreed on some broad principles — establishing an elastic currency supplied by a bank that held the reserves of all banks — they disagreed on details. Figuring out those details was a “desperately trying undertaking,” in Warburg’s words. Completely secluded, the men woke up early and worked late into the night for more than a week. “We had disappeared from the world onto a deserted island,” Vanderlip recalled in his autobiography. “We put in the most intense period of work that I have ever had.”
By the end of their time on Jekyll Island, Aldrich and his colleagues had developed a plan for a Reserve Association of America, a single central bank with fifteen branches across the country. Each branch would be governed by boards of directors elected by the member banks in each district, with larger banks getting more votes. The branches would be responsible for holding the reserves of their member banks; issuing currency; discounting commercial paper; transferring balances between branches; and check clearing and collection. The national body would set discount rates for the system as a whole and buy and sell securities.
Shortly after returning home, Aldrich became ill and was unable to write the group’s final report. So Vanderlip and Strong traveled to Washington to get the plan ready for Congress. Aldrich presented it to the National Monetary Commission in January 1911 without telling the commission members how the plan had been developed. A final report, along with legislative text, went to Congress a year later with a few minor changes, including naming the new institution the National Reserve Association.
In a letter accompanying the report, the Commission said it had created an institution “scientific in its method, and democratic in its control.” But many people, especially Democrats, objected to the version of democracy it presented, which could have allowed the largest banks to exert outsized influence on the central bank’s leadership. With a presidential election coming up, the Democrats made repudiating the Aldrich plan a part of their platform. When Woodrow Wilson won the presidency and the Democrats took control of both houses, Aldrich’s National Reserve Association appeared to be shelved.
Leaders of the Democratic Party, however, also were interested in reform, including President Wilson and the chairs of the House and Senate Committees on Banking and Currency, Carter Glass and Robert Owen, respectively. Glass and Owen both introduced proposals to form a central banking system based on draft legislation supported by Wilson. Glass, Owen, and their staffs directly consulted with Warburg, whose technical expertise was respected by Democratic and Republican politicians alike. Wilson’s chief political adviser, Col. E. M. House, met and corresponded with Warburg to discuss banking reform in general and the Glass and Owen plans in particular. So did William McAdoo and Henry Morgenthau, senior political and policy advisers to Wilson who served in his administration. Morgenthau assured Warburg “that he sent his copy of the [January 10, 1913] memorandum to President Wilson” (Warburg 1930, p. 90). Together, these ideas formed the basis of the final Federal Reserve Act, which Congress passed and the president signed in December 1913. The technical details of the final bill closely resembled those of the Aldrich Plan. The major differences were the political and decision-making structures, which was a compromise acceptable to both the progressive and populist wings of the Democratic Party.
Postscript
B.C. Forbes somehow learned about the Jekyll Island trip and wrote about it in 1916 in an article published in Leslie’s Weekly (October 19, 1916 p. 423), which was recapitulated a few months later in an article in the magazine Current Opinion. In 1917, Forbes again described the meeting in Men Who Are Making America, a collection of short biographies of prominent entrepreneurs, including Davison, Vanderlip, and Warburg. Not many people noticed the revelation, and those who did dismissed it as “a mere yarn,” according to Aldrich’s biographer.
The participants themselves denied the meeting had occurred for twenty years, until the publication of Aldrich’s biography in 1930. The impetus for coming clean was probably the publication in 1927 of Carter Glass’s memoir, An Adventure in Constructive Finance. In it, Glass, by now a senator, claimed credit for the key ideas in the Federal Reserve Act, which prompted the Jekyll Island participants to reveal their roles in creating the Federal Reserve.
Warburg was especially critical of Glass’s description of events. In 1930, he published a two-volume book describing the origins of the Fed, including a line-by-line comparison of the Aldrich bill and the Glass-Owen bill to prove their similarity. In the introduction, he wrote, “I had gone to California for a three months’ rest when the appearance of a series of articles written by Senator Glass…impelled me to lay down in black and white my recollections of certain events in the history of banking reform.” Warburg’s book does not mention Jekyll Island specifically, although he states that
“In November, 1910, I was invited to join a small group of men who, at Senator Aldrich’s request, were to take part in a several days’ conference with him, to discuss the form that the new banking bill should take. … when the conference closed … the rough draft of what later became the Aldrich Bill had been agreed upon … The results of the conference were entirely confidential. Even the fact that there had been a meeting was not permitted to become public. … Though eighteen years have gone by, I do not feel free to give a description of this most interesting conference concerning which Senator Aldrich pledged all participants to secrecy. I understand, however, a history of Senator Aldrich’s life … will contain an authorized account to of this episode” (Warburg 1930, pp. 58-60).
Disagreements over authorship of the Federal Reserve Act received widespread publicity in the late 1920s. Glass defended his claim for the lion’s share of the credit in speeches, in his book, and in submissions to prominent publications including the New York Evening Post and the New York Times. Critics responded in similar venues and academic journals. For example, Samuel Untermyer, former counsel to the House Committee on Banking and Currency, published a pamphlet titled “Who is Entitled to the Credit for the Federal Reserve Act? An Answer to Senator Carter Glass,” in which he asserted that Glass’s claims of primary authorship were “fiction,” “fable,” and a “work of imagination” (Untermyer 1927). In 1914, Edwin Seligman, a prominent professor at Columbia University, wrote that “in its fundamental features the Federal Reserve Act is the work of Mr. Warburg more than of any other man.” In 1927, Seligman and Glass debated this point in a series of letters published in the New York Times.
The Jekyll Island Club never bounced back from the Great Depression, when many of its members resigned, and it closed in 1942. Today, its former clubhouse and cottages are National Historic Landmarks. But the debates at and about the conference on Jekyll Island remain relevant today.
