Today is the anniversary of the plane crash that killed John F. Kennedy Jr.  A lot of theories have been put forth on the causes of the crash and conspiracies abound about who might be involved.  I found this article on Grunge.com claiming and ultimately ridiculing Q-anon for the conspiracy theories.

From Grunge:

How The Conspiracy That JFK Jr. Is Still Alive Gained So Much Momentum           

By S. Flannagan/Nov. 23, 2022

On November 2, 2021, hundreds of people gathered at the site where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, located at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas. They expected to witness something truly incredible: The resurrection of the president’s late son, John F. Kennedy Jr.

As reported by Rolling Stone, on the day of the unusual gathering, the crowd descended on the Plaza from all corners because they believed that Kennedy Jr. was ready to unveil himself as still living. All of this, even though he died tragically in a plane crash in 1999, alongside his wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and his sister-in-law Lauren Bessette, as noted by History. But the crowd believed that he was still alive and ready to re-enter public life in perhaps a bizarre way.

According to the same source, Kennedy Jr. was expected by the crowd to take his rightful place as vice president to Donald Trump. The crowd believed that Trump was due to be announced as the president and ready to return to the office. All of this despite that Kennedy Jr., like his father, was a lifelong Democrat and Trump is a leader of the far-right Republican contingency. Kennedy Jr. failed to show, though many attendees postulated that he might be ready to make an appearance at a Rolling Stones gig that night. He didn’t arrive then, either. So why exactly did so many people subscribe to such an idea? The answer lies in one of the most unusual but nevertheless prevalent set of conspiracy theories of modern times: QAnon.

As noted by Rolling Stone, the majority of those who congregated in Dealey Plaza that day were affiliated with or believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory. Per The New York Times (NYT), QAnon first emerged in late 2017 on the notorious 4chan messaging board through a series of cryptic messages posted by an anonymous user known only as ‘Q.’

Per NYT, believers in the conspiracy theory have taken to interpreting postings by Q as insider information from a source inside the U.S. government, who claims that many prominent politicians are involved in a cabal that is based around satanic rituals and child trafficking (these are assertions made without any quantifiable evidence). The same theory claims that the only force capable of battling such a cabal is Donald Trump, who followers claim communicates with QAnon adherents through cryptic messages of his own, often hidden in his speeches.

So how does John F. Kennedy Jr. fit into all of this? According to Rolling Stone, QAnon claims that rather than having been dead for more than 20 years, Kennedy Jr. is in hiding and has been biding his time until the pieces are in place for him to join Trump in battling the alleged cabal.

Following the gathering of hundreds of QAnon believers in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, in November 2022, MSNBC ran a report highlighting the group’s belief that John F. Kennedy Jr. was due for a return to the political stage alongside Trump (pictured).

In it, host Rachel Maddow introduced footage of two prominent figures in the QAnon movement, Mike Penny and a man who goes by the moniker M.L. They outlined the movement’s conviction about how Trump is related to the Kennedy family (though this has been proven false). According to the clip, the group believes that Trump is the secret son of General Patton and, through him, is a cousin of John F. Kennedy Jr. The same clip also claims that Patton was the grandson of Lincoln and that he was related to Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini. They also assert that Joseph Kennedy — the brother of President John F. Kennedy, who died in World War II — was the father of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

“It’s all about the bloodline,” said M.L., claiming a sprawling lineage between disparate wings of American politics without a shred of evidence. Meanwhile, outlets such as NPR have reported that spreading conspiracy theories such as QAnon is increasingly “tearing families apart.”

Journalist Ben Collins, who appeared on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC report, shared his shock that so many people from across the country turned out for the November 2021 gathering, believing John F. Kennedy Jr. would reveal himself after more than two decades in hiding.

As Collins noted, the belief in the reemergence of Kennedy Jr. and his installation as the vice president for Donald Trump is notable for being unusual even among QAnon followers. According to The Independent, the conspiracy surrounding Kennedy Jr. is believed by about 20% of QAnon followers. Among those that believe it, some followers also subscribe to the idea that Kennedy Jr. has appeared in public in the guise of Trump. They claim that he has been hiding in Pittsburgh for years or that he is, in fact, the originator of the whole movement as the 4chan user known as ‘Q.’

Per Rolling Stone, the theory emerged through cryptic 4chan posts by a user known as ‘R,’ that suggested Kennedy Jr. faked his death as a result of the alleged Washington D.C. satanic conspiracy targeting him. The idea that Kennedy Jr. was alive quickly took on a life of its own and merged into prior unsubstantiated beliefs spread by ‘Q.’ This was so much so that the poster after whom the conspiracy theory is named took to the message board to discredit — ironically — the sub-theory as bogus (via Twitter).

SOURCE: Grunge

This story was found on CNN.com and it’s about an ancient mosaic found buried under Rome.  It’s gorgeous!

From the article:

Rome, Italy CNN  — 

A five-year dig into the side of Rome’s Palatine Hill yielded treasure last week when archaeologists discovered a deluxe banquet room dating from around the first or second century BC, featuring a sizable, intact and brightly colored wall mosaic.

Estimated to be around 2,300 years old, the work is part of a larger aristocratic mansion, located near the Roman Forum, that has been under excavation since 2018.

Almost five meters long (16.4 ft) and featuring depictions of vines, lotus leaves, tridents, trumpets, helmets and mythological marine creatures, the mosaic scene was painstakingly created using mother of pearl, shells, corals, shards of precious glass and flecks of marble. The piece is framed by polychrome crystals, spongy travertine, and exotic, ancient Egyptian blue tiles.

What makes this discovery “unmatched,” said archaeologist Alfonsina Russo, head of the Colosseum Archaeological Park in charge of the site, is not only the incredible conservation of the mosaic, but its decoration which also features celebratory scenes of naval and land battles likely funded — and won — by an extremely wealthy aristocratic patron who commemorated the victories on their walls.

The intricacy of the mosaic’s depictions of victory have surprised the team working on the project. They show a coastal walled town with lookout towers and loggias — which Russo said could be an ideal or a real-life location — sitting atop a cliff designed with pieces of travertine rock. Scenes of sailing ships with raised sails also feature, alongside depictions of mythical sea monsters swallowing enemy fleets.

Archaeologists are trying to ascertain whether the delicate — and expensive, for the time — coral branches used in the display came from the Mediterranean or the Red Sea (the nearest and most common oceans used by Romans to extract materials). A rare bluish glass paste also featured in the design likely came from the ancient Egyptian city of Alexandria, the team believe.

“This banquet hall, which measures 25 square meters (270 square foot), is just one space within a ‘domus’ (the Latin word for house) spread on several floors,” Russo told CNN in an interview. “In ancient times, when powerful noble families inhabited the Palatine Hill, it was customary to use rich decorative elements as a symbol to show-off opulence and high social rank.”

The chamber, deemed a “jewel” by Russo, was an outdoor banquet hall overlooking a garden, likely used during summer to entertain guests.

