Stupid American History: Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions Read online

  OTHER BOOKS BY LELAND GREGORY

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  What’s the Number for 911 Again?

  The Stupid Crook Book

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  Idiots at Work

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  Idiots in Love

  Am-Bushed!

  Stupid History

  Idiots in Charge

  Cruel and Unusual Idiots

  What’s the Number for 911?: Second Edition

  Stupid American History

  Copyright © 2009 by Leland Gregory. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of reprints in the context of reviews. For information, write Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC, an Andrews McMeel Universal company, 1130 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64106.

  E-ISBN: 978-0-7407-9354-7

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  Cover and interior illustrations by Kevin Brimmer

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  Stupid

  American

  History

  BETTER THAN THE BEST

  History books have idolized our founding fathers to such a degree that a lot of people believe they were perfect. Simply by looking at the first line of the Constitution you’ll find that they weren’t perfect—and they especially weren’t more perfect. The first line of the preamble to the Constitution reads, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union.” If something is perfect it’s, well, perfect—it can’t be more perfect. Ask any English teacher, and they will tell you that “more perfect” ain’t good English.

  ANDREW JACKSON’S WIFE, RACHEL, WAS

  THE ONLY FIRST LADY WHO SMOKED A PIPE.

  BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

  General Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson [he got his nickname because he was as hard as old hickory] was victorious over the invading British Army intent on seizing New Orleans during the War of 1812. The infamous Battle of New Orleans was an enormous boost, not necessarily to the war effort, but to the future career of Andrew Jackson. Jackson used his war hero status during his biggest battle ever—the battle to become the seventh president of the United States [1829–1837]. But was the Battle of New Orleans even an important battle? Not really. The war was already over before the Battle of New Orleans began. The Treaty of Ghent, which officially ended the War of 1812, had been signed on December 24, 1814; the Battle of New Orleans took place on January 8, 1815.

  HAVING THE LAST WORD

  What a man decides to have put on his tombstone says a lot about what was important in his life. One would think that a man like Thomas Jefferson might need several tombstones to cover all the accomplishments of which he was proud. Surprisingly, the inscription that Jefferson personally wrote left out a few key things. His tombstone reads: “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.” You’ll notice that he doesn’t mention that he was the second vice president of the United States or even that he was the third president.

  A TOWN BY ANY OTHER NAME

  When the Pilgrims finally landed and settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620 [after having originally been dumped in Provincetown, Massachusetts, because the crew of the Mayflower was tired of their complaining], they named the city Plymouth because they had set sail from Plymouth, England. It makes perfect sense and is widely believed, but it’s not true. The city was already named Plymouth. In 1614, Captain John Smith mapped out the northeast coast of North America starting from Jamestown, Virginia, and he returned to England with a map on which most landmarks had, of course, Indian names. Smith asked Prince Charles to replace the “barbarous” Native American names with good old-fashioned English ones, and His Royal Highness obliged. When Prince Charles came to the Native American name “Accomack” on the map, he decided to change it to Plymouth. The fact that the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, England, and landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts, is just a fun fluke in American history.

  DOUBLEDAY DOUBLE PLAY

  When asked, “Who invented baseball?” most people would answer, “Abner Doubleday,” and most people would be wrong. Baseball was invented in England [gasp!]. It was first named and described in 1744 in A Little Pretty Pocket Book, which was reprinted in the United States in 1762. So how did Abner Doubleday get credit for inventing a game that had been around for nearly a hundred years? It was a propaganda campaign. The Major League’s executive board, wanting to score a home run by claiming baseball had been invented in America, commissioned a report on the game’s origin in 1907. In this report, baseball was first credited with being the brainchild of Civil War general and hero Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839. Even though Doubleday never mentioned inventing baseball in his diaries, or the fact that he never visited Cooperstown. Makes you wonder about the origins of apple pie and Chevrolet now, doesn’t it?

  BASES LOADED

  So who should get credit for inventing baseball? Most authorities now agree that Alexander Cartwright, a Manhattan bookseller, should get the credit for inventing the modern game of baseball. In 1842 he founded the Knickerbocker Baseball Club, named after the Knickerbocker Fire Engine Company, for which he was a volunteer. Cartwright drew the first diagram of the diamond-shaped field and the rules of the modern game are based on bylaws his team created. He was finally inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1938.

  IN 1989, GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH

  WAS THE FIRST VICE PRESIDENT ELECTED TO THE OFFICE OF THE

  PRESIDENCY SINCE MARTIN VAN BUREN

  IN 1836.

