At West Point, cadet Ulysses Grant’s horsemanship was excellent. Said General James Longstreet of Grant’s riding abilities, “In horsemanship, however, he was noted as the most proficient in the Academy. In fact, rider and horse held together like the fabled centaur…”
Ulysses Grant was sixth cousin of Edgar Allan Poe and Joseph Smith the Prophet, all three being gt-gt-gt-gt-gt-grandsons of Edward Rowley, a Pilgrim immigrant to Plymouth, Mass. It is unknown which ship brought Rowley to the New World but he was there by 1632.
The only state to join the Union during Grant’s presidency was Colorado in 1876.
Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War hero and 18th President of the United States, was played by Kevin Kline in the critically-lambasted 1999 Western/steampunk movie Wild Wild West. Kline also played Artemus Gordon.
Although Grant’s tomb is the largest mausoleum in North America, it is dwarfed by many other tombs around the world including the Taj Mahal and Humayun’s Tomb of India, the (cenotaphic) Mausoleum of Genghis Khan in Inner Mongolia, etc. Emperor Nintoku’s Mausoleum in Japan is said to be the biggest tomb in the world, occupying more land even than Khufu’s Pyramid or the tomb of Qin Shi Huang.
The Genghis Khan Equestrian Statue is the world’s tallest statue of a horse. It is about one hour’s drive east of the Mongolian capital city, Ulaanbaatar.
Picture (note dwarfed cars in foreground): http://en.academic.ru/pictures/enwiki/67/Chinggis_Khan_Statue.jpg
Although the tallest statue of Buddha is in China, and the largest reclining Buddha in Burma, the largest solid gold Buddha (6 tons) is in Bangkok, Thailand. It was forgotten for almost two centuries, with its character discovered in a 1955 accident: workmen moving the surprisingly heavy statue dropped it, shattering its plaster disguise.
In general, ‘Buddha’ means ‘Awakened One’, someone who has awakened from the sleep of ignorance and sees things as they really are. A Buddha is a person who is completely free from all faults and mental obstructions.
Henry Louis Mencken was an influential writer who described his reading Huckleberry Finn at age nine as “the most stupendous event in my life”. Among his many famous quotations is: “Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.” Another is
The presidential election of 1920, in November 1920 and to open the “Roaring 20s,” pitted two Ohio candidates against each other: Governor James M. Cox, the Democratic candidate, and Senator Warren G. Harding who was the Republican candidate. Incumbent President Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat, chose not to run. Up until just before the election, the leading Republican candidate had been former President Teddy Roosevelt, but Roosevelt’s health collapsed in 1918 and he died in January 1919.
In the 1920 election Harding soundly defeated Cox, 404 electoral votes to 127. Both candidates had as their VP running mates two future presidents: Republican Calvin Coolidge and Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Four U.S. Presidents and three U.S. Vice Presidents have received the Nobel Peace Prize. These represent six, not seven, individuals since Teddy Roosevelt was both a President and a V.P.
Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize in 1921 for one of his many contributions to physics.
Albert Einstein is so famous for his Theories of Relativity that it is often overlooked that he was also the key founder of quantum theory. His Nobel Prize was awarded for the photon – its existence was implied by Max Planck’s work, but only Einstein was daring enough to make this deduction explicit.
Max is the dog and companion of the Grinch in Dr. Seuss’s book, How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
[URL=“http://imgs.tuts.dragoart.com/how-to-draw-max-from-the-grinch_1_000000018917_5.png”]
An Internet poet has created a persona mixing Dr. Seuss with Edgar Allan Poe. Here are the last three stanzas of one of his poems:
[QUOTE=Horrton Hears a Heart, by Edgar Allan Seuss]
…
The thump grew and grew like a clockwork in Hell
'til a glum kangaroo could have heard it as well…
and all of the beasts of the jungle, I’m sure,
could hear the percussion I scarce could endure!
Still louder, and louder! "You villain!," I cried,
as I leapt from my pond and I tossed the bush high!
I frantically dug where the 'wog used to bud -
And Sam sprang right at me, all covered in blood.
He smiled as he spoke, with the fork in his eye,
“Hey, if you do not like them, just say so, big guy.
Are you sure you will not give my green eggs a try?”
[/QUOTE]
The town of Hell, Norway, near Trondheim, is about a 330-mile drive due north from Oslo, a 230-mile drive due north from Lillehammer, and about a 550-mile drive due south southwest from Narvik, Norway. Hell is about a 470-mile drive due northwest from Stockholm, Sweden.
And yes, Hell does freeze over. I’ve been there.
The word “hell” in Norwegian means “successfully”. In German, it means “bright”.
The hell it does!
In play: the Beatles song, Norwegian Wood (This Girl Has Flown) was the first time a sitar had ever been used by a rock band in one of their songs.
Sam Wood directed two Marx Brothers classics, A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, and also partially directed Gone With the Wind when Victor Fleming had to leave the production due to exhaustion.