A photograph exists of a 6-year-old Teddy Roosevelt watching Abraham Lincoln’s funeral cortege passing by from an upstairs window of his grandfather’s house on New York City’s Union Square.
The first American equestrian sculpture cast in bronze is the impressive equestrian statue of U.S. President George Washington, modeled by Henry Kirke Brown and unveiled in 1856, which is located in NYC’s Union Square.
Abraham Lincoln’s speech at Cooper Union in New York City is often credited with making him president. Though its memorable lines are few, Lincoln used it to lay out a concise and convincing case for abolition, turning him from a regional politician to a national leader.
In the Cooper Union speech, Lincoln disassociates himself from the recent event at Harper’s Ferry:
“John Brown’s effort was … so absurd that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not succeed. … An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own execution. Orsini’s attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown’s attempt at Harper’s Ferry were, in their philosophy, precisely the same. The eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one case, and on New England in the other, does not disprove the sameness of the two things.”
The United Daughters of the Confederacy placed a monument at Harper’s Ferry to the ironic first victim of Brown’s abortive Oct. 1859 slave uprising: Hayward Shepherd, a free black man and a baggage handler for the B&O railroad.
In 1939, the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow Miriam Anderson to perform at Constitution Hall simply because she was black. Instead, she performed in front of the Lincoln Memorial. It is this refusal that led to Eleanor Roosevelt to cancel her DAR membership.
Marian (not Miriam) Anderson later sang at the 1961 Inauguration of President John F. Kennedy, which took place at the East Front of the United States Capitol. Robert Frost recited a poem from memory when he was unable, due to the glare, to read one he’d specially written for the occasion.
The New York State Capitol Building is the only one in the 50 states that does not have a dome. A dome was planned, but it was discovered that the building was already supporting too much weight and was starting the shift downhill. Four different architects worked on the design during the 32 years of its construction, using three different architectural styles.
Regardless of Hawaii 5-0, the Aloha State is the only one of the 50 without a state police force.
Not so:
Ohio does not have a state police, as such; it has a Highway Patrol, which is limited in its authority due to longstanding institutional jealousy and turf protection by the Buckeye State Sheriff’s Association.
In a rivalry which goes back to the Civil War, the police department of the City of St. Louis is technically under the control of the governor of Missouri. Repeated efforts to have the Police Board either appointed by the mayor or elected by residents have failed to make it out of the state legislature.
Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States during the Civil War, and Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States, were both born in Kentucky within a hundred miles of each other. Lincoln rose to political power in Illinois, however, and Davis in Mississippi.
Ah, but at least it exists and is some sort of state authority.
The Civil War is a college rivalry between Oregon State University and the University of Oregon. The rivalry is one of the oldest in the nation, dating back to 1894 when the two universities’ football teams first met. Although the college football game is the most popular rivalry, the two universities have Civil War games in every sport that both sponsor. There is also an academic rivalry between the schools on occasion, and competitions for community services such as blood drives take place often.
Oregon is the only state whose flag is different on the front and back - the state seal on the obverse, and a beaver on the reverse.
The flag of Paraguay also features different obverse and reverse designs, although one has to look somewhat closely to note the distinction. The front features the national coat of arms, while the other side contains the seal of the treasury.
The War of the Triple Alliance saw Paraguay at war with three of its neighbors: Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. Proportionately, it caused more deaths than any other war in modern history, with Paraguay especially devastated, losing 60-70% of the population. Overall, there was about a four-to-one ratio in the numbers of females to males after the war. Polygamy was allowed and the Catholic church gave special dispensation to polygamous marriages for some time after the war as a way to build up the population.
The citizens of Utah, then as now largely Mormon, had to disavow polygamy in order to gain U.S. statehood in 1896. Some breakaway Mormon sects, as discussed in Jon Krakauer’s book Under the Banner of Heaven, still quietly practice polygamy.
Mormon founder Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were attacked and killed by a mob, while jailed in Carthage, Illinois on charges relating to his ordering the destruction of facilities producing the Nauvoo Expositor, a newspaper whose first and only edition claimed Smith was practicing polygamy and that he intended to set himself up as a theocratic king. Five men were tried and acquitted of the murder.
The Texas town of Carthage is home to both the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame and a museum devoted to singer/actor Tex Ritter.
Thelma Ritter, who holds the record for the most times nominated for an acting Oscar without a win (with Deborah Kerr), made her film debut (uncredited) in Miracle on 34th Street, playing the mother of a girl who asks for a gift that Macy’s doesn’t have (Kris Kringle tells her to go to another store to find it).