One-Night Stands with American History (Revised and Updated Edition): Odd, Amusing, and Little-Known Incidents
Richard Shenkman, Kurt Reiger
Language: English
Pages: 226
ISBN: 0060538201
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Respect yourself in the morning -- read One-Night Stands with American History!
This collection of little-known facts and anecdotes is American history with the boring parts left out. Richard Shenkman and Kurt Reiger have uncovered numerous stories about hoaxes, inventions, secrets, and rare incidents -- many involving the most famous and powerful people in America.
• President U. S. Grant was arrested for speeding in his horse carriage.
• J. Edgar Hoover refused to allow people to walk on his shadow.
• France shipped Louisiana twenty-five prostitutes because women were in short supply in 1721.
• H. L. Hunt won his first oil well in a game of five-card stud.
Even historians find that One-Night Stands with American History features fascinating stories they never knew. Now updated with facts and anecdotes from the last twenty years, this volume is a treasure trove of remarkable stories that will startle, entertain, and inform you. And the best part is that they're all true!
President of the United States and Protector of the Rights of the Same.” The Senate finally decided on the title “His Highness,” which was the way Parliament addressed the king of England. The House of Representatives, however, adopted the simple practice of calling the chief executive “The President of the United States,” a title that quickly won the support of everyone. Senators themselves wanted to be called “The Honorable,” but the House did not go along with that, either. One title was
by Frank X. Tolbert. Copyright © 1951, 1961 by Frank X. Tolbert Sr. Reprinted by permission of Harper & Row, Publishers. ONE-NIGHT STANDS WITH AMERICAN HISTORY (Revised Edition). Copyright © 2003 by Richard Shenkman and Kurt Edward Reiger. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be
day without your finding it out.” BIRTH CONTROL IN EARLY AMERICA In 1823 new methods of birth control began to be popularized. Although mentioning the traditional coitus interruptus as a useful procedure, handbills first printed in London in that year urged couples to “do as other people do” and subscribe to a new method in which “a piece of soft sponge is tied by a bobbin or penny ribbon, and inserted just before the sexual intercourse takes place, and is with drawn again as soon as it has
by “purchasing” the Anaconda Copper Company. Rogers and Rockefeller gave a $39 million check to Marcus Daly for Anaconda, with the understanding that Daly would hold the check and not cash it in for a short time. Next, with their own clerks as dummy directors, the two robber barons founded the Amalgamated Copper Company. Amalgamated’s first move? The new company, with no assets, printed up stock and randomly valued it at $75 million. With this paper the company “bought” Anaconda from Rogers and
because practically no one withdrew their money. Finally the long lines outside his office shrank to nothing when he was proved to be a fraud. Ponzi then went to jail. • Architects twice revised the blueprints of the Empire State Building to make the structure, originally planned for eighty stories, taller than the Chrysler Tower, which designers kept increasing in size in hopes of making it the highest skyscraper in the world. When finally completed, the Empire State Building reached 1,472 feet