Nostradamus was a 16-century French astrologer and physician whose prophecies earned him fame both during and after his lifetime. In the centuries since his death in 1566, people have credited Nostradamus with predicting pivotal events in history, from the French Revolution to the rise of Adolf Hitler to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and even the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. His book, The Prophecies, was published in 1555, and has since earned him worldwide fame. According to Nostradamus, the world is slated to end in the year 3797.
Who Was Nostradamus?
Nostradamus was born Michel de Nostradame on December 14 or 21, 1503, in the south of France in Saint-Remy-de-Provence. He was one of nine children born to Reyniere de St-Remy and her husband Jaume de Nostradame, a well-to-do grain dealer and part-time notary of Jewish descent. Nostradame’s grandfather, Guy Gassonet, had converted to Catholicism a half century earlier and changed the family name to Nostradame, in part to avoid persecution during the Inquisition.
Little is known of his childhood, but evidence indicates he was very intelligent as he quickly advanced through school. Early in his life, he was tutored by his maternal grandfather, Jean de St. Remy, who saw great intellect and potential in his grandson. During this time, young Nostradame was taught the rudiments of Latin, Greek, Hebrew and mathematics. It’s believed that his grandfather also introduced him to the ancient rites of Jewish tradition and the teachings of astrology, giving Nostradame his first exposure to the idea of the heavens and how they might drive human destiny.
Education
At the age of 14, Nostradame entered the University of Avignon to study medicine. He was forced to leave after only one year, however, due to an outbreak of the bubonic plague. According to his own account, he traveled throughout the countryside during this time, researching herbal remedies and working as an apothecary.
In 1522 he entered the University of Montpellier to complete his doctorate in medicine. He sometimes expressed dissension with the teachings of the Catholic priests, who dismissed his notions of astrology. There are some reports that university officials discovered his previous experience as an apothecary and found this reason to expel him from school. Evidently the school took a dim view of anyone who was involved in what was considered a “manual trade.” However, most accounts state he was not expelled and received license to practice medicine in 1525. At this time, he Latinized his name—as was the custom of many medieval academics—from Nostradame to Nostradamus.
The Plague Years
Over the next several years, Nostradamus traveled throughout France and Italy, treating victims of the plague. There was no known remedy at the time; most doctors relied on potions made of mercury, the practice of bloodletting and dressing patients in garlic-soaked robes.
Nostradamus developed some very progressive methods for dealing with the plague. He didn’t bleed his patients, instead practicing effective hygiene and encouraging the removal of the infected corpses from city streets. He became known for creating a “rose pill,” an herbal lozenge made of rosehips (rich in vitamin C) that provided some relief for patients with mild cases of the plague. His cure rate was impressive, though much can be attributed to keeping his patients clean, administering low-fat diets and providing plenty of fresh air.
In time, Nostradamus found himself somewhat of a local celebrity for his treatments and received financial support from many of the citizens of Provence. 1n 1531, he was invited to work with a leading scholar of the time, Jules-Cesar Scaliger in Agen, in southwestern France. There he married and in the next few years had two children. In 1534, his wife and children died—presumably of the plague—while he was traveling on a medical mission to Italy. Not being able to save his wife and children caused him to fall out of favor in the community and with his patron, Scaliger.
Nostradamus Book of Predictions: The Prophecies
By 1554, Nostradamus’ visions had become an integral part of his works in the almanacs, and he decided to channel all his energies into a massive opus he initially titled Centuries. He planned to write 10 volumes, which would contain 100 predictions forecasting the next 2,000 years. In 1555 he published Les Prophesies, or The Prophecies, a collection of his major, long-term predictions. Possibly feeling vulnerable to religious persecution, he devised a method of obscuring the prophecies’ meanings by using quatrains—rhymed four-line verses—and a mixture of other languages such as Greek, Italian, Latin and Provencal, a dialect of southern France.
Oddly enough, Nostradamus enjoyed a good relationship with the Vatican. It’s believed he never faced prosecution for heresy by the Inquisition because he didn’t extend his writings to the practice of magic. His popularity grew and he became one of the most famous figures during the Renaissance. Nostradamus ran into some controversy with his predictions, as some thought he was a servant of the devil, and others said he was a fake or insane. However, many more believed the prophecies were spiritually inspired.
Predictions of Nostradamus
Nostradamus Predicts Napoleon? His growing fame made him an in-demand ally of Europe’s elite. Catherine de Medici, the wife of King Henri II of France, was one of Nostradamus’ greatest admirers. After reading his almanacs of 1555, where he hinted at unnamed threats to her family, she summoned him to Paris to explain and draw up horoscopes for her children. A few years later, she made him Counselor and Physician-in-Ordinary to King Henri’s court.
In 1556, while serving in this capacity, Nostradamus explained another prophecy from Centuries I, which was assumed to refer to King Henri. The prophecy told of a “young lion” who would overcome an older one on the field of battle. The young lion would pierce the eye of the older one and he would die a cruel death. Nostradamus warned the king he should avoid ceremonial jousting. Three years later, when King Henri was 41 years old, he died in a jousting match when a lance from this opponent pierced the king’s visor and entered his head from the eye deep into his brain. He held on to life for 10 agonizing days before finally dying of infection.
Nostradamus claimed to base his published predictions on judicial astrology—the art of forecasting future events by calculation of the planets and stellar bodies in relationship to the earth. His sources include passages from classical historians like Plutarch as well as medieval chroniclers from whom he seems to have borrowed liberally. In fact, many scholars believe he paraphrased ancient end-of-the-world prophecies (mainly from the Bible) and then through astrological readings of the past, projected these events into the future.
However, not everyone was enamored with Nostradamus’ predictions. He was criticized by professional astrologers of the day for incompetence and assuming that comparative horoscopy (the comparison of future planetary configurations with those accompanying known past events) could predict the future.
