The celebration itself was the brainchild of James B. Upham, a marketer for the magazine who made it his business to foster a sense of patriotism in the youth of America. Upham’s goal was to, “instill into the minds of our American youth a love for their country and the principles on which it was founded, and create in them an ambition to carry on with the ideals which the early founders wrote into the Constitution…”

Francis Bellamy intended for the Pledge to be brief and to the point. He also was leaning towards using the words “equality” and “fraternity”, but realized that probably wouldn’t fly, knowing the committee members he’d have to get the approval of were against equal rights for all.

Bellamy recalled that when he wrote the Pledge, feelings of patriotism were at an all-time low. He, Upham and their cohorts felt that the place to rekindle feelings of national pride was in the classrooms, so Youth’s Companion came up with a plan to sell flags at cost to public schools through their students. This ploy was so effective that 25,000 schools acquired flags in just one year.

Bellamy and Upham managed to secure the Nation Education Association’s support as a sponsor for the Columbus Day event, and by June 1892 they had convinced Congress and President Harrison to make the public school flag ceremony the highlight of the Columbus Day festivities.

The Pledge was then used in public schools starting on October 12, 1892 to sync with the opening of the World Columbian Exposition going on in Chicago, Illinois.

Here is the original version of the Pledge, which was to undergo four changes over the years:

I pledge allegiance, to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

In 1923, the first changes to the text of the Pledge of Allegiance were made, much to the consternation of Francis Bellamy, who thought the new wording completely ruined the flow of his original work. The National Flag conference insisted that the two words “my flag” be replaced with “to the flag of the United States.” This was to prevent any confusion among new immigrants between loyalties to their countries of origin and their new home. The addition of the words “of America” would be tacked on a year later.

It wasn’t until nearly two decades later that the United States Congress first officially recognized The Pledge of Allegiance on June 22, 1942 in the following form:

I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Starting as early as 1948, efforts were being made to add the words “under God” to the Pledge with one of the first to add it being the chaplain of the Board of Governors of the Illinois Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, Louis Bowman. For this,The Daughters of the American Revolution saw fit to present him with an Award of Merit for originating the idea of adding “under God” to the Pledge.

The “under God” movement gathered steam with a resolution drafted by the Knights of Columbus during the Korean War in April of 1951, calling on all members to add “under God” to the Pledge when recited at the opening and close of meetings.

Finally, with the “red scare” at its zenith, legislators were lobbied by religious leaders, the American Legion, and the Hearst newspapers, voicing concern that Communist rhetoric is uncomfortably similar to the Pledge of Allegiance as it was then worded. A bill to add the words “under God” to the Pledge was then introduced to the House and was supported by President Eisenhower, who signed it into law.

After signing it into law, President Eisenhower stated:

In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America’s heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country’s most powerful resource in peace and war.

This latest version then reads as follows:

“I pledge allegiance, to the flag, of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Since then, quite a bit of controversy has been stirred with the addition of those two little words. On top of that, over the past decade or two particularly there has been a huge upsurge in the amount of legal action taken pertaining to the appropriateness of children being “encouraged”- read made to- recite the Pledge in school, particularly as most of the kids don’t really understand what they’re saying anyways.  Further, some children that have refused to participate in saying the Pledge, whether because their parents told them not to or they simply chose not to, occasionally have been ridiculed in class by their teachers for their choice- slightly ironical given said teachers are wanting them to recite something that says “liberty… for all” and yet they are trying to take away a piece of the child’s liberty- the right to not say the Pledge.

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy:

• The United States Once Planned on Nuking the Moon
• Interesting United States President Facts
• The United States Doesn’t Have an Official Language
• Pre-Sliced Bread Was Once Banned in the United States
• The Current Version of the U.S. Flag was Proposed by a High School Student Who Received a B- for His Design

Expand for References

Stories of a giant, hairy creature that appears half man and half ape have existed in various parts of the world for many centuries. In fact, the only continent not to have stories of “wild men” is Antarctica. In the Himalayas, it’s the Yeti. In Canada, it’s the Sasquatch. And in the northwest United States, it’s Bigfoot. Bigfoot is described by believers as being between six and eight feet tall with a large forehead and pronounced brow, like a cave man’s, and a rounded, crested head like a gorilla’s. He is covered in brown or red hair and has enormous feet that are his namesake, with the biggest estimation at a whopping two feet long by eight inches wide. Some “witnesses” claim that the five-toed Bigfoot prints they saw on the ground were accompanied by claw marks (not unlike a five-toed, clawed paw print of a bear—but rational explanations aren’t as fun).

Stories of a “wild man” existed among the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest long before white colonists moved in. Versions of Bigfoot ranged from harmless giants who stole fish from fishermen’s nets, to cannibalistic monsters living on mountain peaks. These stories varied from tribe to tribe, and even from family to family, which meant that Bigfoot had a lot of different names. In the 1920s, J.W. Burns compiled the local legends for a series for a Canadian newspaper, coining the term “Sasquatch” in the process.

It wasn’t until 1958 that the Bigfoot legend really started to kick off in the United States. That year, a man named Gerald Crew found a set of large footprints at a construction site where he worked in California. He had his friend make plaster casts of the prints. The story gained a lot of attention after being published in the Humboldt Times, and was picked up by the Associated Press, drawing international attention.

Turns out, the footprints were a hoax (surprise, surprise). After the death of a man named Ray Wallace—the brother of the man in charge of the construction site where the prints were found—his family stepped forward to say that he was responsible for faking the prints. Scoop Beal, the editor of the Humboldt Times, is also said to have been involved. Nevertheless, the 1958 prints find brought the first “Bigfoot Hunters” to the area.

