Lesser-Known Facts in US History, Part 1 Quiz

Answer: The shooting of a pig

The dispute really started in 1846 when the Oregon Treaty was signed between the US and the United Kingdom, fixing the boundary between the US and British North America (later to be called Canada) at the 49th parallel. This became complicated when it came to the numerous islands located to the south-west of Vancouver, resulting in a fair amount of disagreement. In June 1859 a pig belonging to an Irishman wandered onto land belonging to an American farmer who lived on San Juan Island in the disputed area. When the American noticed the pig eating some of his potatoes he was incensed, and in a fit of rage shot and killed the pig. This gem of dialog supposedly ensued: "It's up to you to keep your potatoes out of my pig."

Historical notes:
US General William S. Harney, whose anti-British views were well known, sent a 66-man company of soldiers to the area and the British responded in kind. It was not until Admiral Robert L. Baynes, Commander-in-Chief of the British Navy in the Pacific arrived that cooler heads prevailed. Baynes famously stated that he would not "involve two great nations in a war over a squabble about a pig." In the end, no shots were exchanged and there were no human casualties. The slogan "54-40 or fight!" in the 1844 presidential campaign of President James K. Polk (11th president of the US) referred to a higher parallel than the 49th that was finally agreed on. (If 54-40 had prevailed, the city of Vancouver, British Columbia would be in the US, not Canada.)

Answer: Conch Republic

This was right after the Mariel boatlift mass emigration from Cuba, when Fidel Castro was thought to have emptied his jails. The road blocks were to allow searching cars for criminals and/or illegal drugs, but they also severely affected Key West's tourist economy. Some observers thought this secession was done tongue-in-cheek to get media attention, since they declared war on the US, surrendered a minute later and then applied for foreign aid! Conch Republic passports are still for sale to tourists (although their main use seems to be entitling the holder to free drinks at local bars!).

Historical notes:
Writer Ernest Hemingway lived in Key West for eight years (from 1931 to 1939) and his house there is now a museum open to the public (complete with descendants of his six-toed cats). He was a regular at Sloppy Joe's bar there (it still sponsors an annual Hemingway Look-Alike contest). US president Harry S. Truman (33rd US president) made 11 visits to Key West and converted an 1890 house there (on the US Naval Station base) to the "The Little White House." That house is also now a museum open to the public. His famous "The Buck Stops Here" sign is on his desk there.

Answer: Was a slave owner with the slave doing manual labor for Lincoln

The horse kick occurred when Lincoln was a ten-year-old boy. He was whipping the horse to speed up the rate at which it was turning a grist wheel, and the horse apparently did not like being whipped! In his 1965 book, neurologist and psychiatrist Edward J. Kempf theorized that the incident caused cerebral damage and contributed to the melancholy and depression Lincoln felt throughout his life. Despite this, Lincoln grew into a rugged frontiersman who once beat a man in wrestling with a single toss. Historians can find only one recorded wrestling defeat of Lincoln in 12 years (approximately 300 matches)! He's a member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. His patent application, which was titled "Buoying vessels over shoals," was issued in May 1849, when he was a 40-year-old private-practice law attorney in Springfield, Illinois. The idea probably came from his first job as an adult (as a hired hand on a flatboat). Although Lincoln's wife Mary Todd came from a slave-holding family, Lincoln himself never approved of slavery. Neither Lincoln nor his parents ever owned slaves (except for one incident where Lincoln as an attorney purchased an abducted boy in New Orleans to get him home and then immediately turned him over to his mother in Illinois).

Historical note:
In the approximately 30 years prior to the mid-1860s, the two major political parties in the US were the Whigs and the Democrats. The Republican Party was what we today would call a "third party" (created in 1854 in Ripon, Wisconsin). The first Republican presidential candidate they ran (in the 1856 election) was the explorer and pathfinder John C. Fremont, but he lost. The second (in the 1860 election) was Abraham Lincoln, who was elected the country's 16th president (and the first Republican president).

Answer: Tennessee

The land involved comprised four counties in western North Carolina (west of what is now known as the Appalachian Mountains) in the area known as the Cumberland River Valley. A petition for statehood was sent to Congress in May 1785 (the new state was named Frankland at the time, but that was later changed to Franklin). Although seven states voted to approve admission to the union, that was not enough according to the Articles of Confederation (replaced by the Constitution in 1788). The effort was disbanded in 1788 and today the land makes up eight counties in the northeastern part of the state of Tennessee. The name Franklin can still be seen today on many banks, plaques, etc. in the area.

Historical note:
Vermont became the 14th state to be admitted to the union on March 4, 1791. Although Vermont residents had fought against Great Britain in the Revolutionary War, the area was not considered a separate colony at the time of the war (NY and New Hampshire both claimed the area). In one notable example, Vermonters Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys and Connecticut soldier Benedict Arnold captured British Fort Ticonderoga in 1775.