How Did Nostradamus Die?
Nostradamus suffered from gout and arthritis for most of his adulthood. In the last years of his life, the condition turned into edema or dropsy, where abnormal amounts of fluid accumulate beneath the skin or within cavities of the body. Without treatment, the condition could result in congestive heart failure. In late June of 1566, Nostradamus asked to see his lawyer to draw up an extensive will, leaving much of his estate to his wife and children. On the evening of July 1, he is alleged to have told his secretary, “You will not find me alive at sunrise.” The next morning, he was reportedly found dead lying on the floor next to his bed.
Legacy
Most of the quatrains Nostradamus composed during his life dealt with disasters such as earthquakes, wars, floods, invasions, murders, droughts, battles and plagues. Nostradamus enthusiasts have credited him with predicting numerous events in world history including the French Revolution; the rise of Napoleon and Hitler; the development of the atomic bomb; the assassination of JFK and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
More recently, enthusiasts claim that Nostradamus predicted the rise of COVID-19 when he wrote, “Near the gates and within two cities/There will be two scourges the like of which was never seen. Famine within plague, people put out by steel/Crying to the great immortal God for relief.”
Nostradamus’s popularity seems to be due in part to the fact that the vagueness of his writings and their lack of specific dates make it easy to selectively quote them after any major dramatic events and retrospectively claim them as true. Some scholars believe he was not writing to be a prophet but writing to comment on events of his time and the people in it. Whatever his method or intentions, Nostradamus’ timeless predictions continue to make him popular to those seeking answers to life’s more difficult questions.
Rutherford B. Hayes was the first American to own a Siamese cat
The First Cat during Hayes’s presidency was literally the first cat—as in, the first Siamese cat to be owned by a U.S. citizen. She was a gift to the president and first lady. They originally named her Miss Pussy, but eventually simplified things by calling her Siam.
James Garfield’s spine was on display at a museum
At the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington D.C., the spine of U.S. President Garfield was displayed in 2000 along with other medical oddities. The bullet hole from his 1881 assassination is clearly visible.
Chester Arthur held a White House yard sale to finance a redecorating project
In what was probably the first and last White House yard sale, 21st U.S. president Chester Arthur sold two dozen wagon loads of presidential merchandise, including a pair of Abraham Lincoln’s pants and John Quincy Adams’s hat. He then used the money to hire an interior decorator.
William McKinley gave away his “lucky” red carnation right before he died
The 25th U.S. president was known for wearing a red carnation on his lapel for good luck. The boutonniere probably was a good luck charm, after all. While greeting a little girl at an event in 1901, he decided to give his lucky flower to her. Moments later, he was assassinated.
Herbert Hoover had his own sport
To keep our 31st U.S. president fit, while Herbert Hoover was in office his physician invented a sport that was later called Hoover-ball. It’s a combination of tennis and volleyball, played with a medicine ball. The sport is still played competitively in Hoover’s hometown of West Branch, Iowa.
Dwight Eisenhower ordered the assassination of squirrels
Our 34th U.S. president, an avid golfer, got sick and tired of squirrels messing up his game by digging up the green to bury their acorns. He ordered his valet to shoot the rodents, but the Secret Service forbade the use of guns on the White House grounds, so groundkeepers trapped and released the animals instead.
Four presidents were cheerleaders
What did Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower, Franklin Roosevelt and George W. Bush have in common? They were all cheerleaders in high school or college. Talk about squad goals!
John Adams skipped school a lot
A lifelong outdoorsman, John Adams often chose to hunt and fish rather than go to school as a child. Despite his truancy, he made it into Harvard at age 15 and went on to become the second president of the United States.
Andrew Jackson taught his parrot foul language
What the heck? Andrew Jackson’s pet parrot began shouting obscenities at the 7th U.S. president’s funeral and had to be carried out. The president was a former war hero known for his tough exterior, so it surprised no one that he had taught the bird some colorful language.
Benjamin Harrison was afraid of electricity
When the Edison Company installed electrical wires in the White House for the first time in 1891, 23rd U.S. President Harrison and his wife refused to touch the light switches for fear of being electrocuted.
Ronald Reagan did standup comedy
When movie roles began drying up in the mid-1950s, Ronald Reagan decided to try his hand as a standup comic in Las Vegas. He later became a TV host, which led to the biggest role of his life: 40th president of the United States.
Calvin Coolidge befriended a man who tried to rob him
When Calvin Coolidge woke up to find a burglar rifling through his belongings, he managed to calmly talk down the would-be thief. The U.S. president found out the man was desperate to pay his hotel bill and buy a ticket back to his college campus, so Coolidge willingly gave him the contents of his wallet—$32—and snuck him out of the room and past Secret Service.
Franklin Roosevelt wore dresses as a child
Long before gender-neutral clothing became a thing, Franklin Roosevelt’s parents clothed him in dresses as a child. But it turns out some cultural norms happen in cycles; gender-specific clothing was not invented until about the time of World War I.
SOURCE:READERSDIGEST
Pat’s Note: Many of the pictures in the article would not show up for this post. I’m not exactly sure why.
Deborah Sampson disguised herself as a young man and enlisted in the United States Army near the end of the Revolutionary War. She saw combat, was wounded, and eventually was found out and honorably discharged. Her story is truly amazing!
Early Life
Deborah Sampson’s parents were descended from Mayflower passengers and Puritan luminaries, but they did not prosper like many of their ancestors. When Deborah was about five years old, her father vanished. The family believed that he was lost at sea during a fishing trip, but it later emerged that he had abandoned his wife and six young children to build a new life and family in Maine.
Deborah’s mother, unable to provide for her children, placed them with other relatives and families, as was common for destitute parents of the time. Deborah ended up with the widow of a former minister, Mary Prince Thatcher, who likely taught the child to read. From that point on, Deborah displayed a desire for education unusual in a girl of that era.