In 1967, the “Patterson-Gimlin film” was captured. The film shows a tall, hairy “Bigfoot” walking through the forest. Believers in Big Foot note the creature’s inhuman way of walking is a major point toward the film being real. Patterson also claimed to have taken the film to a group of people working in the special effects department at Universal Studios who supposedly said,

We could try (faking it), but we would have to create a completely new system of artificial muscles and find an actor who could be trained to walk like that. It might be done, but we would have to say that it would be almost impossible.

However, a number of factors lead to skeptics believing it’s a hoax: people who knew Patterson have described him, frankly, as a liar; Patterson’s version of events—including an estimate of how tall “Bigfoot” was— also changed and escalated over time.  More to the point, a man named Bob Heironimus claimed to have worn the Bigfoot costume for the making of the film. Most likely, and not too surprisingly, the film was a hoax.

The most common explanation for Bigfoot sightings is that people are playing pranks. There was even once a thriving market for “Bigfoot feet” to create your own prints to trick your family and friends. People still even dress up in ape costumes and ghillie suits in order to perpetuate the legend.

Some sightings are also simply misidentified animals. In 2007, a photo was snapped in Pennsylvania using an automatically triggered camera hanging from a tree. While believers claimed the blurry photo—showing a large, hairy creature standing on all-fours—was that of a “juvenile sasquatch,” the Pennsylvania Game Commission said the creature was most likely “a bear with an extreme case of mange.”  Looking at the picture, it could also just as easily been a human in a suit.

One of the big questions posed to believers in Bigfoot is if there are enough of the creatures to maintain a stable breeding population, and over a reasonably large area given all the supposed sightings—which there must be, unless they have extraordinarily lengthy lives—then why has a body of Bigfoot never been found? In 2008, Rick Dyer and Matthew Whitton claimed to have solved this problem after they supposedly found a Bigfoot body, posting a video of it on YouTube. The body was nearly eight feet tall and weighed over 500 pounds. Despite even some Bigfoot experts doubting the young men’s story, the discovery was covered by CNN, ABC, Fox, and BBC News, and the pair received $50,000 from Searching for Bigfoot, Inc. as “a measure of good faith.” However, when the body arrived in a block of ice and was thawed and examined, researchers found that the “body” was made up of rubber feet, fake hair, and a hollow head. Not exactly convincing. Dyer and Whitton later admitted that it was a hoax. (shocker)

While the idea of a real Bigfoot is pretty unconvincing, the stories have caught on and are so prevalent in pop culture that it’s unlikely the idea of Bigfoot will fade away any time soon. As with everything, treat the stories and information you hear or read with a healthy dash of skepticism. Someday real, solid proof of Bigfoot might emerge, but I’m not holding my breath.

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy:

• 12 Historic Scientific Hoaxes
• One of the Great Practical Jokes of All Time- The Berners Street Hoax
• The Origin of the Loch Ness Monster
• The Monkey Artist Hoax
• Brontosauruses Never Existed

Bonus Facts:

• The term “sasquatch” comes from the Halkomelem word “sasq’ets” which is just a name for “wild men”, essentially referring to bigfoot-like creatures.   Halkomelem was a language spoken by a small group of Native Americans on the border between British Columbia and Washington.
• While most scientists believe that Bigfoot is a legend, or a combination of hoaxes and misidentification, a few scientists—including Jane Goodall—have shown some amount of belief that such a creature could exist.
• Nearly one third of all Bigfoot sightings are in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, with the rest of the sights spread out across the remainder of the states.

Expand for References

Many of us have seen people with this condition, albeit on the big screen. In the campy 1935 horror film, Mad Love, deranged surgeon Peter Lorre replaces a pianist’s hands with those of a knife-throwing murderer, and the hands take over. More recently and more well known, in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Peter Sellers in the eponymous role repeatedly and compulsively fights to keep his right arm from striking a Nazi salute. (In fact, the syndrome is also sometimes called “Dr. Strangelove Syndrome”.)

Yet what’s entertaining and even hilarious in the theater is not nearly so funny in real life. Inconveniently and often embarrassingly touching, pinching and pulling, these alien hands may compulsively grasp a breast or stroke a penis while the person it’s attached to rides the subway or waits in line;  their are also potential legal ramifications if the hand strays to others in an inappropriate fashion.

Described by scientists as a “complex, goal-directed activity in one hand that is not voluntarily initiated,” sufferers from the disorder are aware of the movement, and they feel what the hand feels, but often feel as it they have no control over it. Almost always occurring on the non-dominant side (i.e., if you’re right handed, your alien hand would be your left), many patients with this condition get to the point where they refer to the hand as if it is another person, even giving it a different name. Frequently, suffers may complain, “I can’t make it listen to me.”

Symptoms range from compulsively grasping and releasing an object to fully self-oppositional movements, like stubbing out a cigarette immediately after the other hand has lit it or unbuttoning a shirt as the other hand buttons. In between the extremes, some suffers can control the arm with great effort, although even then, their movements may be imprecise; for example, while trying to touch the tip of the nose, they touch the shoulder instead. Extreme cases have occurred where the hand has attacked, and even tried to strangle with a cord, the person to which it’s attached.

The syndrome itself is one of a number of similar conditions, each thought to be the product of some type of brain trauma or injury. The most common, or at least most well documented, cases of alien hand syndrome involve epileptics who have voluntarily undergone a procedure to separate the left and right hemispheres of the brain in an effort to control their seizures; however, it has been known to occur in people who suffered from a brain tumor, stroke, infection or aneurysm.

There is no known cure for this condition, though it can usually be controlled somewhat by giving the alien hand something to do, like having it hold a cane while you are in public, so the hand stays occupied.

