In 1963, 17-year-old Laura Welch ran a stop sign, causing the death of the sole occupant of the vehicle hers had struck. According to the police report, the future First Lady had been driving her Chevrolet sedan to a local drive-in theater on a clear night shortly after 8 p.m. on 6 November 1963 when she entered an intersection without heeding the stop sign and there collided with the Corvair sedan driven by her friend 17-year-old Michael Douglas.
In spite of media questioning and conspiracy theories, Laura Bush did not speak publicly about the accident until her 2010 autobiography, in which she wrote of her enduring guilt, regret and loss of faith after the accident.
When President Ronald Reagan was shot in Washington DC, Vice President George HW Bush was in Fort Worth TX and flew back to Washington immediately. When Bush’s plane landed, Reagan’s aides advised him to proceed directly to the White House by helicopter, as an image of the government still functioning despite the attack. Bush rejected the idea, responding, “Only the President lands on the South Lawn.”
This made a positive impression on Reagan, who recovered and returned to work within two weeks. From then on, Reagan and Bush would have regular Thursday lunches in the Oval Office.
On July 26, 1990, US President George H. W. Bush signed into law the “Americans with Disabilities Act,” a civil rights law prohibiting, under certain circumstances, discrimination based on disability.
The ADA required banks to put Braille keys on ATM terminals in the drive-through lane, so the number pad keys could be correctly identified by blind drivers.
According to a legend, Thomas W. Holley of Holyoke, Massachusetts, invented the legal pad around the year 1888. In about 1900, the latter then evolved into the modern legal pad when a local judge requested for a margin to be drawn on the left side of the paper.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Holyoke, Massachusetts reached a peak of prosperity due to its paper mills on the Connecticut river. During that period the city was rapidly growing in population; by the 1910 census, it had over 57,000 residents, and the city was one of the world’s leading paper manufacturing centers. However, by the middle of the 20th century the factories began closing, and the population dropped. The 2010 census showed fewer than 40,000 residents, and Holyoke currently has the second lowest median household income level out of all 351 Massachusetts cities and towns.
On February 7, 1613, Mikhail Romanov was elected Tsar of Russia, thereby establishing the Romanov Dynasty and ending the “Time of Troubles”—a reference to the preceding 15 years in which Russia suffered a famine that killed one-third of the population, about two million.
Like many lofty titles, e.g. Mogul, Tsar or Czar has been used as a metaphor for positions of high authority, in English, since 1866 (referring to U.S. President Andrew Johnson), with a connotation of dictatorial powers and style, fitting since “Autocrat” was an official title of the Russian Emperor (informally referred to as ‘the Tsar’). Similarly, Speaker of the House Thomas Brackett Reed was called “Czar Reed” for his dictatorial control of the House of Representatives in the 1880s and 1890s.
Alhough the term “czar” is not an official designation for a title in the US executive branch, appointees with specific duties have been referred to as czars since the FDR administration, and so far, President Obama has appointed 44 of them, compared to 49 by George W Bush, and 54 the total number of all the previous presidents. American presidents have appointed 10 Drug Czars, which, inexplicably, does not have the same connotation as the Drug Czars who live in Mexico.
President Lincoln was pressured to choose among appointees for commissioner to the Hawaiian Islands, most of whom claimed they could recover the their health in the islands’ warm climate. After a pitch from one delegation, President Lincoln cut them short: “Gentlemen, I am sorry to say that there are eight other applicants for that place, and they are all ‘sicker’n’ your man.”
There is only one US state that fits the mold for good coffee growing conditions: high altitudes, tropical climates, and rich soil. Hawaii has been producing coffee since the mid-nineteenth century. Coffee is produced on all the Hawaiian islands, but Kona coffee, grown on the slopes of the active Mauna Loa volcano on the Big Island, is revered as the state’s best.
In 1583, Leonhard Rauwolf, a German physician, gave this description of coffee after returning from a ten-year trip to the Near East:
“A beverage as black as ink, useful against numerous illnesses, particularly those of the stomach. Its consumers take it in the morning, quite frankly, in a porcelain cup that is passed around and from which each one drinks a cupful. It is composed of water and the fruit from a bush called bunnu.”
Three USF students (Univ. of San Francisco) began a coffee shop. Fans of Moby Dick by Herman Melville, they considered the name Pequod, the ship’s name, for their shop. They also considered using the name ‘Cargo House.’
They eventually chose the name of Captain Ahab’s Chief Mate, Starbuck, and when they opened their first shop in Seattle their coffee first came from Peet’s.
In 1989 brothers Bert and John Jacobs designed their first T-shirts. They began selling their designs in the streets of Boston and out of an old van at colleges and street fairs along the East Coast of the United States. In 1994, following a not-so-successful road trip, they returned to Boston, unsure of the future of their business. It was their common practice to gather friends at their apartment following such trips to share stories and to ask their friends to comment on drawings and sayings posted on their living room walls. On this occasion, one drawing received considerable favorable attention from their friends — the head of a beret-wearing, smiling stick figure and the phrase “Life is good.” The brothers named the character Jake and printed up 48 shirts bearing a smiling Jake and the words “Life is good.” At a street fair in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the shirts sold out in less than an hour. The brothers began to sell T-shirts and hats featuring Jake in local stores, and eventually opened a factory in Boston.
The smiley face as we know it today was created by Harvey Ross Ball, an employee of State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts (now Hanover Insurance). He created it in 1963 to raise employee morale. Ball created the design in ten minutes and was paid $45 (equivalent to $330 USD in 2012 currency). Ball’S rendition, with bright yellow background, dark oval eyes, full smile and creases at the sides of the mouth, was imprinted on more than fifty million buttons and was familiar around the world. The design is so simple that it is certain that similar versions were produced before 1963, including those cited above. However, Ball’s rendition, as described here, has become the most iconic version and is seen on t-shirts around the world.
An alternative and fictional version of the creation of the Smiley Face was provided in the 1994 Tom Hanks movie Forrest Gump, in which the title character offhandedly devises it.
The character called “Face” or “Faceman” in the TV series The A-Team was played by Tim Dunigan in the pilot and Dirk Benedict in the series. The character’s real name was Templeton Peck.
American actor Gregory Peck, well-known for playing heroic Alabama lawyer Atticus Finch in the movie version of To Kill A Mockingbird, was strongly liberal in his political views and was affiliated with People for the American Way in his final years.
On October 18, 1540, forces led by Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto demolished the village of Mabila in present-day Alabama, killing Chief Tuskaloosa.
was created by Harvey Ross Ball, an employee of State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, Massachusetts (now Hanover Insurance). He created it in 1963 to raise employee morale. Ball created the design in ten minutes and was paid $45 (equivalent to $330 USD in 2012 currency). Ball’S rendition, with bright yellow background, dark oval eyes, full smile and creases at the sides of the mouth, was imprinted on more than fifty million buttons and was familiar around the world. The design is so simple that it is certain that similar versions were produced before 1963, including those cited above. However, Ball’s rendition, as described here, has become the most iconic version and is seen on t-shirts around the world.