Saltwater taffy came into being in 1883 when a candy store owner’s shop was flooded after a major storm. His entire stock of taffy was soaked with salty Atlantic Ocean water. When a young girl came in for some taffy, he jokingly offered her some “saltwater taffy”, but she was delighted, buying the candy and proudly showing it to her friends. Her mother heard the story, and the name stuck.
Today, saltwater taffy is very popular in East Coast cities such as Atlantic City and Virginia Beach. In the latter city, saltwater taffy can be purchased from several shops along the aptly named Atlantic Avenue, the last street before you reach the ocean.
The United States Attorney is the top Federal lawyer in any Federal district, of which there are 93 nationwide. Ohio has both a Northern District and a Southern District, roughly dividing the state east-to-west through the middle. Some smaller states, such as Vermont, are a single Federal district.
The Ohio Statehouse in Columbus was built, in part, with prison labor. It officially opened in 1861. President-elect Abraham Lincoln stopped there for a public reception on his way to Washington, D.C.
Lincolm, Nebraska is one of four state capitals named after a US president. The other three are Madison, Wisconsin; Jackson, Mississippi; and Jefferson City, Missouri.
Apple Computers introduced its revolutionary McIntosh desktop with a famous commercial based on Orson Welles’ dystopian fiction novel 1984, in which a woman throws a sledgehammer at the giant talking form of Big Brother. The tagline: "You’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984."
The 1892 exhumation and desecration of the corpse of consumption victim Mercy Brown in Exeter, Rhode Island is the best known example in the US of a superstitious ritual to end the predations of a suspected vampire, and the spread of tuberculosis among locals and other family members. It was actually only one of a number of such instances in the 19th century in the area surrounding Jewett, Connecticut, but the Mercy Brown case was the one credited with giving Bram Stoker the idea for Dracula.
ETA: *1984 *was by by George Orwell (Eric Blair), not Orson Welles.
Southold, NY, on Long Island is the oldest English settlement in New York State, founded in 1640 by a group of settlers from Connecticut led by Barnabas Horton.
Andrew Harris, founder, lead singer, and songwriter of black-metal (anti-Christian) band Judas Iscariot in the 90’s, performed under the stage name Akhenaten. Other members were Cryptic Winter, Kanwulf, Lord Imperial, Proscriptor, and Butcher (the drummer, real name unknown).
The heavy metal band Judas Priest was named after a song by Bob Dylan (“The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest”), which may explain why they did a cover of “Diamonds and Rust,” a song Joan Baez wrote about her difficult relationship with Dylan.