A similar, and likewise bizarre, condition is known as Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), which appears to be purely psychological. People suffering with this condition also feel as if one of their limbs is not really a part of themselves. But rather than live with it, they have a very strong desire to have the offending limb amputated. As psychiatrists describe it, the “motivation for the preferred body modification is believed to be a mismatch between actual and perceived body schema.” Not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM-IV), most with this condition receive little to no formal treatment; rather, many take matters into their own hands:

When he was just out of college, he’d tried to [amputate his leg] using a tourniquet fashioned out of an old sock and strong baling twine… After two hours the pain was unbearable, and fear sapped his will.

The leg was always there as a foreign body, an imposter, an intrusion.

He spent every waking moment imagining freedom from the leg. . . . The leg just wasn’t his. He began to blame it for keeping him single…

Another BIID sufferer had more success when he shot his leg. As he said, “I’ve wanted to be one-legged since I was a child . . . . No one can help this overwhelming and irrational wish that I’ve experienced with varying degrees for as long as I can remember. For the first time in my life, I’m finally happy.”

In a 2005 study, it was found that of 52 BIID sufferers interviewed, 9 had a limb amputated and six of those used “methods that put the subject at risk of death.” Perhaps even more disturbingly, three had been able to find a surgeon willing to amputate a healthy limb; in fact, in the 1990s, Dr. Robert Smith of the Farkirk Royal Infirmary in Scotland performed at least two such surgeries before news of them became public. Another surgeon, who had lost his license years before, performed an illegal amputation of a healthy limb in Tijuana in 1998, but, sadly, the patient died of gangrene. Today, there is apparently a surgeon somewhere in Asia who, for $6,000, will sneak a BIID sufferer into his hospital and perform an emergency amputation while pretending to do another surgery.

So the next time you want to complain about your arthritis, carpal tunnel, trigger finger, writer’s cramps or dishpan hands, take a moment and be thankful that at least your left hand knows what your right is doing, and you don’t have the near uncontrollable urge to chop it off.

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy:

• The People Who Can’t Perceive Faces
• The People Who Turn to Bone
• The Man Who was a Dwarf and Later a Giant
• About 85% of People Only Breathe Out of One Nostril at a Time
• Reading in Dim Light Does Not Damage Vision

Expand for References

Embed This Infographic
<a href="http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/05/10-interesting-language-facts-part-3"><img src="http://www.todayifoundout.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/10-Interesting-Language-Facts-Part-3.jpg" alt="10 Interesting Language Facts (Part-3)" width="620" border="0" /></a>[Source: <a href='http://www.todayifoundout.com' title='Interesting Facts'>Today I Found Out</a>]

For more Language Facts see:
10 Common Word & Pronunciation Mistakes

10 Interesting Word & Phrase Facts

10 More Interesting Words & Phrases Facts

The Origins of 10 Words & Phrases

10 Interesting Language Facts

10 Interesting Language Facts (Part-2)

Expand for References and Further Reading

With Britain permeating many a nation’s history, even people who have never visited the place are familiar with the British flag peering out at them from their history textbooks. Red, white, and blue before America adopted the colour scheme, the current British flag has been flying above government buildings since 1801.

Saint George’s Cross

Before Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, England’s flag was a simple red cross on a white background, known as “St. George’s Cross”. Saint George was the patron saint of England, and though not much concrete information is known about him, he was praised as being “an example of bravery in defence of the poor and the defenceless and of the Christian faith.”

His cross was believed to have been worn as part of English soldiers’ uniforms during the reign of Richard I, who ruled from 1189 to 1199. Certainly by the time of Edward III, who ruled from 1327-1357, the cross was used as the flag on the king’s ship and for his soldiers’ uniforms. It was Edward III who declared George the patron saint of England, probably in 1344 or 1348 (the records were destroyed by a fire). The red cross—a symbol of martyrdom—was used for the next 250 years.

Saint Andrew’s Cross

In 1603, when Queen Elizabeth I was dying and heirless, she declared that King James VI of Scotland would be the successor to the English throne. With England and Scotland now being unified under the same king, their flags were also combined to show that they were one nation. Scotland’s flag up until that point had been the cross of St. Andrew—a white, diagonal cross (or X shape) on a blue background, owing to St. Andrew being named the patron saint of Scotland in 1320, with St. Andrew’s cross officially being adopted as the Scottish flag in 1385.

1606 Flag

In 1606, King James I of England, IV of Scotland, created this “unifying” flag, a design that looks almost like the British flag we know today: a red cross bordered in white atop a white X-shaped cross on a blue background. King James ordered the flag to be flown on both English and Scottish ships, though ships could also fly the flag of St. George or St. Andrew alongside it, depending on where the ship was registered. The Union Flag was purely symbolic until 1707, however, when English and Scottish parliaments finally combined to form Great Britain, a new nation, with Queen Anne declaring the Union Flag as the official flag of the new country.

Saint Patrick’s Cross

In 1800, another change needed to be made when King George III signed an Act of Union passed by both the Irish and British parliaments, to unify Ireland and Great Britain. This became official in 1801 when the Kingdom of Ireland became the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.” This, of course, called for a change in flag. The Irish national flag at the time was the cross of St. Patrick, the well-known patron saint of Ireland. The flag is a red X-shaped cross on a white background.  Thus, the same year Ireland was incorporated, the British flag was redesigned to include the cross of St. Patrick.

