Historical trivia

Britain's crazy old money system...

Trivia

On this date in 1921 William H. Taft became Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. He was the first, and to date, only former president to hold the top job in both the executive and judicial branches of government. 

World's Oldest Photographs (pt 1)

Presidential Trivia

 In the spirit of the moment here are a few questions for history enthusiasts. See how many you can answer before looking them up or checking the comments. I will post the answers tomorrow.

* Who was the last president elected by the US House of Representatives?

* Excluding those who died in office, which presidents did not attend the inauguration of their successors?

* Two men ran against each other for the office of Vice President. The Republican won and the Democrat lost. Both would go on to become President of the United States. Who were they?

* Who was the last third party candidate to actually win one or more states in the Electoral College?

* Who was the only president to formally join a church while in office, being baptized, confirmed, and receiving Communion all in the same day? 

Supreme Court Historical Trivia: Dying in office

With the passing of Justice Ginsburg there has been much discussion about her refusal to resign, presumably in an effort to deny President Trump the opportunity to appoint her successor. And it has been noted that since 1953 Ginsburg is just the fourth Supreme Court justice to die on the bench. The others being Justice Scalia in 2016, Chief Justice Rehnquist in 2005, and Justice Robert Jackson all the way back in 1954.

But a look at the history of the court suggests retirement as the norm for justices is fairly new. Prior to the 1950s and especially in the 19th century, it was extremely common, arguably normative, for justices to remain on the job for life. To date there have been 114 Justices of the Supreme Court. What follows is a list of the 52 who died in office in the order they were appointed to the high court.

William Cushing

James Wilson

James Iredell

William Paterson

John Rutledge

Samuel Chase

Bushrod Washington

John Marshall

William Johnson

Henry Brockholst Livingston

Thomas Todd

Joseph Story

Smith Thompson

Robert Trimble

John McLean

Henry Baldwin

James Moore Wayne

Roger B. Taney

Philip Pendleton Barbour

John Catron

John McKinley

Peter Vivian Daniel

Levi Woodbury

Nathan Clifford

Samuel Freeman Miller

Salmon P. Chase

Joseph P. Bradley

Morrison Waite

John Marshall Harlan

William Burnham Woods

Stanley Matthews

Horace Gray

Samuel Blatchford

Lucius Quintus
Cincinnatus Lamar II

Melville Fuller

David Josiah Brewer

Howell Edmunds Jackson

Rufus W. Peckham

Horace Harmon Lurton

Edward Douglass White

Joseph Rucker Lamar

Pierce Butler

Edward Terry Sanford

Benjamin N. Cardozo

Frank Murphy

Harlan F. Stone

Robert H. Jackson

Wiley Blount Rutledge

Fred M. Vinson

William Rehnquist

Antonin Scalia

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The Rodney Dangerfield of Presidents

President William H. Taft

Western Union Telegram from the Secretary of War to President Taft April 7, 1911...

"Heard you went riding yesterday. stop. How is the horse? stop - Jacob Dickinson"

By odd coincidence, President Taft replaced his War Secretary a few weeks later.

And now for a little trivia...

How is it that the tenth President of the United States (b 1790) has two living grandsons in 2018?

Answer

Happy New Year!

For those who hew to really really traditional church calendars, today is the first day of the year 7525 since the creation of the world.

On this day in 1759...

Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease at £45 per annum to the St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin and began brewing beer. The rest is history.

On this day in 1929

In 1929, the Empire State Building was a long way from completion when an announcement was made on this day. The building's sponsors unveiled their plans to top the skyscraper with a mooring tower, because it seemed likely that there would be regular worldwide zeppelin service in the near future. One zeppelin did actually tie up briefly, but the tower's major effect was that it gave the building a good deal more height - and another observation deck.

The point of this is that the next time you are opining on the certainty of what lies in the future just take a look at that pointy needle on top of the Empire State Building, and ask yourself where all the zeppelins went.

On May 11th...

• 1745 – War of the Austrian Succession: French forces defeated the Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian "Pragmatic Army" at the Battle of Fontenoy in the Austrian Netherlands in present day Belgium.
• 1812 – In the lobby of the British House of Commons, Spencer Perceval (pictured) became the first, and to date only, British Prime Minister to be assassinated.
• 1894 – In response to a 28 percent wage cut, 4,000 Pullman Palace Car Company workers went on a strike in Illinois, bringing traffic west of Chicago to a halt.
• 1910 – Glacier National Park, located in the U.S. state of Montana, was designated a national park.
• 1985 – During an association football match between Bradford City and Lincoln City in Bradford, England, a flash fire consumed one side of the Valley Parade stadium, killing 56 attendees.
• 1997 – Deep Blue became the first computer to win a match against a world chess champion, when it defeated Garry Kasparov in six games.

I did not know this

Former President John Tyler, born 221 years ago, still has two living grandchildren. The one-term president isn't a well-known historical figure; he's probably best remembered for helping to push through the annexation of Texas in 1845, shortly before leaving office.

So, how is it possible that a former president who died 150 years ago would still have direct descendents alive today? As it turns out, the Tyler men were known for fathering children late in life. And that math is pretty outstanding when added up:

John Tyler was born in 1790. He became the 10th president of the United States in 1841 after William Henry Harrison died in office. Tyler fathered Lyon Gardiner Tyler in 1853, at age 63. Then, at the age of 71, Lyon Gardiner Tyler fathered Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. in 1924 and four years later at age 75, Harrison Ruffin Tyler. Both men are still alive today.

Read the rest here.

HT: MCJ

Calendar Trivia

Just checked the calendar and discovered that Easter in 2012 falls on the 15th of April, the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  On the upside that would normally also be Income Tax Day which means people will have an extra day to file.

Some Historical Trivia

234 years ago the gentlemen of Tipperary, Galway, Mayo, Sligo and Roscommon meeting at the Clonmel Summer Assizes adopted a set of rules governing the conduct of "affairs of honour" between gentlemen in Ireland.  These rules, often referred to as "The Twenty-Six Commandments," gained wide acceptance both within and outside of Ireland and became the basis for most recognized dueling codes.

150 years ago the first Flag Day was observed.

45 years ago the Roman Catholic Church abolished the Index Librorum Prohibitorum

Historical Trivia: Two things I did not know

The popular 18th century rendition of Adeste Fideles (O Come All Ye Faithful) by the Roman Catholic John Francis Wade (1711-1786) was actually a coded announcement of the birth of Bonnie Prince Charlie - the Young Pretender intended for Jacobite loyalists in the Three Kingdoms (England, Scotland and Ireland).

The last state prisoner confined in the Tower of London was... Rudolph Hess in 1941 following his bizarre flight to Britain in the middle of the war.