Such an elaborate space would also have been used to impress guests with water games, which were very popular amongst nobility at the time. “We have found lead pipes embedded within the decorated walls, built to carry water inside basins or to make fountains spout to create water games,” said Russo.

Marco Rossi, professor of Roman antiquities and head of the mosaic lab at Rome’s Università degli Studi di Roma Tre pointed out that these summer banquet rooms were not only somewhere that hosts and guests would go to relax but also used by the mansion owner as a signifier of their wealth and rank.

“Mosaics are usually found on floors, but this runs across the entire front wall and has been incredibly well-preserved,” said Rossi of the piece. “It’s not been ruined by the weight of debris — as can happen to some mosaics on the ground — and despite being delicate, it hasn’t so much as chipped across the centuries.”

The discovery of an entire wall mosaic is extremely rare, Rossi added, not least because these pieces are more delicate than those for the floor which were designed to be walked upon and withstand pressure.

The location of the grand home has also helped the wall’s preservation, scientists believe. Positioned on the side of Rome’s famous Palatine Hill and subsequently covered over by centuries of mud and earth as the land has moved, the structure and treasures within it have been protected from the air and light by layers of ground.

While this new discovery still has a lot of secrets to reveal — why the property was abandoned and how long ago, for example — Russo believes there is one mystery archaeologists could perhaps solve: The identity of its owner, likely a Roman senator.

“The person was so rich they could afford to import such precious elements from across the empire to decorate this mansion,” Russo said. “We have found nothing so far to shed light on their identity, but we believe more research might enable us to pinpoint the noble family.”

Russo and her team aim to open the space to the public in early January. “We (will) continue to dig the other layers and areas of this evocative place (to try to discover more),” she said. “It is really an incredible display of Roman luxury.”

SOURCE: CNN.COM

By Silvia Marchetti

This article, from the Smithsonian, is from November of 2017 and details the “ironic” history of Mar-a-lago.

Within 48 hours after the presidential election last November, the Palm Beach Daily News headlined a question that “many in town” were asking: “Trump’s Mar-a-Lago: Another Winter White House?”

By January, the president-elect had an answer: “Writing my inaugural address at the Winter White House, Mar-a-Lago,” he tweeted from his elite private club, along with a photograph of himself seated behind a large desk, legal pad and pen in hand.

Palm Beach might have been having déjà vu, and not only because President-elect John F. Kennedy wrote his inaugural address at his father’s estate in the town’s North End. The woman who built Mar-a-Lago in the 1920s and presided over it for almost half a century, Marjorie Merriweather Post, had gone to great lengths to turn the mansion into an official wintertime presidential retreat.

But even extreme wealth has its limitations, as my visit to the Post Family Papers suggests. They occupy 57 seldom-seen linear feet at the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library and document the life of one of the most famous and consequential women of the 20th century. The files offer unusual glimpses of the girl who glued labels onto packages of Postum, the coffee substitute that made her family’s fortune, and of the woman who built the General Foods Corporation. Her four husbands, her bountiful philanthropy, her megayacht, her grand balls, her jaw-dropping jewels—all are documented in the archives.

And then there’s a volume bound in still-handsome red leather. A yellowing file card dated “February/March 1976” is taped to the cover: “Original Proposal for Disposition of Mar-a-Lago.”

The mansion dates to the 1920s, when Palm Beach’s wealthiest visitors were forsaking luxury hotels for their own digs, says Debi Murray, chief curator of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County. Post herself explored the site of her future home, on 17 acres of scrub between Lake Worth and the Atlantic. (Mar-a-Lago means “Sea to Lake” in Spanish.) Construction began in 1923 and kept some 600 workers busy, even though, as Murray notes, “Florida entered the Depression earlier than the rest of the country.” The mistress ensured that her workers wouldn’t go hungry.

Even by Palm Beach standards, Mar-a-Lago was grandiose: 58 bedrooms, 33 bathrooms with gold-plated fixtures (easier to clean, Post believed), an 1,800-square-foot living room with 42-foot ceilings. Its 110,000 square feet glinted with gold leaf, Spanish tiles, Italian marble and Venetian silks. All told, Post spent $7 million—somewhere north of $90 million today.

It was finished in 1927. That March, Post and her second husband, Edward F. Hutton, had a few score guests over for dinner before the annual Everglades Costume Ball. The hosts wore costumes evoking the reign of Louis XVI. But there was also noblesse oblige: In 1929, when she hired the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus to perform for a charity fund-raiser, she invited underprivileged children to attend. In 1944, she offered her grounds to World War II veterans who needed occupational therapy. In 1957, she opened Mar-a-Lago to the International Red Cross Ball, and the gala event has been held there many times since—but not this year. It was one of more than 20 charity events that were relocated from Mar-a-Lago or canceled after the president’s remarks on violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August.

As the social seasons came and went, however, Palm Beach tastemakers’ tastes changed. The grand houses they built in the 1920s were seen as “white elephants,” Murray says, and were razed in the ’50s and ’60s.

Except that isn’t how Post saw Mar-a-Lago—or Hillwood, her estate in Washington, D.C., or Camp Top­ridge, her retreat in the Adirondacks. She arranged to donate all three properties to government entities. The state of New York added some of Top­ridge’s acreage to a forest preserve but sold most of its 68 buildings to a private owner. The Smithsonian Institution, citing maintenance costs, returned Hillwood to the Post Foundation, which now runs it as a museum.

And the original Mar-a-Lago proposal, the one bound in red leather, was to donate it to the state of Florida for a center for advanced scholars, but state officials also balked at the maintenance costs.

By 1968, according to other papers in the archive, Post had turned to Plan B: Mar-a-Lago as winter White House, property of the United States. After she died, in 1973, at age 86, the Post Foundation pursued the idea. But in 1981, the federal government declined, for the same reason the Floridians and the Smithsonian did.

Thus Mar-a-Lago went on the market. Three potential sales collapsed before Donald Trump bought it in 1985, paying a reported $8 million for the estate and its furnishings—a small fraction of the original cost, no matter how you calculate it. And after three decades and the most confounding presidential election in living memory, Marjorie Merriweather Post’s wish for her mansion came true.

SOURCE: SMITHSONIANMAG.COM

On a site called Red Wave, I found and article written in 2023 by Chuck Norris: 7 Little Known Facts about the Declaration of Independence and I thought it would make an interesting read.

Happy Fourth of July, America! I was recently reflecting upon the history surrounding the Declaration of Independence and thought my readers would also be very interested to learn some often unknown aspects of the Declaration’s creation, distribution and legacy.

Several historical websites hold some fascinating facts about this national treasure, including the National Archives in Washington, D.C. History.com’s article, “9 Things You May Not Know about the Declaration of Independence,” by Elizabeth Harrison, has some intriguing information, too. Let me elaborate on some of those and convey a few others I’ve discovered.

1 Benjamin Franklin wrote the first “declaration of independence.”

In April 1775, the American Revolutionary War began at Lexington and Concord. On July 5, 1775, an entire year before the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress adopted the Olive Branch Petition, written by John Dickinson with the help of Thomas Jefferson. It appealed directly to King George III for reconciliation between the American colonies and Great Britain.

