Facts You Probably don’t Need
- Robert Todd Lincoln, the son of Abraham Lincoln, was present or nearby at three of the four presidential assassinations in United States history. He was brought to his father’s bedside shortly after he was shot at Ford Theater. He was an eyewitness when James Garfield was shot, serving as his Secretary of War at the time. And he was in Buffalo, NY for the Pan-American Exposition when William McKinley was shot.
- Samsung, the electronics company, is also a full-time weapons manufacturer.
- There is an insect called a “velvet ant” that is actually a wingless wasp.
- Using astronomy, some experts have guessed the date that Odysseus took back the throne of Ithaca as described in Homer’s “The Odyssey” was April 16, 1178 B.C.
- Each one of the 10,154 pipes of the Grand Organ in the Sydney Opera House are named.
- When Abe Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday, it was thanks to the tireless efforts of a magazine editor named Sarah Josepha Hale. She also wrote the nursery rhyme, “Mary had a Little Lamb.”
- Ernö Rubik, a Hungarian architecture professor, invented the Rubik’s Cube in 1974.
- Cheddar cheese is never naturally orange.
Facts by Sean McVeigh, factologist.
