Stupid American History: Tales of Stupidity, Strangeness, and Mythconceptions

by Leland Gregory

  DON’T HAVE A COW, MAN II

  Many of us are familiar with the story of Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicking over a lantern and starting the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and much of it is true. The fire did start in Catherine O’Leary’s barn house at 137 DeKoven Street, and she did have a cow. But whether the cow was the true culprit is the center of the controversial myth. The fire probably started while her son James and two of his friends, Daniel “Pegleg” Sullivan and Louis M. Cohn, were gambling in the barn. When Mrs. O’Leary came out around 9 p.m. to chase them away, the lantern got knocked over by mistake. Michael Ahern, a Chicago Tribune reporter, admitted several years after the fire that he had made up the story of the cow kicking over the lantern because it was more interesting copy.

  THE SITE OF MRS. O’LEARY’S BARN NOW HOUSES

  THE CHICAGO FIRE DEPARTMENT TRAINING SCHOOL.

  PUMPING IRONY

  It may sound like a tragically ironic myth that on the night the Titanic sank they were showing the film The Poseidon Adventure, about a group of people trying to stay alive after their ocean liner capsized. But it’s true. Two films were scheduled during the voyage and both had nautical themes: The 1911 movie The Lighthouse Keeper starring Mary Pickford played on the evenings of April 12 and 13, and The Poseidon Adventure, directed by D. W. Griffith, played on April 14. The movie began at 11 p.m. and people were so enthralled by the action, they didn’t notice their ship jolting when it hit the fatal iceberg forty minutes later.

  ONE HUMP OR TWO?

  In 1856, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis [who several years later would become the president of the Confederate States of America] ordered seventy camels brought to the United States from the Middle East. Davis realized that camels would be much better suited for travels across desert regions, didn’t need much water, could eat desert vegetation, and could carry more than even the largest horse or mule could carry. The U.S. Camel Corps was established at Camp Verde, Texas, in the hill country north of San Antonio. But the camels didn’t work out as expected; they were very stubborn, required special handlers, and scared the horses. In less than two years, the entire Corps was dismantled and a number of the camels were set loose in the desert.

  In the mid-1870s, one of the abandoned camels wandered into Fort Selden, New Mexico, territory. The strange beast terrified the post commander’s young son, who ran to hide behind his mother. The commander was Captain Arthur MacArthur, whose son grew up to be General of the Army Douglas MacArthur.

  DON’T EARN AN “A”

  The Puritans in Salem, Massachusetts, passed a law in 1695 that imposed severe punishment on a person convicted of the crime of adultery. First, the perpetrator would have to wear the letter “A” on a conspicuous part of his or her clothes for the rest of their lives [which inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story The Scarlet Letter].

  An adulterer could also receive forty lashes from a whip and be required to sit on the gallows, with chains around the neck, for at least one hour. However, in the seventeenth century the penalty for adultery in Massachusetts was death. Even with this form of punishment looming over their heads, when the population of Boston hovered around 4,000 people, there were still forty-eight children born out of wedlock and fifty instances of fornication.

  TWO-TIMING, TWO-YEAR PRESIDENT

  During his short two-year term, the twenty-ninth president of the United States, Warren Harding, was known for only a few things: having a corrupt administration, gambling, and womanizing. Before he became president, he had an affair with a woman named Carrie Phillips who demanded marriage although she was still married to someone else at the time. She had all of Harding’s love letters and threatened to blackmail him even though he had already given her a Cadillac and promised her $5,000 a year. His campaign manager, Albert Lasker, bought her vow of silence with an all-expense-paid trip around the world [with her husband] under the condition that they depart before the election and not return until after.

  Harding also had an affair with a woman named Nan Britton, with whom he was cheating on both his wife, Florence, and his mistress, Carrie Phillips. Britton was a virgin when they first met, and they continued their relationship while Harding was in office. It was known that when Nan visited the White House, they would sneak off and have sex in a small five-by-five-foot coat closet.

