Facts You Probably don’t Need
- Abraham Lincoln was once challenged to a duel. As the person challenged, he was to choose the weapon. He chose broad swords. Both parties arrived at the dueling ground on the agreed upon day, but the duel was stopped just before beginning.
- James K. Polk banned dancing during his White House parties.
- Charles Darwin and Steve Irwin had the same pet tortoise, Harriet.
- In 1893, in the case Nix v. Hedden, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that tomatoes should be classified as a vegetable, not a fruit.
- The Roman Emperor Caligula loved his horse, Incitatus, so much that he gave him a marble stall, an ivory manger, a jeweled collar, and 18 servants. Caligula also allegedly planned to make Incitatus a consul before his assassination.
- John Quincy Adams, the sixth president, and Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president, served briefly together in the U.S. House of Representatives before Adams’ death.
- NBC originally divided its programming into two networks: a “Red” one devoted to big budget shows and a “Blue” one that sold cheaper airtime to advertisers. After an antitrust suit, the FCC ordered its owner, RCA, to divest itself into a single network. The Blue Network spun off and later became ABC.
Facts by Sean McVeigh, factologist.