In the brief conflict called the Gulf War from January to March 1991, the U.S. suffered 148 combat deaths and 213 wounded. The number of Iraqi combat deaths, according to a Saudi Arabian estimate, was 80,000 to 100,000, though the exact figure is not known.
General Omar Bradley (1893-1981) earned the nickname “soldiers’ general” for his unassuming manner and his concern for the welfare of soldiers.
President Teddy Roosevelt drew this unflattering nickname “muckraker” for early 20th-century investigative reporters from the 17th-century allegory Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. In this book, a muckraker is a worker too busy gathering dirt and debris to see the celestial crown overhead.
The names of these two English political parties Whig and Tory were each invented by the respective party’s rival as a pejorative term. The Country Party, representing the merchants and middle class, called their opponents tories, a word for Irish plunderers. The Court Party, representing the aristocrats, squires, and Anglican clergy, called their opponents Whigs,…
It was Brooklyn-born Shirley Chisholm (1924), who was the first black woman elected to Congress from that borough in 1969. In 1972, she ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for president.
The score at the end of the game in “Casey at the Bat” was two to four, with the “Mudville nine” losing to an anonymous team thanks to “Mighty Casey” striking out in the ninth inning. Written by Ernest Lawrence Thayer (1863-1940), the poem was first published pseudonymously in the San Francisco Examiner on June…