Boston Corbett is the Union soldier who is credited with shooting John Wilkes Booth at the Virginia farm of Richard Garret. Corbett was a deeply religious man whose behavior might be considered strange. In 1858, after walking around Boston for the night, two prostitutes attempted to solicit him. This bothered him, so he went back to his home and read the Bible. After much soul-searching, he decided to castrate himself with a pair of scissors.

He had been a hat-maker, so there is some thought that his erratic behavior was caused by his exposure to mercury.

TIL where the phrase mad as a hatter came from.

https://www.hatrealm.com/why-was-mercury-used-in-hat-production/

During his post-presidency period, George Washington owned one of the largest whiskey distilleries in the US. In 1799, Washington's distillery produced almost 11,000 gallons of whiskey.

In an era when water was often unsafe to drink, it makes sense.

And if you're a farmer, it's probably easier to transport 2-3 gallons of whisky to market than hauling a bushel of corn (56 pounds)

DatTallArchitect said:

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CT'97 said:

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In 1490, prior to Columbus coming to the America's, the third largest city in the world was near modern day Saint Louis and stretched over 6 square miles. The population would have fluctuated but would have dwarfed Paris at the time which was only about 150,000 people.

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Do you have an article you can share on this?

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I don't recall if that city was covered in the book below, but if you want to see what America was like before European diseases arrived....

https://a.co/d/2uOhLSD

Quote:

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A groundbreaking study that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans in 1492.
Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus' landing had crossed the Bering Strait 12,000 years ago; existed mainly in small nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas were, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness. But as Charles C. Mann now makes clear, archaeologists and anthropologists have spent the last 30 years proving these and many other long-held assumptions wrong.
In a book that startles and persuades, Mann reveals how a new generation of researchers equipped with novel scientific techniques came to previously unheard-of conclusions. Among them:

• In 1491 there were probably more people living in the Americas than in Europe.
• Certain cities - such as Tenochtitln, the Aztec capital - were far greater in population than any contemporary European city. Furthermore, Tenochtitln, unlike any capital in Europe at that time, had running water, beautiful botanical gardens, and immaculately clean streets.
• The earliest cities in the Western Hemisphere were thriving before the Egyptians built the great pyramids.
• Pre-Columbian Indians in Mexico developed corn by a breeding process so sophisticated that the journal Science recently described it as "man's first, and perhaps the greatest, feat of genetic engineering".
• Amazonian Indians learned how to farm the rain forest without destroying it - a process scientists are studying today in the hope of regaining this lost knowledge.
• Native Americans transformed their land so completely that Europeans arrived in a hemisphere already massively "landscaped" by human beings.

Mann sheds clarifying light on the methods used to arrive at these new visions of the pre-Columbian Americas and how they have affected our understanding of our history and our thinking about the environment. His book is an exciting and learned account of scientific inquiry and revelation.

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1836 was a leap year. Alamo siege was 13 days. Feb 23-March 6.

The Boston Tea Party was not the only protest "tea party" and it wasn't even the first, it was the fourth. The first was in Charleston, SC two weeks before the more famous one. Boston not only had one but had a reprise on March 6, 1774 and it was the eighth such protest in the colonies.

agrams said:

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Teddy Roosevelt as a boy watched Lincoln's funeral procession from his Grandfathers house.

https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2010/11/09/teddy-roosevelt-and-abraham-lincoln-in-the-same-photo/

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That photo has always fascinated me. While I was visiting TR's childhood home in NYC, the ranger pointed me to the location near Union Square where the Grandfather's house used to stand. Very cool.

That is amazing. I cant even wrap my head around what the odds had to be for that moment to be captured on film in 1865.

and Davy too, ask Walt Disney.

agrams said:

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7 of 8 German soldiers who died in WWII died on the eastern front vs Russia.

Its amazing how many casualties other countries experienced as compared to the united states.

we had less than 1/3 of 1% killed per our 1939 population. (about 1 death per 312 people). Poland lost 1 in 6 of their population (mainly civilians).

The American war production capacity may have been the machine behind victory, but Russia was the meat grinder that chewed up most of Germany's soldiers.

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Was that before or after Russia teamed with Germany to invade Poland…..or after Russia invaded Finland? I get a chuckle on international forums when Russians brag about their casualty numbers vs USA…and then clam up when they are reminded that they started the war as Hitler's military partner in crime.

Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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There were actually 5 jobs more dangerous to do in WWII than infantryman:

1. Ball turret gunners
2. Heck, just being in an airplane
3. Merchant mariners
4. Submariners
5. Field telephone layers and radio teams

https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/5-world-war-ii-jobs-that-were-more-dangerous-than-being-an-infantryman/

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That's interesting. My dad was the radioman for his squad in the 82nd (505th PIR) in WWII and saw very heavy combat from D-day to the end of the war. And, my wife and I were introduced by an old, native Swedish woman who met her American husband when he crashed landed into Sweden while serving as a ball turret gunner in a B-17 on a bombing run over Germany. Pretty long odds.

Cleopatra lived closer to the moon landing than to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Green Bay is the first 7 seed to ever win a playoff game (against the cowboys).

p_bubel said:

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Cleopatra lived closer to the moon landing than to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

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Lived closer in time.