Though Benjamin Franklin signed the Petition for the sake of consensus, he radically differed with it and said that stronger sentiments were necessary because the Petition was destined to be rejected. Franklin was so appalled by British atrocities and exhausted of their rule that he planned the first articles of confederation and drafted a declaration of independence to be issued by none other than Gen. George Washington.

So strong was the language of the draft that Thomas Jefferson wrote, while some members of Congress like himself “approved highly of it,” others would be “revolted at it.” Jefferson explained in his private commentary that “proposing it to congress as the subject for any vote whatever would startle many members.” It seems Congress just wasn’t ready to throw down the gauntlet, yet. My, how things can change in a year!

2 Thomas Jefferson had problems with the adopted version of the Declaration of Independence – written largely by him.

On June 11, 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed a committee of five men (John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Livingston, Roger Sherman and Thomas Jefferson) to write a Declaration of Independence. The committeemen, in turn, appointed Jefferson to produce a first draft for their consideration, which he did by utilizing other documents such as his own draft of a Virginia constitution, the Virginia Declaration of Rights, and state appeals for independence. The committee and later Congress made some revisions to Jefferson’s draft before formally adopting it on July 4, 1776.

In the end, Jefferson was troubled by their revisions, especially Franklin and Adams’ removal of a diatribe blaming British King George III for the transatlantic slave trade. Who knows? Maybe if that paragraph were left in the document, our founders might not be maligned as much today for being pro-slavery.

3 The Declaration of Independence wasn’t signed on July 4, 1776.

On July 1, 1776, the Second Continental Congress began meeting in Philadelphia at what is now known as Independence Hall. They spent the next few days debating and revising the Committee of Five’s draft. After adopting the Declaration of Independence on July 4, they didn’t sign it for roughly another month because New York’s delegates weren’t authorized to vote in favor of independence until July 9, and it also took two additional weeks for the Declaration to actually be produced in its final printed form. Most delegates signed the official Declaration on Aug. 2, but at least six others didn’t sign it until later, and two more never signed it at all (namely, John Dickinson and Robert R. Livingston.)

4 The original Declaration of Independence wasn’t written on paper.

As the National Archives explains, the original was “engrossed on parchment, which is an animal skin specially treated with lime and stretched to create a strong, long-lasting writing support. The printed version on paper and was read aloud from town squares throughout the colonies, so that those who could not read would receive the news about intended separation from England.”

5 There are at least 26 surviving paper copies of the Declaration of Independence of the hundreds made in July 1776 for circulation among the colonies.

After Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, the Committee of Five was also responsible with overseeing its reproduction for proclamation to those living in the 13 colonies. The reproduction was done at the shop of Philadelphia printer John Dunlap.

“On July 5, Dunlap’s copies were dispatched across the 13 colonies to newspapers, local officials and the commanders of the Continental troops. These rare documents, known as ‘Dunlap broadsides,’ predate the engrossed [official] version signed by the delegates. Of the hundreds thought to have been printed on the night of July 4, at least 26 copies survive. Most are held in museum and library collections, but three are privately owned,” according to History.com.

6 When Gen. George Washington read aloud the Declaration of Independence in New York, a riot resulted.

Again, History.com explained, by July 9, 1776, a copy of the Declaration of Independence had reached New York City. At the time, tensions about the Revolutionary War ran very high, with Americans split between revolutionists and loyalists. And British naval ships actually occupied New York Harbor at the time.

When Gen. Washington read the words of the Declaration in front of City Hall, a large crowd rallied and cheered. However, later that same day, they fell a statue of King George III, melted it down, and converted the led into more than 42,000 musket balls for the Continental Army.

7 All 56 signers of the Declaration paid a price for their rebellion and our freedom.

For a number of years, an email widely circulated with some history, some legend and some falsehoods about what happened to the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. But here’s the real scoop, as I detailed in my Official Chuck Norris Fact Book, where I also cite the sources.

At least 12 signers had their homes and property taken, ransacked, occupied, or burned. Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of William Ellery, George Clymer, Lyman Hall, George Walton, Button Gwinnett, Thomas Heyward Jr., Edward Rutledge and Arthur Middleton.

Robert Morris’ home was overtaken as well, and Philip Livingston lost several properties to the enemy. John Hart’s farm was looted, and he had to flee into hiding.

Francis Lewis had his home and property destroyed. The enemy then jailed his wife, and she was held for months before being exchanged for wives of British soldiers. Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, lost his ships and cargo to the British navy.

Thomas McKean wrote to John Adams in 1777 that he was “hunted like a fox by the enemy, compelled to [move] my family five times in three months.”

Five signers were captured by the British as prisoners of war and had to endure deplorable conditions as such. One signer lost his son in the Revolutionary Army, and another had two sons captured.

On Nov. 30, 1776, one signer, Richard Stockton, a lawyer from Princeton and longtime friend of George Washington, was captured in the middle of the night by loyalists and jailed by the British. Stockton endured weeks and months of brutal treatment and starvation. When he was finally released, his health would never be the same. He is actually the only signer to recant his endorsement of the Declaration, followed by him swearing his allegiance to King George III.

Over the six years of war, more than 12,000 prisoners died in prisons, compared to 4,435 soldiers who died in combat. And that’s just a sampling of what these men sacrificed, and why we honor what they did for us annually on Independence Day.

May we never forget the sacrifices our founders made for our freedom. Happy birthday, America! God has certainly shed His grace on thee! From my wife, Gena, and myself, may you and yours have a wonderful, patriotic and safe Independence Day!

SOURCE: RED WAVE: CHUCK NORRIS 2023

I have always wondered about Congress voting for their own salary increases and so I researched the 27^th Amendment.  Here’s what I found at the constitutioncenter.org website:

The Twenty-Seventh Amendment has one of the most unusual histories of any amendment ever made to the U.S. Constitution. Congress passed the Twenty-Seventh Amendment by a two-thirds vote of both Houses, in 1789, along with eleven other proposed constitutional amendments (the last ten of which were ratified by the states in 1791, becoming the Bill of Rights). The Amendment provides that: “No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of representatives shall have intervened.”

During the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, congressional pay was a central topic, one that took up several days of discussion. Benjamin Franklin’s initial speech to the Convention was on the topic of public salaries: he was against them. Public servants should not get paid at all, Franklin argued, or we would get representatives with “bold and the violent” personalities, engaged in “selfish pursuits.” Franklin’s extreme argument did not prevail because the Framers wisely did not want only the wealthy to be able to afford to hold federal offices. This is a very good thing. 