  I’LL GRANT YOU THAT

  There have been a few notorious presidential siblings, such as Billy Carter, Roger Clinton, Sam Houston Johnson, and “Big Don” Nixon, but none of them hold a candle to the likes of Ulysses S. Grant’s younger brother, Orvil. Orvil and Grant’s secretary of war, William Belknap, hit upon the idea of demanding kickbacks from the franchising of highly profitable trading posts on the western front. Because of regulations, soldiers were forced to exclusively use army trading posts to make purchases. The money demanded by Grant and Belknap forced the trading post owners to jack up their prices so high that General George Armstrong Custer complained. Custer even testified against Belknap and implicated Orvil Grant during a Senate investigation—another reason why the administration of Ulysses S. Grant is considered the most scandal-ridden of all presidencies.

  GO WITH THE FLOW

  Would you believe that an earthquake once reversed the course of the Mississippi River? The truth is, it wasn’t one earthquake but three in 1811 and 1812 that changed the river’s course. The New Madrid Fault Zone, which lies between Memphis and St. Louis, experienced three earthquakes registering approximately 8 on the Richter scale. They sent shockwaves along the Mississippi and altered the river’s flow.

  FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT SERVED A RECORD 4,422 DAYS AS

  PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

  NEARLY A DUAL DUEL

  On July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton during a duel. In 1797, Hamilton had nearly dueled with future president James Monroe, and it was Aaron Burr who stepped in and stopped the confrontation. After his duel with Hamilton, Burr was charged with murder in both New York and New Jersey, but neither case ever went to trial. To let the smoke settle, Burr fled to South Carolina but soon returned to Washington, D.C., and finished out his term as vice president.

  SHUT YOUR MOUTH!

  For reasons still unknown, Texas Congressman Thomas Lindsay Blanton, a Presbyterian Sunday-school teacher and prohibitionist, inserted dirty words into the Congressional Record in 1921. His colleagues overwhelmingly censured him on October 24, 1921, by a vote of 293–0.

  THE FIRST MOTTO THAT APPEARED ON U.S. COINS WAS NOT

  “IN GOD WE TRUST”; IT WAS “MIND YOUR BUSINESS.”

  THESE COPPER CENTS WERE AUTHORIZED ON APRIL 21, 1787.

  A REAL SIX-SHOOTER

  Political duels usually leave one person dead or wounded, but rarely do they cause laughter. One exception was the case of the 1836 duel between two congressmen, Jesse Bynum of North Carolina and Daniel Jenifer of Maryland. Bynum loudly objected to Jenifer’s denouncement of the course of President Jackson’s party, and after a brief shouting match they were off to a shooting match. Both men arrived at the Bladensburg Dueling Ground, paced off ten feet, and fired. No one was hit. So they reloaded and shot again. Again, they both missed. The same result happened on the third, fourth, and fifth shots. As they prepared for the sixth round, Bynum’s pistol accidentally discharged. One of Jenifer’s seconds leveled his pistol at Bynum, but Jenifer ordered him to halt. Then Jenifer aimed carefully at Bynum, pulled the trigger—and missed. The duel was called off, and the two dishonored men agreed to a draw.

  HE WAS PASTY WHITE

  It was one of the most reported political sex scandals of the 1970s—the story of Arkansas Representative Wilbur Mills and notorious stripper Fanne Foxe. U.S. Park Police stopped Mills, chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, in the early morning hours of October 7, 1974, for speeding with his lights off. Mills had four companions in the car and one of them, Fanne Foxe, stepped out and jumped into the murky waters of Washington’s Tidal Basin. Mills, who was intoxicated,
had a bloody nose and several scratches on his face that he claimed were the result of trying to restrain Foxe. But a little scandal between the most powerful man in Congress and a stripper wasn’t enough to bother the good people of Arkansas, who re-elected Mills to another term.