When Mrs. Thatcher died around 1770, 10-year-old Deborah became an indentured servant in the household of Jeremiah Thomas of Middleborough, Massachusetts. “Mr. Thomas, as an earnest patriot, did much towards shaping the political opinions of the young woman in his charge.” At the same time, Thomas did not believe in women’s education, so Deborah borrowed books from the Thomas sons.
After her indenture ended in 1778, Deborah supported herself by teaching school in the summers and working as a weaver in the winter. She also used her skills at light woodworking to peddle goods like spools, pie crimpers, milking stools, and other items door-to-door.
Enlisting in the Army
The Revolution was in its final months when Deborah decided to disguise herself and attempt to enlist sometime in late 1781. She purchased some cloth and made herself a suit of men’s clothing. At 22, Deborah had reached a height of around five feet, eight inches, tall even for men of the period. With a wide waist and a small chest, it was easy enough for her to pass as a young man.
She first enlisted under the pseudonym “Timothy Thayer” in Middleborough in early 1782, but her identity was discovered before she made it into service. On Sept. 3, 1782, the First Baptist Church of Middleborough expelled her, writing that she: “Last spring was accused of dressing in men’s clothes and enlisting as a Soldier in the Army […] and for some time before had behaved very loose and unchristian like, and at last left our parts in a suden maner, and it is not known where she has gone.”
She ended up walking from Middleborough to the port of New Bedford, where she considered signing on to an American cruiser, then passed through Boston and its suburbs, where she finally mustered in as “Robert Shurtliff” in Uxbridge in May 1782. Private Shurtliff was one of 50 new members of the Light Infantry Company of the 4th Massachusetts Infantry.
Identity Uncovered
Deborah soon saw combat. On July 3, 1782, just a few weeks into her service, she took part in a battle outside Tarrytown, New York. During the fight, she was struck by two musket balls in the leg and a gash to her forehead. Fearing exposure, “Shurtliff” begged comrades to leave her to die in the field, but they took her to the surgeon anyway. She quickly slipped out of the field hospital and removed the bullets with a penknife.
More or less permanently disabled, Private Shurtliff was reassigned as a waiter to General John Patterson. The war was essentially over, but American troops remained in the field. By June 1783, Deborah’s unit was sent to Philadelphia to put down a brewing mutiny among American soldiers over delays in back pay and discharge.
Fevers and illness were common in Philadelphia, and not long after she arrived, Deborah fell seriously ill. She was put under the care of Dr. Barnabas Binney, who discovered her true gender as she lay delirious in his hospital. Rather than alert her commander, he took her to his home and put her under the care of his wife and daughters.
After months in Binney’s care, it was time for her to rejoin General Patterson. As she prepared to leave, Binney gave her a note to give to the General, which she correctly assumed revealed her gender. Following her return, she was called to Patterson’s quarters. “She says, ‘A re-entrance was harder than facing a cannonade,” in her biography. She nearly fainted from the tension.
To her surprise, Patterson decided not to punish her. He and his staff seemed almost impressed she had carried off her ruse for so long. With no sign she had ever acted inappropriately with her male comrades, Private Shurtliff was given an honorable discharge on Oct. 25, 1783.
Becoming Mrs. Gannett
Deborah returned to Massachusetts, where she married Benjamin Gannett and settled down on their small farm in Sharon. She was soon the mother of four: Earl, Mary, Patience, and an adopted daughter named Susanna. Like many families in the young Republic, the Gannetts struggled financially.
Starting in 1792, Deborah began what would become a decades-long battle to receive back pay and pension relief from her time in service. Unlike many of her male peers, Deborah didn’t rely just on petitions and letters to Congress. To raise her profile and strengthen her case, she also allowed a local writer named Herman Mann to write a romanticized version of her life story, and in 1802 embarked on a lengthy lecture tour of Massachusetts and New York.
National Tour
Reluctantly leaving her children in Sharon, Gannett was on the road from June 1802 to April 1803. Her tour covered over 1,000 miles and stopped in every major town in Massachusetts and the Hudson River Valley, ending in New York City. In most towns, she lectured simply on her wartime experiences.
In bigger venues like Boston, the “American Heroine” was a spectacle. Gannett would give her lecture in female dress, then exit the stage as a chorus sang patriotic tunes. Finally, she would reappear in her military uniform and perform a complex, 27-step military drill with her musket.
Her tour was met with widespread acclaim until she got to New York City, where she lasted only a single performance. “Her talents do not appear calculated for theatrical exhibitions,” one reviewer sniffed. She returned home to Sharon soon after. Because of the high cost of travel, she ended up making a profit of around $110.
Petition for Benefits
In her long fight for benefits, Gannett had the support of some powerful allies like Revolutionary War hero Paul Revere, Massachusetts Congressman William Eustis, and her old commander, General Patterson. All would press her claims with the Government, and Revere, in particular, would frequently lend her money. Revere wrote to Eustis after meeting Gannett in 1804, describing her as “much out of health,” in part because of her military service, and despite the Gannett’s obvious efforts, “they are really poor.” He added:
We commonly form our Idea of the person whom we hear spoken off, whom we have never seen; according as their actions are described, when I heard her spoken off as a Soldier, I formed the Idea of a tall, Masculine female, who had a small share of understandg, without education, & one of the meanest of her Sex-When I saw and discoursed with I was agreeably surprised to find a small, effeminate, and converseable Woman, whose education entitled her to a better situation in life.
In 1792, Gannett successfully petitioned the Massachusetts Legislature for back pay of £34, plus interest. Following her lecture tour in 1803, she began to petition the Congress for disability pay. In 1805, she received a lump sum of $104 plus $48 a year thereafter. In 1818, she gave up disability pay for a general pension of $96 a year. The fight for retroactive payments went on until the end of her life.