Despite the secession of 26 Irish counties in 1922, the cross of St. Patrick remains in the flag to commemorate the six counties of Northern Ireland that remain in the now-named United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy:

• The Difference Between the UK, Great Britain, and England
• The Current Version of the U.S. Flag was Proposed by a High School Student Who Got Just a B- for His Design
• The First Olympic Flag Went Missing for 77 Years Until a Former Olympian Revealed He’d Had it in His Suitcase the Whole Time
• The Origin of the Jolly Roger
• The “Ye” in Things Like “Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe” Should Be Pronounced “The”

Bonus Facts:

• The terms British flag, Union Flag, and Union Jack are all correct terms for the flag. Some believe that “Union Jack” should only be used when describing a British flag flying above a warship, but this is a recent idea. In 1908, the Parliament declared that “the Union Jack should be regarded as the national flag” – flown anywhere at anytime.  However, this maritime naming idea hints at why the British flag is called the “Union Jack”.  A “jack” around the 17th century when the flag starting being called the “Union Jack” was simply a word for a maritime bow flag.  Thus, the “Union flag”, flown on the bow of a ship, was called the “Union Jack”.  Around this time, the flag was also called “His Majesty’s Jack” and “the King’s Jack”.
• Some may be wondering why Wales isn’t included on the Union flag. Wales was officially incorporated into England by King Henry III in 1536 and was a principality rather than a kingdom by the time James I created the first new flag. As a part of England, it is technically represented by the cross of St. George. (Though the addition of the red Welsh dragon would make the Union flag even more awesome, in my opinion!)
• St. Andrew is not only the patron saint of Scotland, but also the patron saint of Greece.
• The cross of St. Andrew was once silver, not white, but changed to white throughout history.
• An X-shaped cross is also called a “saltire”.
• An unofficial Scottish flag has been used where the cross of St. Andrew is placed over the cross of St. George rather than the other way around. This, of course, brings more attention to the Scottish part of the flag and puts England in the background. However, the flag was never well-used.
• Early designs of the flag saw St. George’s cross and St. Andrew’s cross side-by-side, but the designs were never used.
• Many nations include the Union Flag as part of their national flag, including Australia and New Zealand. The state of Hawaii even incorporates the Union Flag into the design of its state flag.
• Saint Andrew was made the patron saint of Scotland around the time the Scots were fighting a war for their independence against the English.  In 1314, they won a significant victory at the Battle of Bannockburn, led by Robert the Bruce. The battle cemented their independence, and in 1320 the Pope wrote the Declaration of Arbroath, declaring Scotland independent, lifting the excommunication from Robert the Bruce, and naming St. Andrew the patron saint of Scotland “forever.” St. Andrew’s cross was officially adopted as the Scottish flag in 1385.
• The origins of the Irish cross are much-contested, with some believing that it was adapted from the cross of St. Andrew or St. George—either changing the colours of the Scottish flag or rotating the cross on the English flag. In 1612, the cross can be seen on the seal of Trinity College of Dublin. In 1653, the King’s Own Regiment of Ireland used a flag with a red diagonal cross on a yellow background.

Expand for References

Booker Taliaferro Washington

In the autumn of 1901, Booker T. Washington, the great educator, author, and orator, was on a speaking tour.  In Mississippi, he received a telegram from President Theodore Roosevelt.  (President William McKinley had been assassinated less than two months before, an event which led to Roosevelt being sworn in as President.)

The telegram asked Washington to come to the capitol for a conference.

When Washington arrived on the afternoon of October 16, 1901, he received an invitation to dine with the President at 8:00p that evening.  According to Roosevelt biographer, Edmund Morris (author of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt), the dinner proceeded “behind closed doors, under the disapproving gaze of a negro butler”.

Besides Roosevelt and Washington, the President’s wife, daughter, and three sons were present at the historic meal.  While this seems a trifling thing to us today, at the time inviting a black man to dinner at the White House was anything but.  News of the unique dinner traveled along the Associated Press wires throughout the night.  The morning newspapers were generally positive in the North, but many Southern papers took a different tact. They proceeded to attack both Roosevelt and Washington with fervor.

For instance, the next afternoon, the Memphis-Scimitar reported:

The most damnable outrage which has ever been perpetrated by a citizen of the United States was committed by the President, when he invited a n****r to dine with him at the White House… It would not be worth more than a passing notice if Theodore Roosevelt had sat down to dinner on his own time with a Pullman car porter, but Roosevelt the individual and Roosevelt the President are not to be viewed in the same light.

The newspaper went on to criticize Roosevelt’s claims that his mother was a Southern woman and to assert that Southern women could no longer accept invitations to the White House “with proper self-respect” nor should President Roosevelt now be welcome in Southern homes.   While Theodore Roosevelt’s father was a big supporter of Abraham Lincoln and the Union during the Civil War, his mother was, in fact, from the South and from a slave owning family.  Her brother, James Dunwoody Bulloch, was also a Confederate Navy commander.  Another brother of hers was a member of the Confederacy, serving as a midshipman on the CSS Alabama.  After the war, those two moved to England.

Letters poured into the White House full of anger and menace.  A U.S. Senator from South Carolina proposed a retaliatory measure: “The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that n****r will necessitate our killing a thousand n****rs in the South before they will reach their place again.”

Men swore never to vote for Roosevelt in future elections.

Soon after the dinner, Roosevelt received an honorary doctorate from Yale University, along with famed novelist Mark Twain.  Booker T. Washington was also present at this event.  Roosevelt spoke to Twain and asked the novelist for his opinion on the controversial matter.  Twain replied “that a President was perhaps not as free as an ordinary citizen to entertain whoever he likes.”

Reports had been circulating that Roosevelt and Washington would be dining together again.  Security was tightened for the President at Yale because of the ordeal and the President was not allowed to “work the crowds”. In addition, at the event, no public mention of the White House dinner was made.  Booker T. Washington was also pointedly seated far away from the President.

