By 1780, the British were fighting not only the United States and its ally France during the American War of Independence, but also Spain, the Netherlands, and the ruler of Mysore in India.
The conflicts were not all related to American independence, but they did keep the British busy on many fronts, aiding the U.S. cause.
In 1992, 98 percent of U.S. households had a TV set. Sixty-five percent had two or more. Seventy-seven percent had videocassette recorders.
The light-green beans called lima beans were introduced to the U.S. from Lima, Peru, by U.S. Navy Captain John Harris in 1824.
Yes, the man behind the “Sherman Anti-Trust Act” was related to the man behind “Sherman’s March to the Sea”. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act, passed in 1890, was sponsored by John Sherman, the younger brother of William Tecumseh Sherman. It was the latter Sherman who, as a Union general, led the destructive march across Georgia in…
The National Baseball Hall of Fame was dedicated in 1939 at Cooperstown, New York, to honor the centennial of the alleged invention of baseball by Army officer Abner Doubleday at Cooperstown in 1839. However, it was later proven that Doubleday was not even at Cooperstown in 1839 (he was a cadet at West Point) and…
The amusement park Disneyland opened in Anaheim, California, on July 17, 1955. Its original size was 200 acres. Much bigger than Disneyland, Disney World opened near Orlando, Florida, on October 1, 1971. The acronym EPCOT stands for the third Walt Disney amusement center stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. It opened in 1982 as…
The American writer Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) reached her fourth year at Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1901, but failed several courses and dropped out. After she moved to Paris, her salon served as a gathering place for artists and writers in the 1920s. The author of such novels as The Moviegoer (1961), Walker Percy received…