  BEDFORD FALLS

  The warm-hearted fantasy It’s a Wonderful Life, produced and directed by Frank Capra for Liberty Films, was nominated for five Oscars [without winning any] and is recognized by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 best American films ever made. It is placed number one on their list of the most inspirational American films of all time. But when it was first released on December 20, 1946, it was considered a flop. The movie cost $2,300,000 and grossed only about $2,000,000 during its initial release—less than half of what Liberty Films expected.

  ON JUNE 28, 1836, JAMES MADISON’S LAST WORDS WERE

  “I ALWAYS TALK BETTER LYING DOWN.”

  LOSING HIS MARBLES

  In April 1841, Vice President John Tyler was on his knees playing marbles when he was informed that William Henry Harrison had died, and he was now president of the United States. At that time, marbles was a very popular game for both children and grown-ups.

  LET FREEDOM RING

  On July 8, 1776, the grand peal of the Liberty Bell alerted citizens that the country they lived in was now independent, while the founding fathers read to them the Declaration of Independence that freed them from the tyranny of British rule. But the story just doesn’t ring true. It’s true that the bell was hanging in the Philadelphia statehouse at the time,
but no one rang it. Why would they? It had a huge crack in it from a forging error and, at that time, was not a symbol of freedom or liberty. The name Liberty Bell wasn’t adopted until 1839 in a pamphlet entitled The Liberty Bell, by Friends of Freedom, where it symbolized the liberty of black slaves, not the independence of white Americans from Britain. Until that time it was called the State House Bell—because it hung in the statehouse.

  STAY TUNED

  Television was first demonstrated to the general public at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. But not everyone who tuned in was turned on. One critic from the New York Times remarked that television would never actually compete with radio because “people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen; the average American family hasn’t the time for it.”

  BIRDS OF A FEATHER

  Confederate General Richard Ewell was an odd-looking fellow with a beak-like nose and a bald head that he would cock to one side when he was speaking. Because he had lost a leg in a previous battle, he hopped around camp like a parakeet. Ewell fought bravely at Gettysburg, but he had such a nervous disposition that he found it difficult to sleep in a normal position and would curl around a stool instead of lying in his cot. He had convinced himself that he had some mysterious internal “disease,” and his diet consisted almost entirely of frumenty, hulled wheat boiled in milk and sweetened with sugar. It was also reported from camp guards that Ewell would sit in his tent for hours alone—quietly chirping to himself.

  Apparently more Catholics attended Mass during Prohibition than any time in American history—because the production of legal sacramental wine increased by hundreds of thousands of gallons during that time.

  ANOTHER BRIQUETTE IN THE WALL

  What do you get when you combine the foremost American inventor and America’s foremost car manufacturer? Would you believe the charcoal briquette? Thomas Edison and Henry Ford are credited with making, from sawdust and glue from Ford’s factory floor and Edison’s creative wizardry, the infamous barbecue fuel. They made it, but they got the idea from someone else: Ellsworth B. A. Zwoyer, who invented, designed, and patented the original briquette in 1897. The mystery as to why Ford and Edison decided to make their own charcoal briquettes has a simple solution—they took the idea from one of their friends, Ellsworth Zwoyer.

  WHAT COMES AROUND

  As President John Adams and his wife, Abigail, traveled home from Philadelphia [then the capital] to Braintree, Massachusetts, they passed through Newark, New Jersey, and the town celebrated the occasion with pomp and ceremony. But not everyone enjoyed seeing the Federalist president, especially Republican Luther Baldwin, who stumbled out of John Burnet’s dram shop and stared drunkenly at the commotion. Hearing the sixteen-gun salute and knowing Baldwin’s hatred of the president, one customer exclaimed, “There goes the president and they are firing at his ass.” To which Baldwin chimed, “I don’t care if they fire through his ass!” With that remark, Baldwin was immediately arrested under the new Alien and Sedition laws [similar to the modern Patriot Act] for uttering “seditious words tending to defame the President and Government of the United States.” Baldwin was fined, assessed court costs, and sent to a federal jail until he made financial amends.

  RUMORS OF MY DEATH HAVE BEEN EXAGGERATED

  In 1800, newspapers across the United States printed the sad news that Vice President Thomas Jefferson had died at Monticello [his estate in Virginia] after a brief illness. From the moment the article was first printed in a Baltimore paper on June 30 and for an entire week some people were grief stricken, some were doubtful about the story, and some, mainly Jefferson’s enemies, were hopeful. It turned out that Thomas Jefferson had died as reported, but it wasn’t Thomas Jefferson the author of the Declaration of Independence—it was one of Thomas Jefferson’s slaves who shared the same name. It was twenty-six years before Thomas Jefferson died in 1826—on July 4.

  GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH

  IS THE ONLY PRESIDENT WITH FOUR NAMES.

  THE BLACK AND RED OF IT ALL

  On January 8, 1835, the United States under President Andrew Jackson, for the first and only time, completely paid off its national debt [well, actually we still owed $33,733.05, but who’s counting?]. This was accomplished through the sale of public lands in the West. The country was debt free for only a short time, and then it rapidly went millions of dollars into the red.

  On May 16, 1974, Richard Kleindienst, John Mitchell’s successor as attorney general after the Watergate scandal, pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failing to accurately testify before a Senate committee. Kleindienst is the first attorney general ever convicted of a crime.

  DON’T FLIP YOUR WHIG

  When the Whig party nominated Zachary Taylor as its presidential candidate in early June 1848, they sent him a letter notifying him of their choice, and he sent the letter back. Why? Because at that time, recipients of letters paid the postage, not the person sending the letter. In fact, the first stamp was issued only one year before Taylor’s nomination, but the practice of recipient-paid postage still continued. Because Taylor was extremely popular as one of the heroes of the Mexican-American War [I guess you could say he was a Big Whig], he received a great deal of fan mail for which he would have had to pay the postage. So he routinely returned all the mail he received, including the nomination. It wasn’t until July that Taylor learned he was the official candidate for the Whig Party. He went on to become president in 1849 and was the last Whig ever elected.

  THE RIDE OF YOUR LIFE

  When most Americans think about a heroic horseback ride to warn citizens of a British invasion, they think of Paul Revere. But Revere only rode nineteen miles before he was captured. So why do we remember him, and not the truly heroic 345-mile ride by Israel Bissell? Who? Bissell, a twenty-three-year-old postal rider, rode four days and six hours [April 19, 1775-April 23, 1775] from Boston to Philadelphia, warning the citizens of each town he rode through by shouting, “To arms, to arms. The war has begun.” He was so underappreciated for his bravery that in several historical documents his first name was inaccurately listed as Trail.

  UNTIL 1900, THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND HAD TWO CAPITALS,

  ONE AT PROVIDENCE AND THE OTHER AT NEWPORT.

  GRANT YOUR WISHES

  Some people, mainly Republicans, charged John Kennedy with nepotism when he asked his brother Bobby to serve as attorney general. But the king of keeping it in the family was Republican President Ulysses S. Grant. Grant placed his father on the payroll as postmaster at Covington, Kentucky; his wife’s brother-in-law James Casey was appointed collector of customs to the Port of New Orleans; another brother-in-law served as appraiser of customs in San Francisco; his cousin Silas Hudson was named a minister to Guatemala; and another brother-in-law was minister to Denmark. In all, nearly forty people associated with Grant, including thirteen relatives, benefited from “Grantism.”

  GEORGE WASHINGTON WAS THE FIRST AND ONLY PRESIDENT TO

  HAVE BEEN ELECTED BY A UNANIMOUS ELECTORAL VOTE.

  A CHAMBER MUSICIAN

  On January 23, 1978, Terry Kath, lead guitarist for the rock group Chicago, was playing around with a .38 revolver during a party. As a joke, he put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Kath, a gun enthusiast, then picked up a 9mm semi-automatic pistol and prepared to do the same thing but was asked by the party’s host to stop. Kath deftly removed the gun’s clip, reassured the host by saying, “Don’t worry, it’s not loaded,” and proceeded to shoot himself in the head. Even though Kath had removed the magazine he had forgotten to unload the chamber and was killed instantly.

  In 1908, the grandnephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles Joseph Bonaparte, created the Bureau of Investigation, which would later become known as the FBI.

  A SLAVE TO THE PAST

  When they were boys, future Presidents Millard Fillmore and Andrew Johnson were indentured servants. An indentured servant is a laborer under contract to an employer for a specified period of time, usually three to seven years,
in exchange for necessities such as food, drink, clothing, transportation, and lodging. The master basically owned the indentured servant, who had hardly any rights, until the term of the contract was met. Andrew Johnson was indentured to a tailor, and he ran away. The tailor placed an advertisement in the Raleigh Gazette [North Carolina], offering a reward of $10 for the capture and return of the future President Johnson. Fillmore served his master, a cloth maker, for several years and was able to purchase his freedom for $30. Sometimes I wonder if we would have been better off if they had stayed indentured servants.

  OUT OF THE MOUTH OF ABE