A few days later, Roosevelt made a public statement about the “infamous” dinner.  True to his no-nonsense style, he simply said, “I shall have him to dine as often as I please.”

Soon after, a group of black admirers presented the President with a possum as a gift for his 43rd birthday on October 27th.  Roosevelt vowed to eat it, “well browned and with sweet potatoes on the side”.

Booker T. Washington was to visit the White House again, but only in the morning during regular business hours.  Future dinner invitations became impossible for both men.

For the remainder of his term as U.S. President (1901-1908), Theodore Roosevelt was never again to invite a black person to dinner at the White House.  However, Roosevelt later stated on the issue of race something that would later be echoed, albeit in his own words, by Martin Luther King Jr. in his “I Have a Dream” speech.  Roosevelt stated:

…the only wise and honorable and Christian thing to do is to treat each black man and each white man strictly on his merits as a man, giving him no more and no less than he shows himself worthy to have.

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy:

• The Amazing Life of Teddy Roosevelt
• Jackie Robinson was Not the First African American to Play in the Major Leagues
• The Teenager Who was Executed Twice
• 20 Interesting Martin Luther King Jr. Facts
• The First African American Governor, 1872

Bonus Facts:

• Roosevelt was shot by saloon keeper John Schrank on October 14, 1912, while campaigning for President under the Bull-Moose party ticket.  His life was saved thanks to a steel eyeglass case and his 50 page speech he was carrying in his jacket, both of which the bullet had to pass through.  At the time, he was about to give a speech and decided to go ahead and give it, despite being shot.  His decision to go ahead with his speech, rather than seek medical aid immediately, was from concluding that because he was not coughing up blood, the bullet must not have penetrated that deeply into his chest.  His opening line for the speech was, “Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”  X-rays later showed that the bullet had lodged 3 inches into his chest and was embedded in his ample chest muscle.
• Roosevelt’s last name was commonly mispronounced even in his own day. He was even once publicly criticized for “mispronouncing” his own last name by Mr. Richard E. Mayne who was the chairman of the Department of Reading and Speech Culture for the New York State Teachers Association.  Mayne felt Roosevelt was “perpetuating a practice against which are set the principles of usage…” by pronouncing his name Rose-uh-velt rather than using common English pronunciation to pronounce it as it’s spelled.  As a response to Mr. Mayne, Roosevelt explained that his name is from his Dutch ancestry and so is pronounced as the Dutch would have.  Specifically, in Dutch the double “o” makes a long “o” sound, thus should be pronounced “Rose” rather than “Roos”.  And, indeed “roos” in Dutch means “rose”.

Without further ado, here are ten facts you probably didn’t know about Walt Disney and the Walt Disney Company.

1) Oswald the Rabbit, Disney’s first successful cartoon, was traded for sportscaster Al Michaels in 2006.

In 1927, Walt Disney was struggling. But then he hit it big with a character named Oswald the Rabbit. He sold the rights of the character to Universal and it became Disney’s biggest success at that time, rivaling contemporary cartoons Krazy Kat and Felix the Cat. In 1928, Disney went to negotiate a better contract for the rabbit and his animators, but Universal had other plans. They wanted Disney to take a twenty percent cut. Negotiations fell through and Oswald the Rabbit, since his rights were actually owned by Universal, became property of Universal.

Fast-forward 79 years: NBC (owned by Universal) had just acquired the rights to broadcast the huge property of Sunday Night Football and they needed someone to call the games. They looked to hire Al Michaels, who was under contract at ESPN (owned by ABC, which was owned by Disney) . So Disney and Universal made a deal. Universal would get Al Michaels and Disney would receive the nearly 80 year old cartoon, Oswald the Rabbit.

2) Contrary to popular myth, Walt Disney WAS NOT cryogenically frozen when he died.

An urban legend states that upon his passing, Walt Disney’s frozen corpse was stashed underneath the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. This is simply not true. Walt Disney passed away on December 15th, 1966. Two days later, and consistent with his wishes, he was cremated. A burial plot with a garden, presumably containing his ashes, with his name on it is at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

The first known experiment with human cryogenic freezing didn’t happen until January 1967, a month after Disney’s death. Several sources have claimed that the urban myth arose from a couple of Disney animators who said that Disney froze himself as a joke. His daughter, Diane, clearly stated in 1972 that, “There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that my father, Walt Disney, wished to be frozen. I doubt my father had ever heard of cryonics.”

3)  Mickey Mouse’s original name was Mortimer Mouse, but Walt’s wife thought the name sounded “pompous.”

While riding back on a train from an unsuccessful business meeting (rarely an uncommon occurrence at that time for Walt) with his wife Lily in 1928, he began sketching a cartoon mouse. He called the sketch “Mortimer Mouse.” He showed it to Lily, who said the name Mortimer was too pompous and suggested the cuter name of Mickey. Mickey Mouse would become Walt Disney’s defining character.

Mortimer Mouse actually would make appearances in later Disney cartoons, first in the the 1936 cartoon “Mickey’s Rival,” where he plays Mickey’s rival for Minnie. He’s rude, selfish, and sexist. In other words,  the exact opposite of Mickey. He also looked more like a rat than a mouse, with his longer snout, whiskers, and two protruding front teeth.  Oddly, he talked in a Brooklyn accent. He would appear again in “Mickey’s Rival Returns,” 64 years later in 2000.

4)  Neither Mickey Mouse nor the famed “Walt Disney” signature were actually ever drawn by Walt Disney himself.

While Walt did sketch the original plans for the Mickey Mouse’s character, the final design for Mickey we’ve all come to know and love was actually done by the famed Disney animator and Dutchman Ub Iwerks.  In addition, the famed signature is what is known as a “stylized version” of Disney’s. As can be seen on legal documents, Disney’s own signature was not nearly as exciting or intricate. In fact, rumor had it that Walt couldn’t even reproduce the famed signature.

