General Zachary Taylor, hero of the Mexican War (1846-48) and president from 1849 to 1850 was “Old Rough and Ready”. Taylor got the nickname for his plain habits and blunt demeanor.
The system of mail delivery by horse-and-rider relays lasted only 18 months, from April 1860 to October 1861. It connected Saint Joseph, Missouri, with Sacramento, California, a distance of 1,800 miles. The completion of the transcontinental telegraph system brought the Pony Express to an end.
The Nazi anti-Jewish demonstrations of November 9 and 10, 1938, also known as Kristallnacht destroyed 815 shops and 29 warehouses. Fires were set to 171 dwellings and 191 synagogues, with 76 other buildings completely destroyed by fire.
Big Ben in London is not a clock. It is a 13.5-ton bell in the clock tower of England’s Houses of Parliament. Cast in 1858, the bell’s installation was directed by the rotund Sir Benjamin Hall, commissioner of works. The bell was originally to be called Saint Stephen’s, but the British newspapers renamed it Big…
Once common in U.S. skies and hunted widely as cheap food, the last known passenger pigeon died in the Cincinnati Zoo on September 1, 1914.
Limited Test Ban Treaty—August 1963 Antiballistic Missile Treaty—May 1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT)—June 1979 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) I—July 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) II January 1993