Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865) at six feet, four inches was the tallest U.S. president. James Madison (1809-1817) at five feet, four inches was the shortest U.S. president.
Albert Goodwill Spalding (1850-1915) co-founded the sporting goods firm “A. G. Spalding and Brothers” in 1876. Born in Byron, Illinois, Spalding pitched for Boston and Chicago and helped to found the National League.
The 1982 law prohibiting federal support for the contra rebels in Nicaragua, the “Boland Amendment”, was introduced by Massachusetts representative Edward Boland. In 1987, Marine Colonel Oliver North and national security chief John Poindexter were accused of violating the Boland Amendment by diverting funds to the contras from the sale of arms to Iran.
The most recent amendment to the U.S. Constitution is the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18. The amendment was ratified on July 1, 1971, in response to the demand of young Americans that those old enough to be drafted be old enough to vote.
The slogan “Africa for the Africans at home and abroad” was made famous by Jamaica-born black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey (1887-1940), who came to New York in 1916. Garvey built a mass movement calling for an end to oppression of blacks in Africa and the United States. Convicted of mail fraud (a charge he denied),…
American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson originated the phrase “the shot heard round the world” in his poem “Concord Hymn” (1836). The poem memorialized the Battle of Lexington and Concord of 1775, the first battle of the War of Independence.