5) Walt Disney’s last written words were apparently “Kurt Russell”

As Walt Disney laid on his deathbed, suffering from lung cancer, in 1966, the story goes (later confirmed by Kurt Russell) that he scribbled on a piece of paper the name “Kurt Russell.” He died never writing another word.  Many have speculated what this could have meant, including the famous actor himself, Kurt Russell who in a 2007 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live said, “It’s true. I don’t know what to make of that. I was taken into his office one time after he died and I was shown that.” Russell was a child actor at the time for Disney, having just signed a ten year contract with the studio.

However, Jim Korkis of MousePlanet.com argues that “Kurt Russell” was not the last written thing / last words of Disney, merely one of the last things he wrote and states that no one actually knows what the very last thing was, despite what Russell himself says and was told.  The very paper with Russell’s name on it supposedly still lies on Disney’s office desk (see fact number 10), along with many other papers that Disney had written on (hence why there is some contention over whether “Kurt Russell” was really the last thing or merely something he wrote then intended to come back to later.)

6) When Walt Disney revealed to the world his plans to make an animated feature length adaptation of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” many film insiders thought it was going to destroy the company. They dubbed the film “Disney’s Folly.”

A reimagining of the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs had been something Walt had wanted to do since he was a 15 year old newsboy in Kansas City and he saw a silent film version of the fairy tale starring Marguerite Clark.

There were many factors that went into the popular prediction that this film would be a failure. This was the Walt Disney Company’s first feature-length film, not to mention the first full length animated film ever in color. The film’s working budget went over $2 million ($32M today), which was nearly 400% over the original budget. In addition, images of the Wicked Witch and the Enchanted Forest were thought to be too frightening for younger audiences.

On December 21, 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, premiered at the Carthay Theater in Los Angeles. It went on to gross (adjusted for inflation based on the Guiness World Records numbers) about $1.6 billion.  “Disney’s Folly” indeed.

7) Walt Disney was a founding member of the “Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals,”  created to defend the film industry against communist infiltration.

In 1944, the MPA was formed to protect Hollywood from “communist” influences. Besides Disney, John Wayne, Cecil B. DeMille, Ginger Rogers, Gary Cooper, and Ronald Reagan were involved in this organization. In 1947, Disney testified in front of HUAC (House UnAmerican Activities Committee, which has to be one of the most ironically named committees in U.S. history) that former animators of his were actually Communist sympathizers. In addition, Disney was anti-union and claimed the 1941 strike by the Screen Cartoonists Guild was a ploy by Communists to gain influence in Hollywood.

8) In 1938, Walt Disney hosted Nazi propagandist and filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl at his studio and gave her a tour.

In 1938, only a month after Kristallnacht, the beginning of the Nazi campaign to round up all the Jews, Leni Riefenstahl arrived in the United States. She was there to meet with studio executives and gain an American audience for her film on the 1936 Berlin Games, Olympia. The film showcased German athletes in varying stages of preparation and achievement. It was meant to perpetuate the Aryan agenda- that German athletes were fitter and more inclined to athletic success than the rest of the world’s athletes.

Despite the hesitation of other studio executives, Walt Disney took her in and gave her a tour of Disney Studios. In exchange, she offered him a private showing of Olympia. Disney refused due to the fear that others would find out that he had hosted her. When Leni arrived back to Germany, she praised Disney to her government for giving her an audience.

9) Walt Disney debuted the first Audio-Animatronics at the 1964 World’s Fair

The 1964 World’s Fair, located in Flushing Meadows, New York, introduced many types of pre-Space Age technology, including such things as IBM computers. But few of these things received as much attention as Disney’s Audio-Animatronics- moving robots that had words – or had pre-recorded audio – coming out of their mouths.

Two exhibits at the World’s Fair best illustrated this technology – Abraham Lincoln in “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln” and “It’s Small World” – a slow moving boat ride featuring international unity and a very annoying theme song. President Lincoln would eventually become a member of today’s Disney World attraction “Hall of Presidents.”

10)  Walt’s apartment, where he often worked, is still above the firehouse on Main Street in Disneyland.

A small, but fully-functional, one-bedroom that Walt used often as a work space and a place to watch his dream come to life still exists above the firehouse on Main Street in Disneyland.  Walt loved the little apartment because it allowed him to watch the people enjoy his park. There were no pictures of him or his family in there, save for one picture from the National Geographic.  To this day, the apartment is still there even with the same papers he was last working on lying on his desk- everything left mostly as it was as a sort of shrine, though some of the original furniture has been replaced.

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy:

• Sleeping Beauty is Based on a Story of a Married King Who Finds a Girl in the Woods He Can’t Wake, So Rapes Her
• How the “I’m Going to Disneyland” Sports Saying Got Started
• Why the Oscars are Called the Oscars
• The Origin of the Wilhelm Scream
• The Name of the Dwarf Planet Pluto was Suggested by an 11 Year Old Girl

[Image via Jorg Hackemann / Shutterstock.com]

Expand for References

Humans throughout history have made a habit of basing a great deal of our traditions and customs around food. The curious practice of raising our drink containers is one of the most ancient of these.

To answer your question, for starters, we’ll dispel a myth.  You may have heard that the tradition of toasting originated out of a fear of poisoning- the idea being that clinking two glasses together would cause the liquid from both to spill into one another; thus, the people you’re drinking with wouldn’t poison you as they’d then be poisoning themselves. As interesting as this historical rumour is, not surprisingly, there is not a single shred of evidence backing up this conjecture.

