How many McDonald’s hamburgers are made from a pound of meat?

Thomas Jefferson said, “A little rebellion now and then is a good thing”, writing from Paris on hearing of Shays’s Rebellion, an uprising of poor farmers against the Massachusetts state government in 1786. Jefferson added, “God forbid that we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.”

In Ronald Reagan’s first job after college, the future president (served 198189) broadcasted play-by-play accounts of major league baseball games from Station WHO in Des Moines, Iowa.

During the Revolutionary War years, 90 percent of Americans were farmers. By World War II, the number had shrunk to 15 percent. Today fewer than 3 percent of the population are farmers.

Filene’s Automatic Bargain Basement opened in the Boston flagship store Filene’s Basemen in 1909. It followed the first example of bargain basements, the “Bargain Room” at Wanamaker’s in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia lawyer Andrew Hamilton (c. 1676-1741), born in Scotland, was John Peter Zenger’s attorney during Zenger’s trial for seditious libel. He successfully defended the German-born editor’s right to print true accusations against the colonial governor of New York. The famous trial in 1735 was a landmark for freedom of the press.

The Daughters of the American Revolution refused to rent Constitution Hall to contralto Anderson for a concert in 1938 because she was black. Appalled by this action, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a DAR member, resigned from the organization and rallied support in Anderson’s behalf. Later that year, Roosevelt was able to arrange a performance for…