The line refers not to the pasta but to the Macaroni Club, a mid-eighteenth-century English social club of dandyish young men who wanted to bring the influences of the Continent to bear on their home country.
Thus the line was originally intended to discredit American revolutionaries.
The hero of the Meuse-Argonne offensive, Sergeant Alvin York, launched on September 26, 1918, killed 25 Germans and captured 132, along with 35 machine guns in World War I. The Tennessee sharpshooter, who had petitioned unsuccessfully for exemption as a conscientious objector, was lionized for his exploits and awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and…
The Panama Canal, which required ten years from start to finish, took two years longer to build than the Erie Canal. Excavation on the 51-mile long Panama Canal began in 1904; the first ship entered the waterway in 1914. The Erie Canal, linking Buffalo and Albany, New York, took from 1817 to 1825 to complete.
The poem that later became the “Star-Spangled Banner” was written by Francis Scott Key in 1814. It was written to commemorate the battle for Fort McHenry, Maryland, during the War of 1812, was called “Defence of Fort M’Henry.”
As written by Francis Bellamy, editor of The Youth’s Companion, where is first appeared on September 8, 1892, the Pledge of Allegiance read: “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands; one nation indivisible, with liberty and Justice for all.” In its present text (established by Congress in 1954), it…
The Battle of Bunker Hill took place not on Bunker Hill but on Breed’s Hill, on June 17, 1775. The opposing forces were supposed to engage on Bunker Hill, but for unknown reasons the soldiers dug in on the smaller site, about 2,000 feet away. To straighten things out for visitors, Breed’s Hill was later…
Major league baseball is the most popular spectator sport in the U.S., with about 56.6 million fans in attendance in 1990. Thoroughbred racing is close behind, with attendance of about 56.2 million. Basketball and football are far behind, with only about 16 million fans attending games in 1990.