Answer: Baltimore lawyer Francis Scott Key

The poem "The Defense of Fort McHenry," which was written by Baltimore lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key, later was set to music and renamed "The Star-Spangled Banner." In 1859 Sickles shot and killed Philip Barton Key II (the son of Francis Scott Key). Sickles had discovered that Philip Key was having an affair with his young wife. In his murder trial Sickles was defended by several leading defense attorneys, including Edwin M. Stanton, who later became Secretary of War for President Abraham Lincoln. Sickles pleaded temporary insanity-the first use of this defense in the US. Stanton argued that Sickles had been driven temporarily insane by his wife's infidelity, and thus was out of his mind when he shot Key. He was found Not Guilty.

Historical notes:
Francis Scott Key's poem was set to music using an existing song titled "To Anacreon in Heaven," which was an 18th century British social club song. Anacreon was a Greek poet, who was renowned for his drinking songs. General George Meade was in overall command of Union forces at Gettysburg. Union General Dan Sickles also fought at Gettysburg and was under Meade. Clara Barton became known as the "Angel of the Battlefield" as a result of her tending to the wounded in various Civil War battles. The famous Lincoln-Douglas debates were seven joint appearances of the two candidates in the 1858 election for US Senator from Illinois. (Douglas won the election).

Answer: Calvin Coolidge

Charles G. Dawes was the VP who served with President Calvin Coolidge (30th US president). Before he was elected vice president, Dawes wrote the tune "A Melody in A Major" as a piano and flute song (you can hear this on YouTube).

Historical note:
After lyrics were added to Dawes' melody by Carl Sigman (whose long list of co-written hits includes "Ebb Tide" and "What Now My Love"), it became a 1958 number-one hit for Tommy Edwards with the title "It's All in the Game."

Answer: Peterson's boarding house

Because of Lincoln's great height (6 feet, 4 inches), he was laid diagonally on the bed of a Union soldier who was out for the evening. Lincoln died the next day (about nine hours after being shot).

Historical notes:
There is some dispute about what Secretary of War Edwin Stanton said after Lincoln died. Some accounts have him saying, "He belongs to the angels now." However, he supposedly later changed that and history has him saying, "Now he belongs to the ages." Maryland doctor Samuel Mudd set a broken leg bone of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth (that occurred when he jumped to the stage in Ford's Theater from Lincoln's box seat). Mudd was later found guilty of aiding and conspiring in a murder, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was pardoned in 1869 by President Andrew Johnson (17th US president).

Answer: Wyoming

The four states that meet are Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. The public is invited to visit this spot, and numerous photographs have been taken over the years showing a tourist with one hand and one foot in each of the four different states at the same time (you can see some of these with a Google Images search).

Historical notes:
This land came from Mexico after the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (which gave the US land that became all or part of present-day Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming).

Answer: Hello, I'm Macintosh.

The correct sequence of Macintosh's words was: "Hello, I'm Macintosh. It sure is great to get out of that bag. Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I'd like to share with you a maxim I thought of the first time I met an IBM mainframe: Never trust a computer you can't lift! Obviously I can talk, but right now I'd like to sit back and listen. So, it is with considerable pride that I introduce a man who's been like a father to me - STEVE JOBS." You can verify this with a search for: Macintosh introduction. Choose "lost 1984 video" on YouTube in the results and listen carefully when Macintosh starts speaking.

Historical note:
The Macintosh computer was introduced to millions of Americans with a TV ad during the 1984 NFL Super Bowl (showing a girl in red running shorts flinging a sledgehammer at a screen showing a Big Brother-like figure). The ad was inspired by George Orwell's novel "1984." Apple visionary Steve Jobs saw IBM as Big Brother, and wanted to position Apple as the world's last chance to escape IBM's domination of the personal computer industry. The ad was directed by Ridley Scott, who has also directed the movies "Thelma & Louise," "Gladiator," "Alien," "Black Hawk Down" and "Blade Runner."

Answer: North Carolina

Although gold rushes occurred in all three wrong answers, they all occurred AFTER the California gold rush. In 1799 a 12-year-old farm boy found a 17 lb gold nugget on his family farm in Cabarrus County, NC. None of his family or neighbors recognized its value, and for the next few years the shiny yellow rock was used as a door stop! In 1802 a jeweler recognized it as gold. The word got out, and the rush was on! Biltmore House is an opulent mansion in Asheville, NC built by George W. Vanderbilt II. Parts of it have been featured in several movies, including "The Last of the Mohicans" (1992), "Forrest Gump" (1994), and "Hannibal" (2001).

Historical note:
The second significant gold rush in the US occurred in the nearby state of Georgia. It started in 1829 in present-day Lumpkin County, GA, and lasted until gold became difficult to find the early 1840s. Experienced miners would later go west to seek their fortune in the 1849 California Gold Rush