Nonetheless, Franklin’s comments caused the Framers at the Philadelphia Convention to focus on the problem of making sure that people did not go into public office to make a lot of money. In England, at the time, the biggest problem of English democracy was the phenomenon known as “placemen.” Placemen were members of Parliament who the King simultaneously appointed to lucrative executive branch offices to buy their loyalty on votes in Parliament. The King had built up his power by corrupting these office holders, giving them easy and well-paid civil office jobs so that they would support him in Parliament. To prevent this problem, the Framers added Article I, Section 6’s Incompatibility Clause. That Clause says that “no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.” The Framers described the Incompatibility Clause as being “The Cornerstone of the Constitution.” But as to salaries for congressmen themselves, the Constitution simply said those salaries should be provided for by law—in other words, that Congress would set its own pay. This did not sit well with the general public, or with James Madison—it seemed like a big opening for Congress to pay itself too much.

In 1789, Madison proposed twelve amendments to the federal Constitution, the first ten of which were ratified in 1791 and became the federal Bill of Rights. One of the proposed amendments, which was not ratified at that time, was an amendment that became the Twenty-Seventh Amendment and which forbade congressional pay increases from taking effect until there had been an intervening election of members of Congress. Madison did not want Congress to have power over its own pay without limitation. But he also did not want the President to control congressional salaries, since that would give the President too much power over Congress. So instead, he proposed that an election had to happen before any pay raise could take effect. If the public opposed an overly generous congressional pay raise, the public could throw the offending congressmen out of office when they ran for re-election.

The congressional pay amendment was only ratified by 6 states initially. But the First Congress, which had passed the Amendment in 1789, had not attached a time limit within which the Amendment had to be ratified by the states. (Some subsequent constitutional amendments have provided for such time limits.) In the nineteenth century, one state joined this small group, and others in the twentieth, but no one thought it was going anywhere—or thought about it much at all.

In 1982, the Amendment was languishing before the states with only a tiny fraction of the number of states needed to ratify having ratified it. That year Gregory Watson, a sophomore at the University of Texas, was assigned to write a paper about a government process. He came across a chapter in a book on the Constitution, listing proposed constitutional amendments that had not been ratified. He wrote his paper on the congressional pay amendment, arguing that there was no time limit on when it could be ratified, and that it could be ratified now. He got a C on the paper. Maybe if he had received a better grade on his paper, the story would have ended there, but Watson was sure it was a better paper, so he appealed his grade, first to his T.A., then to his professor; and when he was unsuccessful, he decided to take the issue to the country. In an NPR report in May 2017, he said that after his teacher affirmed the C, “I thought right then and there, ‘I’m going to get that thing ratified.’”

Watson sent letters around the country to state legislators, who mostly ignored his idea. But Maine Senator William Cohen liked the idea—and he pushed it and it passed in Maine in 1983. After that, Watson kept pushing, and the Amendment picked up steam.

The fact of the Amendment’s passage through Congress in 1789 and of its non-ratification by the states came to public attention in the 1980s when there was tremendous popular disapproval of the performance of the Congress and the exorbitant salaries and fringe benefits members of Congress enjoyed. As a result, a campaign was launched to get three-quarters of the states to ratify the Amendment over the totality of the period between 1789 and the present day. In 1985, five states passed it, and by 1992, the 38 states needed for full ratification had all passed the Amendment. Thus, the three-quarters of the states’ consensus required by Article V of the Constitution was finally reached in 1992—more than 202 years after Congress had proposed the Amendment. The Archivist of the United States declared the Amendment to be legally ratified, and, subsequently, Congress on May 20, 1992, declared the ratification to be legal and the Amendment to be part of the Constitution.  As of today, forty-six states have ratified the Twenty-Seventh Amendment while four have not.

The main objection that has been made by scholars to the legality of the ratification process of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment is that Article V contemplates some kind of simultaneous approval of a proposed amendment between when Congress votes on it and when three-quarters of the states ratify it.  Proponents of this view point out that the size of the Senate and House of Representatives and the number of states in the Union have changed significantly between 1789 and 1992. Scholars who reject the Twenty-Seventh Amendment do so on the structural constitutional ground that there was never a “magic moment” consensus of two-thirds of both Houses of Congress and three-quarters of the states when a national and federal supermajority agreed to add the Amendment to the Constitution. Speaker of the House Tom Foley initially called for litigation to challenge the legality of the Amendment’s ratification process, but he quickly changed his mind on that point once he saw how popular the Amendment really was.

Moreover, these scholars add that there are a number of constitutional amendments that Congress has approved but that the states have not yet ratified, which could become law if the Twenty-Seventh Amendment process were to be held valid. In an effort to avoid the outbreak of the Civil War, Congress passed a constitutional amendment called the Corwin Amendment, which would have forever preserved slavery in those states where it was legal in 1861. Could this horrible old amendment, to which Congress attached no time limit for its ratification, be resurrected and ratified in the future simply by state action and with no new attempt to get two-thirds of both Houses of Congress to ratify it?

The argument in favor of the validity of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment’s ratification is that Article V’s text only requires: 1) two-thirds of both Houses of Congress pass the proposed amendment, which happened here in 1789; and that 2) three-quarters of the states ratify the amendment as it passed in Congress, which they did here in 1992. From a strictly textual viewpoint, the terms of Article V were satisfied, and Congress had no choice but to accept the Amendment as being a valid addition to the Constitution.

It is important to note here that the “precedent” that was set when Congress “approved” of the unusual process by which the Twenty-Seventh Amendment was ratified meets not only the textual requirements of Article V; it also met the structural argument about the need for a “magic moment” when there is a popular national consensus of super-majority proportions. Congress on May 20, 1992 voted by a unanimous vote of the Senate and by a vote of 414 to 3 in favor of “accepting” the Twenty-Seventh Amendment as having been validly approved. Forty-six out of fifty states ratified the Amendment, and no state that had once ratified the Amendment tried to “unratify” it. Both the textual and the structural concerns that underlie Article V had been satisfied. There was an Article V consensus in 1992 to ratify this most unusual amendment.

It goes without saying that there would NOT be such a national supermajority consensus for many other “dead” constitutional amendments that have been ratified by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress and sent to the states for ratification. In the unimaginable situation in which a state might try to ratify the Corwin Amendment constitutionalizing the right to own slaves, Congress would immediately rescind its approval of the Amendment as would most of the states, which had ratified it. It is thus important to note that the case of the 202 year-long ratification process of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment is really sui generis: It deals with a situation, which is very unlikely ever to rise again.

One final question is raised by the odd ratification process of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment: What role, if any, should the U.S. Supreme Court play in passing on the validity of the ratification of constitutional amendments? Such amendments are the supreme law of the land, as is Article V, and Chief Justice Marshall said in Marbury v. Madison (1803), “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is.” In Coleman v. Miller (1939), Justice Hugo Black wrote a concurrence joined by Justices Roberts, Frankfurter, and Douglas arguing that cases that go to the validity of the ratification of a constitutional amendment should be said to raise a political question and that only Congress can resolve that question.

Professor Calabresi agrees with Justice Black on this point because over the last 228 years of American history the federal courts have never been in the business of reviewing the legality of the process by which an amendment was ratified, and there is no reason they should get into that process now. There were serious questions about the legality of the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment since the eleven rebel states were compelled to ratify the Amendment before they were allowed back into the Union. Congress declared this was legal and that the Fourteenth Amendment had been validly ratified, and Professor Calabresi heartily agrees. Suffice it to say that no court has ever or should ever question Congress’s judgment and decision on that measure.

