The freshwater and cypress swamp called Okefenokee Swamp, best known as the locale of Walt Kelly’s comic strip “Pogo,” begins near Waycross, Georgia, and extends into Florida.
Its name is a variation of the Indian term “Owaquaphenoga,” or “trembling earth.”
Federally funded health insurance for the disabled and those over 65 called Medicare was part of the Social Security Amendments of 1965. The Amendments also saw the beginning of Medicaid.
Japan occupied the Aleutian islands Attu, Agattu, and Kiska from 1942 to 1943. The islands lie west of the Alaskan Peninsula.
At least 1,547 people were killed when the boiler of the side-wheeler Sultana exploded on April 27, 1865, on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee, making it the worst marine disaster in U.S. history. Many of those killed in the blaze were Union soldiers who had recently been freed from Confederate prison camps. The most…
The Constitution, a 44-gun frigate that defeated two British warships in the War of 1812, was nicknamed “Old Ironsides”. It was memorialized as “Old Ironsides” in the 1830 poem of that name by Oliver Wendell Holmes, written to protest the proposed scrapping of the ship. The ship was saved and, in rebuilt form, is still…
Cassius Clay announced that he had changed his name to Muhammad Ali in February 1964, after defeating Sonny Liston and becoming heavyweight champion. Some time earlier, Ali had secretly joined the Nation of Islam, led by Elijah Muhammad.
As depicted in some spy movies, the president would not press a button; he would make a phone call. To begin a nuclear attack, the president telephones the commander in chief at the Strategic Air Command in Omaha, Nebraska; several officers at SAC would verify the president’s orders. Once verified, instructions would go to bomber…