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John Roebling is not just known for designing the Brooklyn Bridge but the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge; the Allegheny Bridge in Pittsburgh; and the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge over the Ohio River which links Ohio and Kentucky.
Roebling, N.J. is named for him.
Whatever happened to Johnny Appleseed’s apple trees? Well, some — such as Jen McCaffery of Reader’s Digest — say the feds chopped them down during Prohibition to stop their fruit from being made into hard cider. The apples actually were meant to be used for making liquor from the beginning, after all.
Regardless, there was one verifiable Johnny Appleseed tree remains alive in Nova, Ohio as of at least as of the time of this HowStuffWorks article was posted.
Nuclear explosions in Mississippi? Yes Anthony, it happened. The state was used for two tests in 1964.
You think Independence Hall is old? The Curia Julia, the Roman Senate house commissioned by Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., still stands.
“Well, I’ll be a suck egg mule,” Jack Elam famously said in Rio Lobo.
What exactly is such a beast?
A “suck egg” is a young, foolish, or contemptible person, according to Merriam Webster.
A “mule,” when applied to humans, indicates stubbornness.
It’s pretty reasonable to think Mr. Elam was saying he was being a silly stubborn person for not thinking Jennifer O’Neill could be an effective shot.
On the other hand, some think suck-egg mule is a twist on suck-egg dog which are real problems on farms, and are considered to be worse than worthless.
Regardless, the phrase derives from the rural South/Midwest.
John Scott Harrison, who served as congressman for Ohio’s 2nd District from 1853 to 1857, is the only person whose son (Benjamin) and father (William Henry) were presidents of the United States.
Harrison’s corpse was involved in a notorious body-snatching scandal in 1878 — yes, grave robbing was a real problem back then — when it was found naked hanging from a rope in a chute at Ohio Medical College by his son John and cousin George Eaton, along with police.
The party had been looking for the body of a neighbor thought to have been snatched.
The scandal resulted in great reforms as to how medical schools acquired cadavers.
Ferde Grofe was born in 1892 in New York City and is one of the world’s great composers.
Among his works is the Grand Canyon Suite.
In 1950, he scored Rocketship X-M, a B movie starring Lloyd Bridges and Noah Beery Jr., that would one day be mocked on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
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The first chocolate Easter egg was produced in 1873 by legendary British confectioner Fry’s.
Maryland once claimed Philadelphia as its own. Imagine a state with Philadelphia and Baltimore. Now imagine Pennsylvania without Philadelphia. Oh the things that could have been.
The mantis shrimp may be but four inches long but don’t mess with it. It packs a punch with same velocity as a gunshot from a .22 caliber rifle.