  THE REAL FALL GUY

  It’s an event in American history that is frequently referenced when discussions of political corruption surface: the Teapot Dome Scandal. But what exactly was it, and what’s with the weird name? In 1922, the U.S. secretary of the interior under Warren Harding, Albert B. Fall, leased the Teapot Dome oil reserves [so named because of the site’s resemblance to a giant sandstone teapot] without competitive bidding. He also leased other oil fields in exchange for “loans” amounting to $400,000 from Harry Sinclair and E. L. Doheny, multimillionaire oil producers doing business as Mammoth Oil Company and Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company, respectively. What makes the scandal historical, apart from its catchy name, is that Fall became the first cabinet member in history to serve time in prison.

  SAY IT AIN’T SO, JOE

  Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy, notorious for the communist witch-hunts of the 1950s, was first elected after campaigning on a much-touted record of military service during World War II, christening himself “Tail-Gunner Joe.” But McCarthy never actually served as a tail-gunner—he flew as a gunner-observer. He later claimed to have flown thirty-two missions when, in fact, he had only flown twelve.

  SICKLES IN A PICKLE

  Congressman Dan Sickles is known for a number of things: as a Union general in the Civil War, as a U.S. minister to Spain, for being censured by the New York State Assembly for escorting known prostitute Fanny White into its chambers, and for being the first man in U.S. history to use temporary insanity as a legal defense. In 1859, Sickles was accused of murdering his wife’s paramour, Philip Barton Key, son of Francis Scott Key. And although he confessed to the murder, his lawyer claimed he had been driven temporarily insane by his wife’s infidelity. The public loved him [because he was protecting other innocent women from the evil lustfulness of Key], and apparently, the jury bought it: Sickles was acquitted.

  Sickles went on to win the Congressional Medal of Honor for his acts of bravery during the Civil War and for the fact that he got one of his legs blown off during the Battle of Gettysburg.

  THE BUNNY HOP

  Collectors love to acquire the first edition of their favorite magazines. But if you’re looking for the first issue of Playboy dated December 1, 1953—you’re out of luck. There is no such issue. When Hugh Hefner published the first issue of Playboy he didn’t know if there would be a second and, therefore, decided not to date it. Interestingly enough, Playboy was first titled Stag Party, but the publisher of a hunting magazine called Stag forced Hefner to rename his girly magazine.

  The story that Hugh Hefner took the nude photograph of his first centerfold, Marilyn Monroe, on rumpled red velvet, is an urban legend. Photographer Tom Kelly made the now infamous photograph in 1949, and it had already appeared in calendars before Hefner paid $500 for the rights to use it in his magazine.

  A MICKEY MOUSE OPERATION

  One of the most underreported protests of the early 1970s was the Yippies’ invasion of Disneyland on August 6, 1970. Hundreds of long-haired youths reacted to leaflets and advertisements placed in the Los Angeles Free Press inviting “Yippies” to attend the First International “Yippie Pow Wow” at Disneyland—lovingly called “Yippie Day.” The Yippies were encouraged to attend this non-sponsored event “to liberate Minnie Mouse, have free rein of the park and infiltrate Tom Sawyer’s Island.” The other causes listed were for a Women’s Lib rally to free Tinkerbell and a Black Panther hot breakfast at Aunt Jemima’s. Disneyland decided to close early even though there was no violence, and most of the Yippies simply acted Goofy.

  I OBJECT!

  Highly acclaimed marksman and World War I hero Alvin Cullum York [1887–1964] from Pall Mall, Tennessee, earned the Medal of Honor for capturing, along with seven other men, 132 Germans during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in France. “Sergeant York,” as he will forever be known, although he was only a corporal at the time, did capture a German machine gun nest on October 8, 1918, killing twenty-eight Germans, capturing thirty-two machine guns, and taking 132 Germans prisoner. But before he became a hero, York, a deeply religious man, had applied to be a conscientious objector to the war. However, because his religion [Church of Christ in Christian Union] wasn’t recognized as a church at the time, he was drafted into the Army.