As to the real origin, because the practice of honouring through a drink offering seems to have begun in pre-history, it’s hard to say who first got the idea. In fact, most ancient societies show evidence of doing this. The Ancient Greeks would offer libations to the Gods as a ritualistic practice, as well as make a point of drinking to each other’s health. Evidence of this can be found in The Odyssey  when Ulysses drinks to the health of Achilles. The Romans placed such an importance on drinking to health that at one point in time the Senate passed a decree that stated that all must drink to Emperor Augustus at every meal. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire even describes a feast where Attila the Hun indulges in at least three toasts for every course.

The term “toast” itself originated in the 16th century. One of the first written accounts of it was in Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor when the character of Falstaff demands - “Go fetch me a quart of sack; put a toast in’t.” To translate, he’s asking for a great deal of wine with a piece of (literal) toast in it.  I can hear your disgusted outrage and objections to adding toast to wine, but it was actually quite a common practice at the time. This is thought to be due to the quality of wine in the past- it was in many cases inferior to our modern vintages.  Thus, placing a piece of toast within a jug was supposed to soak up some of the acidity and improve the flavour.  This also had the side benefit of giving people something to do with a piece of stale bread, often spiced or with fruit embedded, that would improve the bread’s palatability.  Up until very recently in history, wasting food just wasn’t something people tended to do, so finding ways to make stale bread taste good was fairly common- waste not, want not. (This was also more or less how French Toast got its start.)

Over the coming centuries, the term “toasting”, in English, slowly transformed to incorporate traditional libations and the honouring of people. In the early days of this connection, the person being honoured often received the physical toast saturated with wine at the end.

Toasting became so popular in the 17th and 18th centuries that Toastmasters came into being. Acting as a kind of party referee, they were there to ensure that the toasting didn’t become too excessive and that everyone got their fair share of toasting opportunities. This may sound silly, but it was a desperately needed role. If left to their own devices, guests would occasionally go on toasting every individual in the room. (This being a great excuse to drink excessive amounts of alcohol without seeming like a lush.)

Elaborate drinking games soon became interwoven with the toasting ritual, and most of them seem to have been designed to impress the ladies. One of the more “charming” examples of this involves a gentleman cutting himself, mixing the blood with his drink and then toasting to his lady of choice in order to prove his devotion. Shakespeare is once again our authority when it comes to this particular early, bizarre toasting practice. In The Merchant of Venice the King of Morocco talks of stabbing himself and then laments -

I stabbed my arm to drink her health,
The more fool I, the more fool I.

Another odd custom of the time involved toasting to a lady’s beauty by drinking from her shoe… Seriously, if anyone ruined my shoes in such a way, they’d be getting stabbed with my heel. Also, ewww.

Unsurprisingly, the sheer excess of these practices, and drunkenness that often ensued, lead to anti-toasting clubs and movements. Although they were unsuccessful, the eventual result was toasting becoming more of a civilized, restrained and intellectual pursuit, rather than one purely designed for imbibing alcohol. There were even “Toastmaster” books published around this time. One of these was The Toastmasters Guide by T Hughes, which strove to instill proper toasting etiquette within the reader. Some of these books include examples of short, appropriate, but also witty toasts that were relevant to all occasions. Examples of these include -

Mirth, wine and love. 

May the works of our nights never fear the day-light. 

Old wine and young women. 

Prudence and temperance with claret and champagne. 

Love without fear, and life without care. 

May we never want a friend to cheer us, or a bottle to cheer him. 

A generous heart and a miser’s fortune

Evidence of this change in etiquette is still apparent today, and there are even still Toastmaster Clubs. Furthermore, while we still often include alcohol in our toasting, drinking directly after a toast is usually far more restrained, often just a sip, and more reminiscent of its roots – a practice used to honour someone in a respectful and revered manner, rather than a great excuse to get drunk.

As for the aforementioned raising of the drinking vessels and clinking them together, there are a couple of theories surrounding the origin of this, but as with the ultimate origin of toasting, we can only guess. Probably the most popular, and simplest, theory is that people originally did this to raise their drink to the gods or person being honoured in offering, before taking a drink themselves.  As to the clinking, this perhaps has similar origins of symbolically offering your drink to the people around you in a general toast.

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy:

• How the Tradition of Taking Your Hat Off When the National Anthem is Played Got Started
• The Origins of the Wedding Ring and Why They’re Worn on the 4th Finger of the Left Hand
• How the Tradition of Yelling “Geronimo” When Jumping Out of an Airplane Got Started
• The Nazi Origin of the Olympic Flame Relay Tradition
• How the Tradition of Trick or Treating Got Started

Bonus Fact:

• A word that tends to go hand in hand with toasting, “cheers”, or in Medieval times “cheres”, derived from the Anglo-French word for ‘the face’. If we go a little further back, in Old French the word “chiere” meant “face, countenance, look, expression.” By the late 14th century “cheres” had evolved to “cheere” and came to mean a mood that was reflected in the face. By the 18th century, it had come to mean gladness and it began being used to show support and encouragement. Considering that wine, or alcohol in general, is something we drink in both celebration and lamentation, it’s hardly surprising that “cheers” eventually became a part of the toasting ritual.

[Toasting Image via Shutterstock]

Expand for References

Loch Ness is a long, narrow lake southwest of Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. It is the second largest loch in Scotland by surface area and the largest by volume. It is also the second deepest loch, at an astounding 755 feet (230 meters) at its deepest point. The water is dark and murky due to the high levels of peat in the surrounding soil. The breadth, depth, and low visibility of this particular loch make a prime environment for someone’s imagination to run wild, particularly when other lake monsters were plentiful in Scottish legends.