The Twenty-Seventh Amendment was accepted as a validly ratified constitutional amendment on May 20, 1992, and no court should ever second-guess that decision. Constitutional amendments are one of the few checks and balances that “We the People” have on the Supreme Court, and it would thus be unconstitutional for the Supreme Court to adjudicate the legality of the ratification of an amendment that might be overturning a Supreme Court decision. That would violate a fundamental axiom of Anglo-American law, which is that no man should ever be a judge in his own cause.

SOURCE: CONSTITUTIONCENTER.ORG

Today would have been Jeffrey Dahmer’s birthday.  The serial killer was murdered in prison. 

I was going to bring an expose on his life and crimes, but reading about his atrocities made me sick to my stomach.  He was born on this day and his death befitted his crime. Enough said

The remainder of this post will be kittens, puppies, and baby animals.

From Soldiersangels.org, fun facts about Armed Forces Day:

Happy Armed Forces Day! Or, is it “Merry Armed Forces Day”? While you may be familiar with the holiday itself, there is a slew of history that has slipped through the cracks of time. Each military force: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard has their own celebratory day in the calendar year. These days are greeted by special celebrations for that branch of the service and were established during the terms of several presidents. The time frame ranges from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century. It wasn’t until August 31, 1949—four years after the conclusion of World War Two—that a single day was denoted for all five of the United States of America’s armed forces.

President Harry S. Truman declared that thereafter “Armed Forces Day” would be celebrated on the third Saturday of every May. In addition to its origins, there are several interesting facts associated with Armed Forces Day!

Every year, Armed Forces Day celebrations are focused around a central theme. This year, [2016] the theme is “Guardians of Freedom”. Some past themes include its debut theme in 1950, which was “Teamed for Defense”, “Appreciation of a Nation”, “Prepared to Meet the Challenge”, “Freedom Through Unity”, and “Power for Peace”.

Even though Armed Forces Day is not a federal holiday, it is widely celebrated. On the first Armed Forces Day, over 10,000 veterans and soldiers marched in Washington. One might even call it an international holiday, as several other countries including Australia, Bulgaria, Spain, South Korea, and Thailand also celebrate an Armed Forces Day that is similar to the holiday in the United States.

The United States Department of Defense is not only the largest federal department in the country, it is the largest employer in the world. All combined, the various branches of the Department of Defense include 742,000 civilian personnel, over 1.3 million troops on active duty, over 2 million retired service members, and 826,000 Reserves and National Guard members.

National Armed Forces Day is actually the fifth in a series of holidays celebrating our armed forces during National Military Appreciation Month (NMAM). The first holiday is Loyalty Day, then Public Service Recognition Week and Military Spouse Appreciation Day followed by Victory in Europe Day. Then comes Armed Forces Day and the month culminates in the federally celebrated holiday, Memorial Day.

One purpose of the original Armed Forces Day was to demonstrate the best and brightest of new technology and methodology. The goal was, and is, to be prepared for “any eventuality by land, sea, or air.”

Source: soldiersangels.com

Calamity Jane was born May 1, 1852 and to celebrate her birthday, I went searching for some interesting facts about her.

From the All That’s Interesting website comes the story of Calamity Jane:

The life of Calamity Jane may be more fiction than fact, but her story is enthralling either way.

In the hyper-masculine world of the Wild West, Calamity Jane could shoot, ride, and drink with the toughest cowboys of her day.

Growing Up on The Frontier

From the mix of tall tales and exaggerations that make up the life of Calamity Jane, facts are like the nuggets of gold in the west — rare. She herself published an autobiography in 1896 that most historians peg as trumped-up fiction, and most accounts of her life weave together legend and truth.

Still, there are a few parts of Calamity’s life that are mostly certain.

Calamity Jane was born Martha Jane Canary (sometimes written as “Cannary”) in 1856 — though she claimed she was born in 1852 — near Princeton, Missouri, right on the Iowa border. It was nine years before the outbreak of the Civil War. Her father, Robert, was a farmer. Her mother, Charlotte, was by some accounts an illiterate prostitute whose husband tried to reform her.

In her book The Autobiography of Calamity Jane, Calamity claims to have been the oldest of five siblings, two brothers and three sisters, spending the better part of her Missouri childhood riding horses.

In the early 1860s, Canary’s family headed to Montana for gold. Her mother died in Blackfoot, Montana, possibly of pneumonia, and her father died soon after taking his children to Salt Lake City. It’s not clear what happened to her siblings, but by the time she was around 15 Canary was on her own.

She went to Piedmont, Wyoming, about 75 miles northeast of Salt Lake, where she worked at a boarding house and danced with soldiers at night. Though she later claimed to have spent her teens riding “many dangerous missions” in the American Indian Wars in Arizona — “I was considered the most reckless and daring rider and one of the best shots in the western country,” her autobiography reads — she most likely worked as a laundress, dancer, and prostitute along the Wyoming railroad.

Becoming Calamity Jane

How did Martha Jane Canary go from an orphaned prostitute to one of the most famous women in the Wild West? In Wyoming, she began to develop the identity that would make her famous as Calamity Jane.

Canary knew how to shoot, she liked to dress as a man (or perhaps more accurately, she refused to dress like women of the era), and, like men, she chewed tobacco and drank a lot of alcohol. That set her apart from her cohorts; she was reportedly one of the first white women to enter the Black Hills of South Dakota.

“The first place that attracted her attention,” according to one train captain who saw her there when she was 20 years old, “was a saloon, where she was soon made blind as a bat from looking through the bottom of a glass.”

Canary quickly gained notoriety in 1876 Deadwood, South Dakota, where she rubbed shoulders with the likes of Wild Bill Hickok. Her personality caught the attention of dime novel writer Edward Wheeler, who worked Calamity Jane into his popular stories as a Wild West heroine.

But how did Canary become Calamity Jane? The origin of the “Calamity Jane” moniker is, as with the rest of her life, unknown for certain. But there are a few of theories.

In the first, Martha Jane rescued a man from his horse during a raid by Native Americans. Shot by the Indians, Martha Jane pulled him onto her own steed. He said to her: “I name you Calamity Jane, the heroine of the plains.” In another version, it’s said that to offend Martha Jane was to “court calamity.”

Another is a bit simpler: Jane was a popular nickname for women in the Wild West (Lewis and Clark called Sacagawea “Jane”), and her life had been such a calamity.

In any case, the nickname stuck.

Calamity Jane’s Maybe-Romance with Wild Bill Hickok

A big element of Calamity Jane’s reputation today – and part of the reason she became famous in her own time — was her purported romance with American folk hero James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok.

In her 1896 autobiography, she calls Hickok her “friend,” and by 1902 she told the press he was her “affianced husband.” In 1941, a 68-year-old woman named Jean McCormick went on the CBS radio program We the People to announce that she was long-lost daughter of Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok, and she supposedly had a trove of handwritten letters from Calamity – and a marriage certificate between Calamity and Hickok — to prove it.

