Giuseppe Verdi wrote *Aida *on a commission from the Khedive of Egypt for the ceremonies celebrating the opening of the Suez Canal.
Ferdinand de Lesseps, who developed and managed the construction of the Suez Canal, also attempted to build a canal in Panama in the 1880’s, but failed due to malaria epidemics and the attempt to build the canal at sea level (like Suez), rather than using locks as the eventual American-built canal did (and does) use.
While the United States was embroiled in the Civil War from 1861 to 1865, Egypt was digging out the Suez Canal from 1859 to 1869. The Suez Canal predated the Panama Canal, which opened in 1914, by 45 years.
Construction on the Transcontinental Railroad, connecting Omaha and Sacramento via the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads, began while the American Civil War was still raging. The labor force initially consisted mainly of paroled Confederate prisoners, but when most of them went home after the war, their numbers were replaced mainly by Irish (on the UP) and Chinese (on the CP) immigrants.
The Confederate States Constitution differed from the United States Constitution, among other ways, in perpetually protecting slavery, limiting the president to a single six-year term, and providing him with a line-item veto.
The Constitution of the State of Alabama, at 310,296 words, is 12 times longer than the average state constitution, 44 times longer than the U.S. Constitution, and is the longest and most amended constitution still operative anywhere in the world.
The world’s oldest constitution still in use today is that of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It was originally written by John Adams, essentially single-handed.
The USS John Adams (SSBN-620), was a Lafayette-class submarine commissioned in 1964 and decommissioned in 1989. It was the second warship of the United States Navy to be named for John Adams (1735-1826), second President of the United States (1797-1801), and his son John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), sixth President (1825-1829). Both names were used, with the captain of the crew which had possession of the sub using the name John Adams and the off-crew captain using the name John Quincy Adams.
John Quincy Adams was the only President ever elected who had won neither the popular nor the electoral vote. He was chosen by the House over Andrew Jackson in 1824, in what Jackson denounced as the “Corrupt Bargain” organized by Speaker Henry Clay (himself the fourth-place electoral finisher). Clay became Adams’ Secretary of State for his troubles. Resentment by Jackson and his supporters propelled him to victory 4 years later.
Immediately after finishing a duet of “Jackson” in a 1968 concert in London, Ontario, Johnny Cash asked June Carter to marry him, refusing to let the band start a new song until she answered.
The Opryland Hotel, now officially known as the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, is located in Nashville Tennessee, near the Grand Old Opry house. It is the largest hotel in Tenessee with over 2,800 rooms and and 289,000 square foot exhibit hall.
Maj. Gen. George Henry Thomas earned the nickname “the Sledge of Nashville” for his crushing victory over the Confederate army led by Lt. Gen. John Bell Hood there in mid-December 1864.
Mt. Hood, near Portland, OR, was named by Lt. William Broughton, a member of George Vancouver’s exploration expedition. Lt. Broughton named the mountain after Samuel Hood, 1st Viscount Hood, a British Admiral at the Battle of the Chesapeake.
David Glasgow Farragut, first admiral of the United States Navy, began his naval career as a midshipman at the age of nine. He served for sixty years.
Admiral Farragut is best known for his quote “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” at the battle of Mobile Bay in 1864. However the torpedoes were actually a type of mine, not the self-powered devices used today and the actual full quote was “Damn the torpedoes, Four bells, Captain Drayton, go ahead. Jouett, full speed.”
Admiral David Farragut is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx. It is one of the largest cemeteries in New York City and is a designated National Historic Landmark. Others interred there are Billy Bang, Otto Preminger, Duke Ellington, Grantland Rice, Oscar Hammerstein I, Joseph Pulitzer, Fiorello La Guardia, and Collis Potter Huntington who was one of the Big Four of the Central Pacific Railroad.
The Big Four are buried in:
✞ Leland Stanford, CPRR President — at Stanford Mausoleum, Stanford CA (born in Watervliet NY!)
✞ Collis Potter Huntington, CPRR Vice President — at Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx NY
✞ Mark Hopkins Jr., CPRR Treasurer — at Sacramento Historic City Cemetery, Sacramento CA
✞ Charles Crocker, Construction Supervisor, President of CPRR subsidiary Charles Crocker & Co. — at Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland CA (born in Troy NY!)
One author buried in New York City’s Woodlawn Cemetery is Elizabeth Cochran Seaman, well known in her time by her pseudonym Nellie Bly. As a newspaper reporter she was celebrated for her exposés of the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, the conditions at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island (where she lived undercover for ten days) and her 1888 trip around the world in 72 days.
The most famous author buried in Woodlawn is Herman Melville. During his lifetime his best-known novels were Typee and Omoo. His masterpiece, Moby-Dick, did not gain full recognition until after his death.
Herman Melville wrote Moby-Dick in 1851 when he was 32. Melville served 18 months working on the whaling ship Acushnet in 1841 when he was 22. Besides that, the sinking of the whaleship Essex in 1820 after being rammed by a sperm whale, and the 1830s death of the tough albino sperm whale named Mocha Dick with some 20 harpoons in him all fed into Melville’s classic work. It wasn’t until 70 years after its release, and 30 years after Melville’s death, that the novel’s appreciation grew substantially.
The Mocha coffee bean is originally from Mocha, Yemen. The plant was brought from Yemen in 1914 and was first planted in Arehalli Village State of Mysore (Now Karnataka State) in India during the British rule.