Oneida Ltd., one of the main brands of tableware, originated as a moneymaking craft business by the Oneida Community in upstate New York, one of a number of utopian communities founded in the religious fervor of what was called the Burnt-Over District. The Oneida Community believed Christ had already returned, in the year 70, and practiced: Communalism (in the sense of communal property and possessions), Complex Marriage, Male Continence, Mutual Criticism and Ascending Fellowship. Notably, they encouraged older members to sexually initiate teens.
The 69th New York Volunteers, an infantry regiment largely raised from among Irish immigrants in New York City, was a key part of the Irish Brigade, the best-known ethnic component of the U.S. Army of the Potomac during the Civil War. The regiment’s green banner featured a harp and the sun shining down from Heaven, along with the motto (in Gaelic), “They never shrank from the sound of spears.”
Hundreds of Irish and other immigrants, mostly defectors from the US Army, joined El Batallón de San Patricio to help Mexico fight the US in the 1846-48 war. They fought under a green flag showing a harp and shamrock. They are commemorated in a number of folk songs, and the 1999 film One Man’s Hero.
Another Irish unit, the Connolly Column, served the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, alongside the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, made up of American volunteers.
President Lincoln sometimes annoyed his Cabinet by reading them funny stories or jokes during meetings; he insisted he needed humor in order to cope with the endless bad news from the front during the Civil War. Lincoln also had regular “public opinion baths” in which any citizen could come to the White House to meet with him. He was often barraged with requests for Federal jobs, autographs, pardons for errant soldiers, War Department contracts and assistance in finding lost or wounded troops.
A “disappointed office-seeker”, as the history books usually call him, named Charles Guiteau (a resident of the Oneida Community, see above, before they expelled him for serious weirdness even by their standards) was able to reach President James Garfield in such a way, and took mortal revenge on him for not appointing him Minister to France. The railway station on the Mall in which the assassination occurred was eventually removed, and the Smithsonian National Gallery of Art now stands on the site.
The National Security Agency, which handles electronic intelligence, cryptography and intercepts for the U.S. Government, is based in Ft. Meade, Md. Wags used to joke that the supersecret agency’s initials stood for “No Such Agency.”
Mead, a fermented brew made from honey, water and yeast, was known in several ancient cultures totally independant of one another.
George G. Meade was born in Cadiz, Spain, but raised in Pennsylvania. He commanded the Army of the Potomac during the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863, defeating the Army of Northern Virginia led by Robert E. Lee. President Lincoln was very disappointed that Meade didn’t more aggressively pursue Lee after the battle, but kept his criticism to himself and appointed U.S. Grant to be the top Union general soon after. Meade remained in command of the Army of the Potomac to the end of the war, but under Grant’s direct supervision in the field.
Cadiz, Kentucky, was the location for campaigns by both the Confederate and Union armies in the Civil War, and today has memorials to both sides. The first conflict in Cadiz came when Confederate general Hylan B. Lyon of nearby Eddyville burned the Trigg County courthouse to the ground.
The state of Kentucky operates seventeen “state resort parks” – state parks which feature lodges with overnight accommodations. Several of these resort parks are clustered around the man-made Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley (created when the TVA dammed the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers). One of these is Lake Barkley State Resort Park, located near the town of Cadiz.
The most famous person ever to hail from Cadiz, Ohio (pronounced CAY-diz), was Clark Gable.
Caydiz, Ohio is the seat of Harrison County and the site of a museum dedicated to the near-moribund local coal mining trade.
John Tyler, who became president after the death of William Henry Harrison, remarried late in life and had his last daughter (of 15 children) in 1860, when he was 70. That daughter, Pearl, lived until 1947, over a century after her father left office.
In the 1980 film “Coal Miner’s Daughter”, a biography of Loretta Lynn, Sissy Spacek did her own singing in the title role, as did Beverly D’Angelo as Patsy Cline.
Minnie Pearl made a cameo appearance as herself (save!).
Minnie Pearl’s trademark pricetag began when she (real name Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon) was young and forgot to remove the pricetag from the artificial flowers she used to decorate a hat. Though she got rich playing a spinster hick she was a very happily married and refined former ballet teacher whosehomewas next door to the Tennessee Governor’s Mansion.
A battery of 15-inch Rodman rifled cannon protected the Union-held port of Alexandria, Va., just down the Potomac from Washington, D.C., during the Civil War.
Billy Cannon of LSU won the Heisman Trophy in 1959 after a couple of spectacular touchdowns that clinched wins for his team. Cannon was one of the first big college names signed by the new American Football League, leading the league in rushing its first season and later was converted into a tight end, winning three championship games with the Houston Oilers and Oakland Raiders and becoming only one of 20 players who were in the AFL its entire existence.
The Oakland Raiders lost $500,000 during their first season in the AFL, and might have folded without a $400,000 loan from Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson. One of the Raiders’ owners, Wayne Valley, dubbed his fellow owners “the Foolish Club” because of their investment in the money losing venture. Dallas/Kansas City owner Lamar Hunt liked the phrase so much he had a group photo of the owners inscribed with “The Foolish Club” and sent to his fellow owners.
U.S. Gen. “Mad Anthony” Wayne defeated Tecumseh’s army at the Battle of Fallen Timbers near present-day Toledo, Ohio in 1794, largely ending the Indian threat to the settlement of Ohio, which became a state in 1803.
Marcus Antonius (aka Mark Anthony, Marc Antony, Marco Antonio and other variants) had five known wives: Fadia (who little is known about), his first cousin Antonia Hybrida who he divorced when she slept with his best friend (who remained his best friend), Fulvia (who famously drove her hairpin through the tongue of Cicero’s severed head), Augustus’s sister Octavia, and most famously Cleopatra. In addition to his twins Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene (aka Alex. Sun and Cleo. Moon) and son Ptolemy Philadelphius by Cleo he had two sons (Julius and Marcus) with Fulvia and at least five daughters by his other three wives, all of whom were named (in Roman custom) Antonia.