The real story? They may have been casual friends — they were both in Deadwood in 1876 — but in all likelihood Hickok and Calamity were never lovers.

In fact, Calamity only knew Hickok for six weeks before his murder at the Nuttal & Mann Salon in Deadwood. (Killed during a poker game, Bill held two aces and an eight, now called the “dead man’s hand.”) The marriage certificate and album of purported letters from Calamity to her daughter Jean were very likely made up by McCormick as a last-ditch effort to get some money and a few minutes of fame in the last years of her life.

Calamity also claimed to have married Clinton Burke in El Paso, Texas in 1885, and to have remained there until 1889. But news reports show she wasn’t even in Texas at that time.

More likely was that she married a man named Bill Steers in Wyoming, with whom she had two children: a boy who died in infancy, and a girl who lived into the 1960s.

Acts Of Bravery and Kindness

Calamity Jane has a tough reputation, but during her life she was known for her acts of kindness and bravery

Although the moniker of “Calamity Jane” evokes an image of a gunslinging, tobacco-spitting outlaw, much of Calamity’s reputation came from her bravery and good heart. Upon her return to Deadwood in 1895, after a 16-year absence, the Black Hills Daily Times wrote:

“She has always been known for her friendliness, generosity and happy cordial manner. It didn’t matter to her whether a person was rich or poor, white or black, or what their circumstances were, Calamity Jane was just the same to all. Her purse was always open to help a hungry fellow, and she was one of the first to proffer her help in cases of sickness, accidents or any distress.”

The story goes that when smallpox ravaged Deadwood in 1878, Calamity Jane cared for eight afflicted gold miners.

One man described her as “the last person to hold the head of and administer consolation to the troubled gambler or erstwhile bad man who was about to depart into the new country.”

Martha Jane Canary’s Late Life: Alcoholism and Death

Calamity Jane poses at Wild Bill’s grave. She would later be buried next to him.

English professor Margot Mifflin put it succinctly:

“[Calamity Jane] was the Courtney Love of her day: A talented pioneer in a man’s world, she was a chronic substance abuser prone to outrageous behavior and forever linked in the public mind to a dead man whose fame overshadowed her own.”

With the success of Wheeler’s Calamity Jane stories, Calamity supported herself by banking on her notoriety and selling photos of herself for extra cash. After publishing her 1896 autobiography — which Calamity, likely illiterate, recited to a scribe — she appeared in dime museum shows and rodeos, from Minneapolis to Buffalo, New York.

In 1903 she died near Deadwood of “inflammation of the bowels,” likely caused by alcoholism. She was only in her late 40s, but years of drinking made her look much older.

Calamity was buried next to Wild Bill Hickok. Why? The reasoning varies from the romantic (Calamity Jane died with his name on her lips) to the vengeful (his friends thought it’d be a funny prank). It could also be because she swore she married Hickok, even though every piece of evidence points to the contrary.

Calamity Jane: The Character

With so much misinformation surrounding the life of Calamity Jane, her persona has easily taken on a variety of forms in popular fiction. In the 1953 film Calamity Jane, Doris Day provided a G-rated, ted, light-hearted portrayal of the tough Calamity Jane — singing, dancing, and engaging in cheerful mischief.

In the TV series Deadwood, on the other hand, Calamity Jane, portrayed by Robin Weigert, is a tough, hard-drinking frontierswoman who can keep up with the boys.

Her life’s story, which Calamity herself happily confused with fiction, may never be fully known.

SOURCE: All That’s Interesting

Today is the anniversary of the Kent State shooting that killed 4 students and injured 9 more.  History.com provides a detailed account of why it happened:

Four Kent State University students were killed and nine were injured on May 4, 1970, when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a crowd gathered to protest the Vietnam War. The tragedy was a watershed moment for a nation divided by the conflict in Southeast Asia. In its immediate aftermath, a student-led strike forced the temporary closure of colleges and universities across the country. Some political observers believe the events of that day in northeast Ohio tilted public opinion against the war and may have contributed to the downfall of President Richard Nixon.

The Vietnam War

American involvement in the civil war in Vietnam—which pitted the communists of the northern part of the country against the more democratic south—had been controversial from its beginnings, and a significant segment of the general public in the United States was against the presence of U.S. armed forces in the region.

Protests across the country in the latter half of the 1960s were part of organized opposition against U.S. military activities in Southeast Asia, as well as the military draft.

In fact, President Richard M. Nixon had been elected in 1968 due in large part to his promise to end the Vietnam War. And, until April 1970, it appeared he was on the way to fulfilling that campaign promise, as military operations were seemingly winding down.

Invasion of Cambodia

However, on April 30, 1970, President Nixon authorized U.S. troops to invade Cambodia, a neutral nation located west of Vietnam. North Vietnamese troops were using safe havens in Cambodia to launch attacks on the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese, and parts of the Ho Chi Minh Trail—a supply route used by the North Vietnamese—passed through Cambodia.

Controversially, the president made his decision without notifying his Secretary of State William Rogers or Defense Secretary Melvin Laird.

They, along with the rest of the American public, found out about the invasion when President Nixon addressed the nation on television two days later. Members of Congress accused the president of illegally widening the scope of U.S. involvement in the war by not receiving their consent through a vote.

However, it was public reaction to the decision that ultimately led to the events at Kent State University, a public university in northeast Ohio.

Vietnam War Protests

Even before Nixon’s formal announcement of the invasion, rumors of the U.S. military incursion into Cambodia resulted in protests at colleges and universities across the country. At Kent State, these protests actually began on May 1, the day after the invasion.

That day, hundreds of students gathered on the Commons, a park-like space at the center of campus that had been the site of large demonstrations and other events in the past. Several speakers spoke out against the war in general, and President Nixon specifically.

That night, in downtown Kent, there were reports of violent clashes between students and local police. Police alleged that their cars were hit with bottles, and that students stopped traffic and lit bonfires in the streets.

Reinforcements were called in from neighboring communities, and Kent Mayor Leroy Satrom declared a state of emergency, before ordering all the bars in the town closed. Satrom also contacted Ohio Governor James Rhodes seeking assistance.

Satrom’s decision to close the bars actually angered the protesters more, and increased the size of the crowds on the streets of town. Police were eventually able to move the protesters back toward campus, using tear gas to disperse the crowd. However, the stage was set for trouble.

Ohio National Guard Arrives

The following day, Saturday, May 2, there were rumors that radicals were making threats against the town of Kent and the university. The threats reportedly were primarily made against businesses in the town and certain buildings on campus.

After speaking with other city officials, Satrom asked Governor Rhodes to send the Ohio National Guard to Kent in an attempt to calm tensions in the area.

At the time, members of the National Guard were already on duty in the region, and thus were mobilized fairly quickly. By the time they arrived at the Kent State campus on the night of May 2nd, however, protesters had already set fire to the school’s ROTC building, and scores were watching and cheering as it burned.

