| History Facts |
History ---------------- |
| 1.There was a time where Thanksgiving was held twice in a year, at 1815. After the first Thanksgivings, there was no official date for it, so it was held randomly. Whether by votes, presidents issued it at various dates. George Washington issued one in 1789, 1795, and John Adams in 1798, and 1799. James Madison had Thanksgiving twice in the year 1815. None of these were celebrated in autumn, like they are today. The next national Thanksgiving was held by Abraham Lincoln in April of 1862. In 1863, he declared Thanksgiving on August 6, and for the last Thursday in November. But still, Thanksging had been held in many different months through a year, until President Roosevelt signed a bill on November 26, 1941, that established the fourth Thursday of November as the national Thanksgiving public holiday. 2.Tea is said to have been discovered in 2737 B.C. by a Chinese emperor when some tea leaves accidentally blew into a pot of boiling water. The teabag was introduced in 1908 by Thomas Sullivan of New York. 3.Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa on a piece of pinewood, 77 centimeter x 53 centimeter (30 inches x 20 7/8 inches) in the year 1506. It took him 4 years to finish it. 4.After more than a century as a dessert for royalty alone, ice cream was made available to the general public for the first time at Café Procope, the first café in Paris, France, in 1670. 5.According to historical accounts, the first Christmas in the Philippines was celebrated 200 years before Ferdinand Magellan discovered the country for the western world, likely between the years 1280 and 1320 A.D. 6.The first lawyer of New York City was Adriaan van der Donck, who was also the only lawyer at that time in 1653. 7.William Bourne, a British mathematician, drew plans for a submarine in 1578. But it was only in 1620 that Cornelius van Drebbel, a Dutch inventor, managed to build a submarine. He wrapped a wooden rowboat tightly in waterproofed leather and had air tubes with floats to the surface to provide oxygen. Of course, there were no engines yet, so the oars went through the hull at leather gaskets. He took the first trip with 12 oarsmen in the Thames River - staying submerged for 3 hours. 8.While serving in Congress, Thomas Jefferson introduced a bill that attempted to stop slavery from all future states admitted to the Union, a measure that might later have prevented the U.S. Civil War if it had not been defeated...by a single vote. 9.The right arm and the torch of the Statue of Liberty crossed the Atlantic Ocean three times. It first crossed from France for display at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and in New York, where money was raised for the foundation and pedestal. It was returned to Paris in 1882 to be reunited with the rest of the statue, which was then shipped back to the United States for the construction. 10.The Shell Oil company that is currently a gas station in many U.S. cities originally began as a novelty shop in London, England, that sold seashells. 11.Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka was the world’s first woman prime minister in 1960. 12.February of 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon. 13.Although there are numerous theories on who could have been the "real" Mother Goose, there is a reasonable suport that Elizabeth Goose, a Massachusetts woman, was Mother Goose. Elizabeth Foster became a stepmother to 10 children when she married a widower named Isaac Goose in 1682. The couple ended up with a total of 14 children, which was a challenge for Elizabeth. Apparently she had a persistent memory for old stories, fables, and rhymes and used them to entertain and quiet all her children. 14.The first electric traffic signal lights were installed August 5, 1914 at Euclid Avenue and East 105th Street, Cleveland, Ohio, by the American Traffic Signal Company under the direction of Safety Director Alfred A. Benesch. 15.English immigrant William Colgate set up a starch, soap, and candle business in 1806 in New York City. It wasn't until 1873, over twenty years after the death of the company's founder, that Colgate and Company marketed the world's first toothpaste, which was sold in jars. 16.Since 1982, Singapore has held a national songbird competition in which owners showcase the singing talents of their birds. 17.Saint Vincent's Royal Botanic Garden are the oldest such facility in the western hemisphere , founded in 1765. (30-acre gardens). 18.Russia has it's own larger and older version of of America's Liberty Bell, called the Tsar Bell.The 200 ton bronze bell was cast in 1734 on commission from Tsarina Anna I, but it was cracked in a fire in the Kremlin in 1737 before it could be raised, so it never rang. 19.The city of Riga, Latvia, is allegedly home of the first decorated Christmas tree , in 1510. The ''Riga tree'' was burned after being used in ceremonies that combined Christian and pagan customs. 20.The first modern crossword puzzle appeared in a New York newspaper on Sunday, December 21, 1913. 21.The Danish monarchy stretches back to Viking times in an uninterrupted line of 50 kings and 2 queens, a record among the world's nations. 22.The first official U.S. postage stamps were a 5-cent stamp, picturing Benjamin Franklin, the nation's first U.S. postmaster general, and a 10-cent stamp picturning George Washington. They were both issued on July 1, 1847. 23.The first woman in the U.S. to earn a Ph.D degree was Helen Magill White in 1877, earning a doctorate in Greek from Boston University, with a dissertation on Greek drama. She earned her doctorate 16 years after Yale conferred the first U.S. Ph.D's on men. 24.In 1870 London, England, was home to more Irish than Dublin, and home to more Catholics than Rome. 25.The first woman to hold a cabinet post was Frances Perkins, who in 1933 became Secretary of Labor under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 26.One of 25 surviving copies of the Declaration of Independence of the official first printing adopted by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, was sold in an on-line auction in June, 2000, to T.V. producer Norman Lear and Internet entrepreneur David Hayden for $8.14 million. The copy was discovered in 1989 behind a painting bought at a flea market for $4 dollars. 27.The first peach orchard in Florida dates back to 1565. 28.The Grimaldi royal family, which currently heads the European nation Monaco, is one of the longest-ruling families in the world. The House of Grimaldi was established more than 700 years ago in 1297. 29.Gilbert Stuart's 1797 portrait of George Washington, obtained by the White House in 1800 for $800, is the oldest possession located there. During the War of 1812, First Lady Dolley Madison saved the portrait by taking it with her while leaving the White House before the British set it on fire. |
| The facts here do not have a certain date, or has to do with something that put an impact through life, or just a know it all. |