Mirabeau Lamar, second President of the Republic of Texas, twice attempted to convince the legislature to fund an expedition to Santa Fe to establish trade and to convice the residents there to join the republic, and was twice refused, in 1839 and 1840. In 1841 he took $89,000 from the treasury and sent the expedition without legislative approval. The expedition met with disaster, and the Texans who took part were marched to Mexico City; many died on the march and in prison. The treatment of the prisoners exacerbated tensions between Mexico and the United States, and helped fuel what would become the Mexican-American War following the 1845 annexation of Texas.
Sam Houston, the first president of the Republic of Texas, married three times. His first wife, Eliza Allen, had the marriage annulled very soon after the wedding (supposedly because he became drunk and abusive on their wedding night). His second wife was a Cherokee woman (not a princess) named Tiana Rodgers who also left him and remarried, though he did not marry again until she was dead. His third marriage was to Margaret Lea of Alabama who was 26 years his junior, but it lasted until his death and they had 8 children (the youngest a son named Temple, born when Sam was 67, who became famous in his own right). His last words were “Texas, Texas… Margaret”.
Actor and martial artist Chuck Norris argued in a blog for Texas secession, including an inspirational quote from Sam Houston on the eve of the Battle of San Jacinto as a metaphorical “call to arms.” Ironically, Houston called secession a “betrayal of Texas,” refused an oath to the Confederacy, correctly surmised that secession could not succeed and would result in untold loss of young men’s lives, and was subsequently evicted from the office of Governor of Texas by secessionists. The story was included in John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage.
George Norris, a senator from Nebraska, was one of the eight American politicians discussed in Kenney’s Profiles in Courage for opposing the house speaker’s autocratic power.
Tris Speaker, the seventh person elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, was the centerfielder in the Boston Red Sox “Million Dollar Outfield” from 1910 to 1916, when Speaker was traded to the Indians. The other members were leftfielder Duffy Lewis and rightfielder Harry Hooper.
After his retirement from baseball, Tris Speaker was chairman of Cleveland’s Boxing Commission and was involved in the liquor wholesaling business. He also helped found the Cleveland Society for Crippled Children.
All five of the first five players elected to the baseball Hall of Fame pitched at the major league level. Three of the next four did (the only exception: Nap Lajoie). The first year in which none of those elected was a pitcher was 1942, when Rogers Hornsby was elected.
Tris Speaker, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, and George Sisler all pitched a game or two.
The pitcher plant family is probably the second-best-known family of carnivorous plants, other than the Venus flytrap family. The Purple pitcher plant, Sarracenia purpurea, is the floral emblem of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Venus Flytrap was hired as a disc jockey for WKRP in Cincinatti by new program director Andy Travis. Flytrap’s actual name was Gordon Simms.
Gordon Jump, who played station manager Arthur Carlson on WKRP in Cincinnati, was the second of only four actors to portray The Maytag Repairman (known as “Ol’ Lonely”), a character first essayed by actor Jesse White.
Jump retired in 2003 and died just two months later.
A recurring and lighthearted symbol of Cincinnati today is winged pigs, recalling the phrase “When pigs fly,” and honoring the city’s early history as a major hog-butchering center.
But, according to Carl Sandberg, Chicago was hog butcher for the world.
A Jewish person with the name Resnik or Rasnik is probably descended from a kosher butcher.
Judith Resnik was an engineer and NASA astronaut who died in the 1986 destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger during launch. Resnik, born in Akron, Ohio, was the second American woman and the second Jewish person in space.
Challenger Deep, discovered by soundings by HMS Challenger, is the lowest point in the Marianas Trench, 36,000 feet below the surface. Humans (Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh) were there once, for 20 minutes, in 1960. A specially-made Rolex watch attached to the outside of the bathyscaphe Trieste survived the trip intact. Trieste was later used to find the wreck of the lost submarine USS Thresher.
USS Thresher (SSN-593) was the second U.S. Navy submarine of her name, and the lead ship of her class of nuclear-powered attack subs. She was lost at sea off Cape Cod during deep-diving tests in 1963; later analysis revealed several serious problems with her construction.
In the movie Down Periscope, a WW II diesel sub beats a nuclear sub in war games; one of the tactics used was to only use their electric battery. Modern diesel subs using their electric batteries CAN be significantly quieter than a nuclear sub, in spite of other inaccuracies in the movie.
In Down Periscope, Lauren Holly played the US Navy’s first female submariner, a distinction which has yet to be earned in real life but is pending. In Turbulence, Holly had joined the list of actresses playing flight attendants who find themselves having to land an airliner whose pilots have been killed or incapacitated. The first was Doris Day in Julie.
The part of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate was first offered to Doris Day, who decided it didn’t fit her image and passed on it.
The part of Ben in The Graduate was allegedly offered to Burt Ward, who couldn’t do it because he was still under contract with the Batman TV series.