Gen. George Washington was described, after she first met him, by Abigail Adams in a letter to her husband: “He is polite with dignity, affable without familiarity, distant without haughtiness, grave without austerity, modest, wise, and good.”
One nickname for Toronto is “Toronto the Good”, dating back to the mid-19th century and its reputation as a centre for Victorian morality.
Now tends to be used ironically.
One of the more positive aspects of Victorian Morality was the ending of slavery in all British colonies and the rigid enforcement against international slave trading by the British Navy. If any slavetrading ships were found, the slaves were freed and sent to Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone’s capital was named “Freetown”.
Gone With The Wind’ Rhett Butler refers to Queen Victoria as “that fat Dutch woman sitting on the throne,” when pointing out that she did not approve of slavery and would never help the Southern cause.
Old Dutch Foods is an American snack food company. The company was founded in 1934 in St. Paul, Minnesota, and is currently headquarted in suburban Roseville. Old Dutch makes a range of snack foods, but is primarily known for its potato chips, which are distributed in the upper Midwestern United States, as well as in portions of Canada.
Prior to his conversion, St Paul held the coats of the people who stoned St Stephen, the proto-martyr.
St. Stephen’s feast day is traditionally celebrated on December 25 (Armenian Christianity), 26 (Western) or 27 (Eastern). The sole Episcopal church in East Liverpool, Ohio is St. Stephen’s.
King Stephen was the only English king of that name. He was neither the son of his predecessor, Henry I, nor the father of his successor, Henry II.
Peter O’Toole played King Henry II of England twice, in *Becket *and The Lion in Winter.
The 1966 movie A Man for All Seasons tells the story of Sir Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor of England who refused to ask the Pope to annul the marriage of King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon, and he also refused to take an Oath of Supremacy declaring Henry VIII Supreme Head of the Church of England. More was executed for his troubles.
The movie received eight Academy Award nominations and won six.
Sir Thomas More insisted upon giving his daughters the same classical education as his son, a highly unusual attitude at the time.
Oberlin College, founded in 1833, was the first American college to regularly admit and provide an education to both women and people of color. It had strong roots in the abolitionist movement, and a later book about the college and its surrounding town of the same name was entitled The Town That Started the Civil War.
The Civil Wars formally began on August 22, 1642, when Charles I raised the Royal Standard at Nottingham to raise an army.
Although the term ‘Civil War’ would appear to be a contradiction, historians agree that a ‘Civil War’ is a war between citizens of the same country. The English Civil Wars were generally conflicts between the Royalists and Parliamentarians, who disagreed on the manner in which the country should be ruled.
The song"War," originally performed by The Temptations and a #1 hit for Edwin Starr, was performed in concert by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in 1985, added to the set list for the final few shows of their lengthy Born in the U.S.A. Tour. Springsteen and his manager Jon Landau were looking for a way to make these concluding shows, taking place at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, a little different and special, and Landau suggested playing “War”. A year earlier, he had suggested the same, as a loose protest against Reagan Administration foreign policy in Central America and elsewhere, but the band had been unable to come up with an effective arrangement. This time, however, they did. Springsteen taped the words of the song to his arm, prefaced the song with a spoken admonition not to blindly trust the government, leaders or anything else, and then he and the band performed a rock rendition.
Springsteen released the September 30, 1985 performance as a part of his 1986 box set, Live/1975–85. “War” was chosen as the first single from the set, and it was again a big hit, reaching No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The music video for the single was a straight concert filming of the same performance.
Bruce Springsteen appeared in Cleveland, Ohio, with then-Sen. Barack Obama, the Sunday before Election Day 2008, and performed several songs in a park near City Hall, just before Obama addressed the massive crowd. Springsteen had long stayed out of electoral politics but endorsed and campaigned with Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry in 2004, so strong was his opposition to the policies of President George W. Bush. Kerry went on to serve as Obama’s second-term Secretary of State.
The United States Secretary of State is most famous for being responsible for foreign affairs. Originally, the Secretary of state was also, oddly, responsible for keeping and preserving the actual physical Great Seal of the United States.
The first Secretary of State was Thomas Jefferson. He was one of four members of the first Cabinet under President George Washington. The other three were Attorney General Edmund Randolph, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, and Secretary of War Henry Knox.
Henry Knox had been a bookseller before the Revolution, and a witness to the Boston Massacre. He then studied artillery tactics from the books of militaria in his store, then directed the construction of fortifications and commanded cannon fire at Bunker Hill. Knox had the idea of relocating the cannons at the captured Fort Ticonderoga the 300 miles to Boston, and executed the plan that forced the British to evacuate the city. Knox’s effort is commemorated by a series of plaques marking the Henry Knox Trail in New York and Massachusetts.
The Scottish minister John Knox published his best known pamphlet, “The first blast of the trumpet against the monstruous regiment of women”, in 1558. The title has been misinterpreted as referring to an army of women, but by “regiment” Knox refers to women rulers, especially Queen Mary I of England and Mary of Guise, the Dowager Queen of Scotland and regent on behalf of her daughter, Mary, Queen of Scots.