Death
Deborah died at the age of 68, after a long period of ill health. The family was too poor to pay for a headstone, so her gravesite in Sharon’s Rock Ridge Cemetery was unmarked until the 1850s or 1860s. At first, she was noted only as “Deborah, Wife of Benjamin Gannett.” It wasn’t until years after that someone memorialized her service by carving into the headstone, “Deborah Sampson Gannett/Robert Shurtliff/The Female Soldier.”
The first White House bowling alley was a birthday present for Harry Truman
In 1947, 33rd U.S. president Harry Truman became responsible for having a bowling alley installed in the West Wing in celebration of his 63rd birthday. He became the first person to ever throw a bowling ball down the White House lane, and one of the seven pins he knocked down is on display at the Smithsonian Institution.
Bill Clinton is a My Little Pony expert
During a segment on the NPR show “Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” 42nd U.S. president Bill Clinton was quizzed about the animated movie My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. To the amazement of his hosts, he nailed all three questions and won a prize on behalf of the listener for whom he was playing.
Clint Eastwood was almost vice president under George H.W. Bush
While running for office in 1988, then-presidential nominee George Bush was not feeling lucky, so he considered bringing on Dirty Harry actor Clint Eastwood, who had been mayor of Carmel, California, to help breathe life into his struggling campaign. Bush famously chose Dan Quayle as his running mate instead.
James Garfield could write in Greek with one hand and Latin with the other
The ambidextrous U.S. president, James Garfield, could write in two languages simultaneously: Latin and Greek. He taught both languages while attending the acclaimed Williams College in Massachusetts, where he was later named president before going on to be elected as the 20th president of the United States.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president to name a woman to his cabinet
In 1933, our 32nd U.S. president hired Frances Perkins as the first woman cabinet member, specifically secretary of labor. She had previously worked for him when he was governor of New York.
Abraham Lincoln allowed seances in the White House
During Abraham Lincoln’s term, first lady Mary Todd Lincoln reportedly invited mediums to the White House to call on departed spirits through seances. While there’s no definitive evidence, the president was said to have attended some of the events. He was also thought to believe in the occult to an extent.
Three presidents are Grammy winners
It may sound odd, but Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter have each won a Grammy. No, they’re not singers or songwriters, but they did nab prizes for Best Spoken Word Album for the audio versions of their biographies.
George Washington’s teeth were made of something more disturbing than wood
It’s a popular misconception that our first U.S. president’s teeth were made of wood. In fact, they were made of something even worse: other people’s teeth—likely those of slaves or impoverished people. The dentures apparently also contained ivory.
Two rival presidents died on the exact same day
Although friendly in their personal lives, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were political competitors. On his deathbed, Adams is believed to have uttered “Thomas Jefferson still survives,” in a final act of rivalry. Little did he know that Jefferson had died hours earlier.
America’s eighth U.S. president was the first to be born stateside
Here’s a fact about one of the U.S. presidents you may not have learned in school: There were seven official U.S. presidents before Martin Van Buren, the first president to actually be born in the United States, took office. Van Buren was the eighth U.S. president. In fairness, the United States was not even founded until 1776, two years before George Washington took office, but facts are facts.
One of President Tyler’s grandchildren is still alive
How is it possible that a grandchild of our nation’s 10th president, John Tyler, who was born one year after George Washington took office and elected to office himself in 1841, is still alive, as of February 2024? The president was 75 when his last child was born in 1928, and the grandson is a descendant of that son.
No one could dance in the White House during James Polk’s tenure
The wife of 11th U.S. President James Polk was a strict Presbyterian and looked down upon dancing, so it was banned in the White House while her husband was in office, including at the Inaugural Ball. She also disapproved of horse racing and the theater.
Ulysses S. Grant’s middle initial stood for nothing
You might know who is buried in Grant’s tomb, but do you know what his middle initial stood for? Well, neither did he. Apparently, it came from a typo on his application to West Point.
I found an interesting article on Reader’s Digest about our presidents.
Abraham Lincoln turned down the chance to host elephants
In 1861, the King of Siam offered to gift President Lincoln “several pairs of young male and female elephants,” which were indigenous to his country (Thailand today). The elephants could be bred to multiply, the king suggested, and the herds could be used as “beasts of burden” that could work alongside the military during the Civil War. The president politely declined the offer, opting to use steam power instead of animal labor.
Gerald Ford modeled on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine
Before he became the 38th U.S. president, Gerald Ford had a side gig as a model. In 1942, shortly after joining the Navy, he landed an uncredited spot on the cover of Cosmopolitan in his uniform. Another fun president fact? It was during this time that he met fellow model Elizabeth Bloomer, who he went on to marry. She became known to Americans as first lady Betty Ford.
John Quincy Adams approved a real-life journey to the center of the Earth
Back in the 1800s, little was known about our planet. In the absence of scientific evidence, people believed in some pretty kooky theories—like the idea that planet Earth is actually hollow. Our sixth president, John Quincy Adams, was on board with this one. The commander-in-chief even signed off on a proposed expedition by a fellow Hollow Earther and would-be explorer to the Earth’s “empty” core. But when Andrew Jackson was voted into office four years later, he put the kibosh on the journey that never was.
William Howard Taft took a custom bathtub on a trip to Panama
As legend has it, our 27th president once got stuck in a bathtub and had to be pulled out by six men. Although President William Taft did weigh 340 pounds at his heaviest, this story is wholly false. But it probably stemmed from Taft’s (very true) affinity for baths. In fact, he ordered a 7-foot-long tub that weighed a literal ton to be built and placed aboard the USS North Carolina, so he could luxuriate in it on his way to Panama.
