Who was the tallest person ever recorded?
Robert Pershing Wadlow (1919-1940) was the tallest person in the world.
Born in Alton, Illinois, Wadlow was 8 feet, 11.1 inches tall when he died.
The term chauvinism originally referred to Nicolas Chauvin, a French soldier of the Napoleonic era whose devotion to Napoleon was considered excessive and unreasonable. He later appeared in a number of plays and literary works, including Baroness Orczy’s Scarlet Pimpernel (1905), always representing an exaggerated patriotism. The term has since taken on a more general…
Queen Victoria, who reigned from 1837 to 1901, was the grand daughter of the King George III, who lost the American colonies. This makes Elizabeth II, Queen of England since 1952, George’s great-great-great-great grand daughter.
As the subject of the first children’s book of the same name, the character Goody Two-Shoes helped to usher in the children’s book industry. Goody Two-Shoes was a poor girl, who, when given a pair of shoes, became so happy that she told everyone she met about them. The tale was written by Oliver Goldsmith…
The last viceroy of India was not Lord Mountbatten. Louis Mountbatten (1900-1979) was India’s last British viceroy, or governor general, from August 1947 to June 1948. Chakravarti Raj agopalachari (1879-1972) then served as governor-general of India’s interim government from June 1948 to January 1950, when the position was abolished.
Acute appendicitis overcame the former Erich Weiss known as Harry Houdini on October 31, 1926, Halloween. He was 52 years old.
Silent screen siren Clara Bow (1905-1965) picked up the nickname It Girl after starring as a flapper in It in 1927. Gary Cooper was briefly called by this moniker It Boy when he began dating Ms. Bow. He is said to have ended the relationship in order to get rid of the nickname.