Some protesters also reportedly clashed with firefighters attempting to put out the blaze, and Guardsmen were asked to intervene. Clashes between the Guard and the protesters continued well into the night, and dozens of arrests were made.

Interestingly, the next day, Sunday, May 3, was a fairly calm day on campus. The weather was sunny and warm, and students were lounging on the Commons and even engaging with the Guardsmen on duty.

Still, with nearly 1,000 National Guards at the school, the scene was more like that of a war zone than a college campus.

Protesters and Guardsmen Gather

With a major protest already scheduled for noon on Monday, May 4, once again on the Commons, university officials attempted to diffuse the situation by prohibiting the event. Still, crowds began to gather at about 11:00 that morning, and an estimated 3,000 protesters and spectators were there by the scheduled start time.

Stationed at the now-destroyed ROTC building were roughly 100 Ohio National Guardsmen carrying M-1 military rifles.

Historians have never reached consensus as to who exactly organized and participated in the Kent State protests—or how many of them were students at the university or anti-war activists from elsewhere. But the protest on May 4th, during which activists spoke out against the presence of the National Guard on campus as well as the Vietnam War, was initially peaceful.

Still, Ohio National Guard General Robert Canterbury ordered the protesters to disperse, with the announcement being made by a Kent State police officer riding in a military jeep across the Commons and using a bullhorn to be heard over the crowd. The protesters refused to disperse and began shouting and throwing rocks at the Guardsmen.

Four Dead in Ohio

General Canterbury ordered his men to lock and load their weapons, and to fire tear gas into the crowd. The Guardsmen then marched across the Commons, forcing protesters to move up a nearby hill called Blanket Hill, and then down the other side of the hill toward a football practice field.

As the football field was enclosed with fencing, the Guardsmen were caught amongst the angry mob, and were the targets of shouting and thrown rocks yet again.

The Guardsmen soon retreated back up Blanket Hill. When they reached the top of the hill, witnesses say 28 of them suddenly turned and fired their M-1 rifles, some into the air, some directly into the crowd of protesters.

Over just a 13-second period, nearly 70 shots were fired in total. In all, four Kent State students—Jeffrey Miller, Allison Krause, William Schroeder and Sandra Scheuer—were killed, and nine others were injured. Schroeder was shot in the back, as were two of the injured, Robert Stamps and Dean Kahler.

Aftermath of the Kent State Shooting

Following the shooting, the university was immediately ordered closed, and the campus remained shut down for some six weeks following the shootings.

Numerous investigatory commissions and court trials followed, during which members of the Ohio National Guard testified that they felt the need to discharge their weapons because they feared for their lives.

However, disagreements remain as to whether they were, in fact, under sufficient threat to use force.

In a civil suit filed by the injured Kent State students and their families, a settlement was reached in 1979 in which the Ohio National Guard agreed to pay those injured in the events of May 4, 1970 a total of $675,000.

Kent State Shooting Legacy

A signed statement by the Guard, drafted as part of the settlement, read, in part: “In retrospect, the tragedy… should not have occurred. The students may have believed that they were right in continuing their mass protest in response to the Cambodian invasion, even though this protest followed the posting and reading by the university of an order to ban rallies and an order to disperse… Some of the Guardsmen on Blanket Hill, fearful and anxious from prior events, may have believed in their own minds that their lives were in danger. Hindsight suggests that another method would have resolved the confrontation…”

Photographer John Filo won a Pulitzer Prize for his famous image of 14-year-old Mary Vecchio crying over Miller’s fallen body, just after the last shot was fired on the Kent State campus that day. However, this image is hardly the only lasting legacy of the events of May 4.

Indeed, the Kent State shooting remains symbolic of the division in public opinion about war in general, and the Vietnam War specifically. Many believe it permanently changed the protest movement across the American political spectrum, fostering a sense of disillusionment regarding what, exactly, these demonstrations accomplish—as well as fears over the potential for confrontation between protesters and law enforcement.

SOURCE: HISTORY.com

Sources

Personal Remembrances of the Kent State Shootings, 43 Years Later. Slate.
Kent State Shootings. Ohio History Central.
The May 4 Shootings at Kent State University: The Search for Historical Accuracy. Kent State University.
Nixon authorizes invasion of Cambodia, April 28, 1970. Politico.
Was It Legal for the U.S. to Bomb Cambodia? The New York Times.
Photographer John Filo discusses his famous Kent State photograph and the events of May 4, 1970. CNN.
Kent State at 25: A Troubling Legacy. Christian Science Monitor.

On May 17, 1875, the first Kentucky Derby horse race took place at Churchill Down in Louisville, Kentucky.  In honor of the first running, I found 15 Kentucky Derby facts at the horseyhooves.com website.

Here are 15 Kentucky Derby facts.

1. The Kentucky Derby Got its Start Thanks to Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr.- Grandson of Famed Explorer William Clark

The origin of the Kentucky Derby traces back to 1872, when Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., the grandson of famous explorer William Clark, traveled to England. While in England, Clark attended the historic Epsom Derby.

After England, Clark traveled to France where he met with members of the French Jockey Club in Paris. Upon returning home to America, he was inspired to start a horse racing spectacle in the states. Clark’s uncles, John and Henry Churchill, gifted him land to create a racetrack. He developed a group of local racing enthusiasts, forming the Louisville Jockey Club.

After raising funds with the help of the club, the racetrack opened on May 17th, 1875, and hosted the very first Kentucky Derby. Fifteen horses raced that year in front of a crowd of 10,000, with Aristides taking home the first win.

Since its beginning, the Kentucky Derby has never been canceled or postponed for bad weather. Only twice has the race been postponed, in 1945 due to WWII and 2020 due to COVID. The derby has occurred every year since its origin.

2. Originally the Race Was 1 ½ Miles

Originally, the Kentucky Derby was 1 ½ miles long, which is the same distance as the Epsom Derby, which helped inspire the race. The race was 1 ½ miles until 1896, when officials changed the distance to 1 ¼ miles. Ever since then, the race has always been 1 ¼ miles.

3. There Have Only Been Four Winners Bred Outside the United States

Out of the 146 Kentucky Derby winners, only four horses were born outside the United States. Those four horses are Tomy Lee, Omar Khayyam, Sunny’s Halo, and Northern Dancer.

Omar Khayyam became the first foreign-bred horse to win the Kentucky Derby in 1917. The British-born colt was sold as a yearling to an American racing partnership.

Born in England, Tomy Lee took home the Kentucky Derby win in 1959. Texas millionaire Fred Turner, Jr. purchased Tomy Lee as a weanling from a sale in England and another Thoroughbred, Tuleg. Turner purchased Tomy Lee to be a companion of Tuleg when he traveled. However, Tomy Lee proved to be a stellar racehorse, while Tuleg’s career fell flat.

Born in Canada, Northern Dancer took home the Kentucky Derby in 1964. Northern Dancer also won the Preakness Stakes, but fell short of the Triple Crown by coming in third in the Belmont Stakes. He went on to become one of the most influential Thoroughbred stallions in the 20th century.

