What U.S. president was known as “His Accidency”?
President John Tyler was known as “His Accidency”, because he moved up from the vice-presidency through the accident of President William Henry Harrison’s death from pneumonia in 1841.
In 1992, the average annual salary of a major league baseball player was $1,014,947. Currently, the highest paid player is Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants at $7.3 million.
The first state to secede from the Union was South Carolina, which seceded on December 20, 1860, in response to the November election of Abraham Lincoln as president.
Pittsburgh was named for William Pitt, even though Pitt never set foot in Pennsylvania. Pitt’s actions as a British war minister during the French and Indian War led to the city’s founding. He committed money and troops to the war; he mapped out a strategy that included the capture of Fort Duquesne, located where the…
A United Nations mission that visited Iraq on March 10-17, 1991 after the Gulf War, made this report, saying: “the recent conflict has wrought near-apocalyptic results upon the infrastructure of what had been until January 1991 a rather highly urbanized and mechanized society.”
Gerald R. Ford was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., in 1913. His parents divorced when he was an infant; his mother then married Gerald R. Ford, Sr., who adopted the future president and gave him his name.
No, the Smithsonian Institution wasn’t named after an American. Founded in 1846, it was named for British chemist James Smithson (1765-1829), who bequeathed his fortune to build the U.S. institution. It is now the world’s largest museum complex, containing 14 museums and the National Zoo.