  OH, SAY CAN YOU SEE?

  We’ve all heard the story of how Francis Scott Key, watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore on the night of September 13, 1814, was so awestruck that he wrote a little poem that turned into the national anthem of the United States, The Star Spangled Banner. Key was approximately eight miles away during the attack and couldn’t have possibly seen the normal “storm flag,” a small flag designed expressly for bad weather, which flew during the battle and the night. According to the eyewitness testimony of Midshipman Robert J. Barrettas, as the British fleet sailed away the next morning, the Americans “hoisted a most superb and splendid ensign on their battery.” This flag, which is on display at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., is enormous: thirty feet by forty-two feet. So what Keys saw “so gallantly streaming” was the newly hoisted flag—not the flag that flew during the battle.

  DUMB ASS

  How did the Democrats become known as the party of the donkey? It all started when Andrew Jackson ran for president in 1828 with the slogan, “Let the people rule,” and his opponents tried to label him a “jackass.” Jackson, however, turned the tables on his “neigh”-sayers by using the donkey, representing his stubbornness, on his campaign posters.

  The Donkey symbol of the Democrat party was first used in a political cartoon in 1837 titled “A Modern Baalim and his Ass.” Again the symbol was used in conjunction with Andrew Jackson. Even though he had left office by this time, he still thought of himself as the party’s leader. He was shown in the cartoon trying to push the donkey where he wanted it to go.

  CHILD’S PLAY

  Samuel Slater [1768–1835] was popularly known as the “Founder of the American Industrial Revolution,” but he was also the founder of something else-the use of child labor. Slater’s mill opened in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, in 1793 and started with nine workers, all of them children under the age of twelve. By 1830, 55 percent of the mill workers in Rhode Island were children.

  DURING THE CIVIL WAR AND ESPECIALLY IN MILITARY PRISONS,

  ILLNESS AND DISEASE WERE SO COMMON THAT TWICE AS MANY

  SOLDIERS DIED OF SICKNESS AS DIED IN BATTLE.

  SUPPLY AND DEMAND

  The term GI is used to describe members of the United States armed forces or equipment issued by the U.S. government. It is widely believed that the term GI therefore stands for “Government Issue” or “General Issue” or even “General Infantry.” But on supply records, the initials originally preceded any equipment made from galvanized iron, such as trashcans. American soldiers during World War I commonly referred to incoming German artillery shells as “GI cans.” The term slowly morphed, and by World War II it meant anything issued by the government—including soldiers.

  AFTER LEAVING OFFICE, PRESIDENT CALVIN “SILENT CAL”

  COOLIDGE WENT ON TO WRITE A NATIONALLY SYNDICATED

  NEWSPAPER COLUMN, “CALVIN COOLIDGE SAYS,”

  FROM 1930 TO 1931.

  THE EAGLE HAS LANDED

  It has been rumored that the Seal of the President of the United States, which shows an eagle holding an olive branch in its left talon and arrows in the other, is modified so that the eagle’s head is turned to signify whether we’re at war or peace. But it’s not true. According to Bill Allman, White House curator, there is just one Seal of the President and the head faces toward the olive branch. This rumor might have started because before 1945, the eagle’s head did face the arrows. President
Harry Truman had it modified after World War II.

  BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY

  President Lyndon Johnson needed a reason to launch a full-scale invasion of Vietnam but couldn’t justify it to the American people—until three North Vietnamese patrol ships fired on an American ship keeping watch on the Tonkin Gulf. Two days later, there was a report that a second attack on American ships was under way, and the president pleaded with Congress for action. This second attack provoked Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 10, 1964, giving Johnson authorization, without a formal declaration of war by Congress, to use military force in Southeast Asia. But the second attack never happened, and it was known that it hadn’t happened by Johnson’s administration. But it’s what they needed to ramp up what would become known as the Vietnam War.