Herbert Hoover’s White House staff hid from him
In a very diva (or perhaps just racist) move, 31st president Herbert Hoover insisted that his staff never see him around the White House—and he didn’t want to see them either. This caused quite the charade, of course, as the staff felt pressured to hide from the president whenever he was present. According to White House journalist Kenneth Walsh, staffers would “pile into closets” and “hide behind bushes so the president couldn’t see them.”
Lyndon B. Johnson proposed to Lady Bird with a $2.50 ring from Sears
In 1934, Lyndon B. Johnson, then 26, proposed to Claudia Alta “Ladybird” Taylor, 22, on their first date. Though she declined his offer, Johnson continued to woo her from afar, sending his sweetheart 90 letters in the span of about 90 days. Impatient, Johnson traveled from Washington, D.C. to Texas to arrive at her door with an ultimatum: Marry me now or forever hold your peace. As a fun first lady fact, she accepted his proposal—and the $2.50 engagement ring that came with it.
John Quincy Adams loved to skinny-dip
While in office, sixth president John Quincy Adams often swam in the Potomac River, and he preferred to do so in the buff. Adams was an early riser, and in his diaries, he wrote of waking at about 4 a.m. and taking a morning dip—nude. Though it sounds risqué now, skinny-dipping was apparently common in the 1800s.
George Washington grew cannabis
Before you start thinking the nation’s first president was a stoner, you should know that George Washington grew hemp, not marijuana (they both belong to the cannabis family). He cultivated the hemp at his estate in Mount Vernon for industrial uses, like making rope and canvas.
George W. Bush is cousins with Hugh Hefner
It turns out our 43rd president and the founder of Playboy are distant cousins. More specifically, they’re ninth cousins twice removed, sharing the same pair of great-grandparents. Another cousin shared by the two is former presidential candidate John Kerry.
Theodore Roosevelt officially gave the White House its name
Though the residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is painted white, it was known as The Executive Mansion and The President’s Palace until October 1901, when then-president Theodore Roosevelt referred to it as The White House. The 26th president made the moniker official when he had it engraved on his stationery.
Warren Harding lost the White House china in a poker game
Here’s another interesting fact about one of the U.S. presidents: Warren Harding, our 29th president, loved a game of poker—and apparently, he was a high roller. During one of his bi-weekly poker games, Harding gambled away a set of china that had been in the White House since President Benjamin Harrison’s tenure six terms prior. He bet it all on one ill-advised hand.
Thomas Jefferson kept pet grizzly bears
During his tenure as the third U.S. president, Thomas Jefferson became the happy recipient of a wild gift: a pair of grizzly bear cubs. He kept them in a cage on the front lawn of the White House for a few months before deciding they were too dangerous to keep and bequeathing them to a museum.
Ulysses S. Grant was arrested for speeding—on a horse
A noted equestrian, our 18th U.S. president was quite confident on a horse—perhaps too confident. While driving his horse and buggy at a furious pace during his presidential tenure, Grant was pulled over twice within the span of 24 hours. The second time, one bold police officer decided to arrest the commander-in-chief, who was ultimately given a fine. Legend has it that the officer and the U.S. president became friends.
I actually found a site called “Have Fun with History”. (My middle school class would disagree that this is even possible…lol.)
FROM: havefunwithhistory.com:
10 Facts About the Mayflower Ship
The Mayflower was the vessel that brought the first English Puritans, who are now commonly referred to as the Pilgrims, from Plymouth, England to the continent of North America in 1620. The voyage of the Mayflower and the people who boarded it had a crucial part in the early colonization and settlement of the Americas. The Pilgrims were looking for religious freedom and a better living when they made the journey to the New World. The ship had set sail with the intention of docking in northern Virginia; but, adverse weather conditions and mistakes in navigation caused it to instead arrive in what is now the state of Massachusetts, in the region that is now home to the city of Plymouth. The Plymouth Colony was the first successful and long-lasting English settlement in New England, and it was founded by the Pilgrims. Plymouth was in the southeastern part of the state of Massachusetts. The voyage of the Mayflower and the settlement of the New World by the Pilgrims is an important chapter in the annals of United States history, and it is commemorated annually on Thanksgiving.
Mayflower Facts
1 At about 180 tons, she was considered a smaller cargo ship
The Mayflower was considered a smaller freight ship and was not specifically constructed for ocean journeys. It was largely used to transport goods between England and Bordeaux, such as clothing and wine. It was, however, outfitted with the required rations and supplies to complete the journey across the Atlantic and was deemed capable of meeting the voyage’s demands. Despite its small size and lack of ocean crossing experience, the Mayflower successfully brought the Pilgrims to the New World.
2 The Mayflower was a popular name for ships at the time.
During the time of James I (1603-1625), there were 26 vessels carrying the name Mayflower in the Port Books of England; it is unknown why the name was so popular. To minimize confusion with the numerous other Mayflower ships, the identity of Captain Jones’ Mayflower is based on data from her home port, her tonnage (estimated 180-200 tons), and the master’s name in 1620. It is unknown when or where the Mayflower was built, though she was designated as “of London” in later documents. In the Port Books of 1609-11, she was identified as “of Harwich” in the county of Essex, which was also the birthplace of Mayflower master Christopher Jones in 1570.
3 It was intended for two ships to travel to the New World
The Mayflower set sail from London in the middle of July 1620 and proceeded downstream on the Thames to Southampton, where it met up with the Speedwell. It was intended for the two ships to travel to the New World together, with the Mayflower transporting the majority of the pilgrims to their new home and the Speedwell acting as a supply ship along the journey. However, it didn’t take long before it became clear that the Speedwell wasn’t seaworthy, so the two ships were forced to make multiple stops for repairs along the trip. In the end, it was determined that the Mayflower would be the sole vessel upon which the Pilgrims would continue their journey, while the Speedwell would sail back to England. Because of this setback, the voyage of the Pilgrims was prolonged by several weeks, and there were fewer people on the Mayflower as a result. In spite of this, the Pilgrims persisted on their voyage until they finally reached their destination in the New World. Once there, they established the Plymouth Colony and began a new life in the Americas.