Another Canadian-born horse, Sunny’s Halo, won the Kentucky Derby in 1983. He raced in both America and Canada throughout his career.

4. Kentucky is Home to the Most Winners

Not only is the Bluegrass State home to the Kentucky Derby, but it is also home to the most Kentucky Derby winners. A whopping 107 Kentucky Derby winners were born in Kentucky. The state with the second most winners is Florida, with seven winners born in the Sunshine State.

5. Secretariat Holds the Record for the Fastest Kentucky Derby

The legendary Secretariat holds the record for the fastest Kentucky Derby time at 1:59.40. He set the record in 1973 after beating Northern Dancer’s time of 2:00:00.

Secretariat went on to not only win the Triple Crown, but also set record times in the Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes as well. His incredible 1973 Triple Crown win was one for the ages.

6. Kingman Holds the Record for the Slowest Kentucky Derby

Kingman holds the record for the slowest Kentucky Derby win at 2:52.25 in 1891, when the race was still 1 ½ miles. In 1908, Stone Street became the slowest winner at 1 ¼ miles, with a time of 2:15.20, about 16 seconds slower than Secretariat’s record win.

7. Only One Person Has Won as a Jockey and Later as a Trainer

Johnny Longden is the only person to win the Kentucky Derby as a jockey and then later as a trainer. In 1943, Longden took the title home aboard Count Fleet, with who he went on to win the Triple Crown.

After retiring as a jockey in 1959, Longden became a trainer. In 1969, he trained the Kentucky Derby winner Majestic Prince. Majestic Prince went on to win the Preakness Stakes and came in second in the Belmont Stakes, just missing out on the Triple Crown.

8. Only Three Fillies Have Won

In the history of the Kentucky Derby’s 146 winners, only three horses have been fillies. Those three fillies are Regret, Genuine Risk, and Winning Colors.

Regret took home the Kentucky Derby in 1915, the first filly to do so. She is the first of four horses ever to win all three Saratoga Race Course events for two-year-olds. In addition, she also became the first horse to win the Kentucky Derby undefeated in her career.

Sixty-five years later, Genuine Risk became the second filly to win the Kentucky Derby in 1980. After a controversial Preakness Stakes where she got bumped, the filly came in second place. In addition, she came in second in the Belmont Stakes as well.

Winning Colors won the Kentucky Derby in 1988. She also raced in the Preakness and Belmont Stakes, coming in third place and sixth place, respectively.

9. The Youngest Jockey to Ever Win Was Just 15

At just 15 years old, Alonzo Clayton is the youngest jockey ever to win the Kentucky Derby. Clayton won the 1892 Kentucky Derby aboard Azra.

At the age of 12, Clayton left home to follow in his brother’s footsteps and began a career as an exercise rider. His talent quickly shined through, and at the age of 14, he became a professional jockey. In addition to winning the Derby, Clayton and Azra also won the Clark Handicap and the Travers Stakes.

10. The Oldest Jockey to Ever Win Was 54

As one of the most successful jockeys ever, Bill Shoemaker won the Kentucky Derby four times. Shoemaker is also the oldest jockey to win the Kentucky Derby at age 54 in 1986 aboard Ferdinand.

Shoemaker’s career as a jockey began when he was just a teenager. He quickly skyrocketed to success and, for 29 years held the record for the most wins by a jockey. Though he never won the Triple Crown, he won 11 Triple Crown races over a span of four decades.

11. A Large Amount of Mint Juleps and Food Are Consumed Each Year

Every year, thousands of people gather to watch the Kentucky Derby, with a record crowd of 170,513 in 2015. Year after year, spectators consume large amounts of food and drinks as they gather to watch the best of Thoroughbred racing.

Every year, guests consume approximately 120,000 Mint Juleps at Churchill Downs during “The Run for the Roses.” This requires 1,000 pounds of mint plants, 60,000 pounds of ice, and 10,000 bottles of bourbon.

A normal Mint Julep at the Kentucky Derby will cost you just $6.99. However, the most expensive Mint Julep at the race cost $2,500 and is served in a gold cup.

In addition to drinking Mint Juleps, the crowd consumes a lot of food. On average, 142,000 hot dogs, 18,000 BBQ sandwiches, 30,000 cookies, 300,000 strawberries, and 1,892 sheets of Derby Pie are eaten every year.

12. It Costs $25,000 to Enter a Horse

To enter a horse in the Kentucky Derby costs a small fortune. A $25,000 entry fee and a $25,000 starting fee are required to compete.

In addition to the $50,000 entry and starting fees, there are also nomination fees. The nomination fee is $600 and late nominations cost $6,000. For those who wait till April, the nomination fee is a whopping $200,000.

The current purse for the Kentucky Derby is $3 million and no more than 20 horses can be entered. The winner takes home $1.86 million, second place gets $600,000, third place gets $300,000, fourth place gets $150,000 and fifth place gets $90,000. Owners can make a lot of money off of the Kentucky Derby, but they must already have a large sum to begin with.

13. Thirteen Horses Have Gone on to Win the Triple Crown

Just 13 of the 146 Kentucky Derby winners went on to win the Triple Crown. The Triple Crown winners are Sir Barton (1919), Gallant Fox (1930), Omaha (1935), War Admiral (1937), Whirlaway (1941), Count Fleet (1943), Assault (1946), Citation (1948), Secretariat (1973), Seattle Slew (1977), Affirmed (1978), American Pharoah (2015) and Justify (2018).

14. Bob Baffert Has the Most Kentucky Derby Wins Out of All Trainers

Bob Baffert holds the record for the most Kentucky Derby wins by a trainer with seven. After being tied with trainer Ben Jones at six races, Baffert took the title in 2021 after training winner Medina Spirit.

Baffert’s Kentucky Derby winners are Silver Charm (1997), Real Quiet (1998), War Emblem (2002), American Pharoah (2015), Justify (2018), Authentic (2020), and Medina Spirit (2021). Baffert is also the trainer of the two most recent Triple Crown winners, American Pharoah and Justify.

15. Jockeys Eddie Acaro and Bill Hartack Have the Most Kentucky Derby Wins

Eddie Acaro and Bill Hartack are tied with the most Kentucky Derby wins by a jockey, with five apiece. Acaro also has the most Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes wins at six each.

Included in our list of the Triple Crown winning jockeys, Eddie Acaro won the Kentucky Derby in 1938 with Lawrin, in 1941 with Whirlaway, in 1945 with Hoop Jr., in 1948 with Citation, and in 1952 with Hill Gail. He is also the only jockey to win the Triple Crown twice, with Whirlaway and Citation.

Hartack won the Kentucky Derby in 1957 with Iron Liege, in 1960 with Venetian Way, in 1962 with Decidedly, in 1964 with Northern Dancer, and in 1969 with Majestic Prince. Though he never won the Triple Crown, Hartack won the Preakness Stakes three times and the Belmont Stakes once.

SOURCE: HORSEYHOOVES.COM