4 There are no Admiralty court documents connected to the pilgrim fathers’ voyage of 1620.
There is no subsequent record that directly refers to Jones’ Mayflower after 1616 until 1624. This is remarkable for a ship trading to London because it would not normally vanish from the records for so long. There are no Admiralty court documents connected to the pilgrim fathers’ voyage of 1620, which could be due to the odd way the pilgrims were transferred from Leyden to New England, or some of the period’s records may have been lost. By 1620, Jones, together with Christopher Nichols, Robert Child, and Thomas Short, was one of the ship’s owners. In the summer of 1620, Thomas Weston chartered her from Child and Jones to embark on the Pilgrim journey. Because of his membership in the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London, Weston played an important role in the Mayflower journey, and he finally traveled to the Plymouth Colony personally.
5 A second Mayflower sailed from London in 1629.
In 1629, another ship called the Mayflower set sail from London to the Plymouth Colony. A group of settlers set out on this expedition to establish a new settlement in the New World. Unlike the Pilgrims’ famous voyage on the Mayflower in 1620, which is regarded one of the most renowned episodes in American history, this latter voyage is less well remembered. However, it was a significant event in the history of the Plymouth Colony, contributing to the settlement’s and its existence in the New World. The voyage of the Mayflower in 1629, as well as numerous comparable voyages conducted by other ships and groups of settlers, shaped the history of the United States and its formation as a nation.
6 The Mayflower was square-rigged ship with a beakhead bow.
The Mayflower was square-rigged, which implies that its masts were rigged with square sails. Square-rigged ships were popular because of their stability and capacity to withstand strong winds, making them ideal for long trips across the open ocean. The Mayflower also had a beakhead bow, which was common on many ships of the time. This bow was distinguished by a sharp, curved prow designed to cut through the water more efficiently. The Mayflower also had a high, elevated stern, which allowed the ship to carry more cargo while also protecting the crew and passengers from rough weather. These architectural elements, combined with the ship’s robust build and skilled crew, aided the Mayflower’s memorable trip across the Atlantic and safe arrival in the New World.
7 The number of crew on board was less than 50.
The Mayflower’s commanders and crew included a captain, four mates, four quartermasters, a surgeon, carpenter, cooper, cooks, boatswains, gunners, and roughly 36 men before the mast, for a total of about 50 men. The whole crew remained with the Mayflower in Plymouth during the winter of 1620-1621, and almost half of them died during that time. The surviving crewmen traveled back to England on the Mayflower on April 15, 1621.
8 In 2020, the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s landing was celebrated.
The 400th anniversary of the Mayflower arrival occurred in 2020, marking four centuries since the famed ship and its passengers arrived on the shores of what is now Massachusetts, United States. Special displays, historical reenactments, and educational programs, as well as ceremonies and other events honoring the bravery and endurance of the Pilgrims and the crew of the Mayflower, were held to commemorate the event. The Mayflower landing and the creation of the Plymouth Colony are significant events in American history because they signify the commencement of permanent English colonization in the New World as well as the birth of one of the United States’ earliest colonies. The 400th anniversary of the Mayflower landing was an opportunity to reflect on history and remember the Pilgrims and their trip to the New World.
9 The government created a Pilgrim Tercentenary half dollar, with the ship depicted on the reverse and passenger William Bradford depicted on the obverse.
The United States government struck a unique commemorative coin, the Pilgrim Tercentenary half dollar, to mark the 300th anniversary of the Mayflower’s arrival. The coin depicts the Mayflower on the reverse and a portrait of William Bradford, one of the Pilgrims’ leaders, on the obverse. The currency was issued in 1920 and extensively disseminated as a symbol of the country’s acknowledgement of the Mayflower and the Pilgrims’ importance in American history. The Pilgrim Tercentenary half dollar is a noteworthy piece of American numismatic history, and coin collectors prize it for its historical significance and rarity. The release of this coin helped to raise attention to the Mayflower and the Pilgrims’ story, and it serves as a lasting homage to their bravery, dedication, and endurance in making the momentous voyage to the New World.
10 A replica of the Mayflower, built in 1956, can be seen at the Pilgrim Memorial State Park in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
The Mayflower model can be seen in the Pilgrim Memorial State Park in Plymouth, Massachusetts. This replica was created in 1956 to honor the ship’s remarkable voyage and importance in early American settlement. The replica is a full-scale wooden sailing ship that was built utilizing traditional shipbuilding processes and materials to the greatest extent possible. It serves as an educational and historical resource for visitors, allowing them to learn about the Pilgrims’ and early settlers’ hardships and experiences in the New World. The replica is a renowned tourist attraction in Plymouth and a significant symbol of American history and tradition.
Happy Election Day! Elections do not always run smoothly, not here, not anywhere I’m guessing. Livescience.com had an interesting article on 6 of the strangest presidential elections in our history.
From livescience.com:
Political news would have you thinking the 2016 presidential election was the nastiest, most contentious and most important our nation ever faced. However, in the annals of American elections, that one barely registers at least for sheer strangeness.
In fact, electoral politics have always been a down-and-dirty business, starting at least as early as 1800, when our founding fathers proved themselves adept at bitter battles. Other elections have featured nasty accusations, bizarre happenstance and even the death of one of the candidates.
Read on for six of the strangest presidential elections in U.S. history.
An unexpected upset: 2016
The full history of the 2016 presidential election has yet to be written, but it seems pretty certain to be one for the history books.
First, there was the raucous primary season, in which 17 Republican candidates vied on a crowded stage for the nomination, the largest presidential primary field in U.S. history. Former reality-TV star and real estate mogul Donald Trump dominated headlines from the beginning, often with Tweets and statements that seemed outright bizarre. He insinuated that fellow Republican Ted Cruz’s father might have had something to do with the assassination of John F. Kennedy and at one point defended the size of his penis in a debate. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton faced an unexpected challenge from Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.
Things did not get less weird after Trump and Clinton clinched their nominations. Clinton struggled against questions about her use of a private email server during her time as Secretary of State. The issue seemed settled in July when the Federal Bureau of Investigation recommended against criminal charges, but reared its head again less than two weeks before the election when the FBI announced that it was reviewing potentially new evidence found on the computer of Anthony Weiner, the husband of Clinton’s close aide Huma Abedin, during an investigation into whether Weiner had been sexting an underage girl. Yes, it almost makes that Andrew Jackson-John Quincy Adams contest look like a walk in the park, huh? Just two days before the election, the FBI cleared Clinton again.
Meanwhile, Trump refused to release his tax returns during the campaign, something that every candidate since Gerald Ford has done as a matter of course. He was widely criticized for racist remarks, such as questioning whether the “Mexican” judge in charge of his fraud case (oh, there’s a fraud case — a presidential first) could be impartial. (The judge was an American citizen of Mexican heritage.)
The wildest bombshell of all came in early October, when a tape surfaced of Trump having a vulgar discussion about grabbing women by their private parts and trying to seduce a married woman. Leading up to the election, the polls were variable, but most pundits expected a clean Clinton victory. Instead, as election night ticked on, the electoral votes piled up for Trump. He ended up taking 290 electoral votes to Clinton’s 232, winning the presidency. But in a final twist, the popular vote tally went to Clinton, only the fifth time in U.S. history the electoral and popular votes haven’t matched.
The very first one: 1788-1789
But let’s go back now to the first presidential election in our nation’s history, which was one-of-a-kind in that it was literally no contest. Organized political parties had yet to form, and George Washington ran unopposed. His victory is the only one in the nation’s history to feature 100 percent of the Electoral College vote.
The real question in 1788 was who would become vice president. At the time, this office was awarded to the runner-up in the electoral vote (each elector cast two votes to ensure there would be a runner-up.) Eleven candidates made a play for the vice-presidency, but John Adams came out on top.
It’s a tie: 1800
Electoral politics got serious in 1800. Forget the hand-holding peace of George Washington’s first run — political parties were in full swing by this time, and they battled over high-stakes issues (taxes, states’ rights and foreign policy alignments). Thomas Jefferson ran as the Democratic-Republican candidate and John Adams as the Federalist.
At the time, states got to pick their own election days, so voting ran from April to October (and you thought waiting for the West Coast polls to close was frustrating). Because of the complicated “pick two” voting structure in the Electoral College, the election ended up a tie between Jefferson and his vice-presidential pick, Aaron Burr. One South Carolina delegate was supposed to give one of his votes on another candidate, so as to arrange for Jefferson to win and Burr to come in second. The plan somehow went wrong, and both men ended up with 73 electoral votes.
That sent the tie-breaking vote to the House of Representatives, not all of whom were on board with a Jefferson presidency and Burr vice-presidency. Seven tense days of voting followed, but Jefferson finally pulled ahead of Burr. The drama triggered the passage of the 12th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which stipulates that the Electoral College pick the president and vice-president separately, doing away with the runner-up complications.
Things get nasty: 1828
Anything involving dueling war veteran Andrew Jackson was liable to get dirty, but the 1828 electoral battle between Jackson and John Quincy Adams took the cake for mudslinging. Jackson had lost out to Adams in 1824 after Speaker of the House Henry Clay cast a tie-breaking vote. When Adams chose Clay as his Secretary of State, Jackson was furious and accused the two of a “corrupt bargain.”
And that was before the 1828 election even got started, when Adams was accused of pimping out an American girl to a Russian Czar. Jackson’s wife, Rachel, was called a “convicted adulteress,” because she had, years earlier, married Jackson before finalizing her divorce to her previous husband. Rachel died after Jackson won the election, but before his inauguration; at her funeral, Jackson blamed his opponents’ bigamy accusations. “May God Almighty forgiver her murderers, as I know she forgave them,” Jackson said. “I never can.”
To round out a rough election, Jackson’s inauguration party (open to the public) turned into a mob scene, with thousands of well-wishers crowding into the White House. “Ladies fainted, men were seen with bloody noses, and such a scene of confusion took place as is impossible to describe,” wrote Margaret Smith, a Washington socialite who attended the party.
Running against a corpse: 1872
In 1872, incumbent Ulysses S. Grant had an easy run for a second term — because his opponent died before the final votes were cast.
Grant had the election in the bag even before his opponent, Horace Greeley, died, however. The incumbent won 286 electoral votes compared with Greeley’s 66 after election day. But on Nov. 29, 1872, before the Electoral College votes were in, Greeley died and his electoral votes were split among other candidates. Greeley remains the only presidential candidate to die before the election was finalized.
The hanging chads: 2000
Democrat Al Gore beat Republican George W. Bush in the popular vote in the 2000 election, but the electoral vote was a close, and controversial, call. As election night drew to a close, New Mexico, Oregon and Florida remained too close to call.
It would be Florida that determined the winner, but not until the Supreme Court weighed in. For a month, the outcome of the election remained in recount limbo, as Gore’s campaign contested the vote count in several close counties and the Florida and U.S. Supreme Courts engaged in a tug-of-war over whether to halt the recounts or extend their deadlines. Among the challenges faced by the hand counts: determining whether semi-attached scraps of paper, or “hanging chads,” on punch-card ballots should count as votes.
Ultimately, on Dec. 12, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that a statewide recount was unconstitutional, alongside a further decision that the smaller recounts could not go forward. The decision meant the original vote counts stood, giving the election to Bush.
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