The first recorded sighting of Nessie was in 565 A.D. by Saint Columba. Saint Columba was an Irish missionary praised for spreading Christianity in Scotland. On one trip to the highlands, he ran across a group of people burying a man who had been bitten by the monster in the River Ness. The Saint supposedly asked another man present to swim across the river. When the man jumped in, the monster rose from the depths and Saint Columba, invoking God’s power, banished it. The story was written nearly a century after the supposed encounter; but even so, it remains a popular piece of “evidence” used to demonstrate Nessie’s existence.

The next recorded sighting happened over 1300 years later in 1933. George Spicer was out driving with his wife when they saw a large creature walk in front of their car near the loch. The creature supposedly had a huge body, long neck, and they couldn’t see any limbs before it lunged toward the Loch Ness. A few weeks later, a motorcyclist claimed to have nearly run into a similar creature, describing it as a type of plesiosaur—a prehistoric marine creature with four large fins and a long neck, fitting the Spicers’ description. Soon, with the building of a road along the loch’s coast, many more reports of sightings of the monster flooded in.

The 1933 sightings proved to be the beginning of a long, fruitless search for the monster. The first picture taken of the monster was in November 1933 by Hugh Gray. He supposedly saw a large creature rise above the surface of the water and snapped several photographs before it disappeared, but only one photo turned out when developed. The picture shows a creature with a long neck and a thick body, with four lumps at its side which might have been flippers. However, it should be noted that critics claim that the photo is of a dog swimming with a stick in its mouth… not remotely frightening.

Later that year, a man named Marmaduke Wetherell, a well-known big game hunter, was hired by the Daily Mail to find evidence of the Loch Ness Monster. He later found large tracks on the edge of the lake and made molds, but the Natural History Museum examined them and said they were likely from a dried hippo’s foot which had become popularly used as umbrella stands. Wetherell was fired for failing to find any substantial evidence.

On April 21, 1934, the most famous picture of the monster was published in the Daily Mail. The picture was supposedly taken by a doctor named Robert Kenneth Wilson, but he didn’t like having his name associated with the photo so it became known as the “Surgeon’s Photograph.” The picture shows, from a distance, the long neck and head of the monster rising from rippling water. The picture is convincing to the untrained eye, though critics, certain the photo was a hoax, claimed it was everything from an elephant to a diving bird.

It turns out, the photo was a hoax. (shocker) In 1994, Christopher Spurling, the stepson of Marmaduke Wetherell, admitted to being involved in creating a model of Nessie’s neck and head and placing it on a toy submarine. The pair then took the model to Loch Ness and took photos of it in the water. Wilson was then given the photos because he was a trusted man, being a doctor. Wetherell was said to have come up with the hoax because he was humiliated by his previous attempt at finding the monster.

Since then, countless videos, photos, and eyewitness accounts have emerged claiming to prove the existence of the Loch Ness Monster. In 1954, the first contact via sonar was made on Rival III, a fishing boat. 480 feet below the boat, a large “object” was seen keeping pace with the boat’s speed. In 2011, sonar contact was made again by Marcus Atkinson who saw an object about five feet long and 75 feet below the surface. It kept pace with his boat for two minutes before it disappeared. The sonar image has been examined and critics have dismissed it as an algae bloom.  However, believers have said that algae couldn’t survive at 75 feet as it needs sunlight to thrive, and as murky as the waters of Loch Ness are, very little sunlight would reach so far below the surface.

Many other searches have taken place to find the monster than those already listed. In 1934, twenty men sat at various locations around the loch with binoculars and cameras in the Sir Edward Mountain Expedition. They remained there from 9 to 6 every day for five weeks. 21 pictures were taken and examined, but they were thought to be of seals, not a monster.

In the 70s and early 2000s, Robert Rines conducted a number of underwater investigations hoping to find Nessie. His studies resulted in several underwater photographs of possible fins and tails. However, in 2008 he claimed that, based on fewer sightings and sonar readings, Nessie had likely died due to global warming…

The most recent photograph was taken by George Edwards in November 2011. Edwards claims that it is the most convincing photograph yet, which perhaps shouldn’t be too much of a surprise given advances in easy to use and readily accessible home photo editing software. However, in this case, even other Loch Ness Monster researchers have questioned the authenticity of the picture, claiming the hump rising from the water in the picture is actually a fiberglass model that was used in the filming of a documentary by National Geographic, which Edwards had participated in.

With all of the sightings and hunts for the monster, Loch Ness has become a popular tourist destination and interested parties can hop on a boat and travel around the loch looking for the famous monster. Of course, Nessie is discounted by scientists as a myth, but people need something to do with their free time and vacation dollars, and this is perhaps at least more scenic than traveling to the equator and paying to watch the different way water spins down toilets and drains depending on which side of the equator you’re on. (Note: this one’s also a myth, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a tour guide around the equator who doesn’t demonstrate the differing rotation of the toilet water based on moving about a mile on one side of the equator or the other. In fact, what hemisphere you are in has almost nothing to do with the way water spins down the drain.)

If you liked this article, you might also enjoy:

• The Colossal Squid Has a Doughnut Shaped Brain with Its Esophagus Running Through the Middle
• The Real Life White Whale That Destroyed Over 20 Whaling Ships and Inspire Moby Dick
• The Mammoth Megalodon, a Shark About 30 Times the Size of a Great White
• Killer Whales are Actually Dolphins
• The Difference Between the UK, England, and Great Britain

Bonus Facts:

• Loch Ness doesn’t freeze. Because of its depth, most of the water stays at a steady temperature of about 44 degrees Fahrenheit. Only the top 100 feet or so varies in temperature, but with so much warmer water beneath keeping things relatively toasty, you’ll not get a chance to ice skate on the loch.
• Loch Ness holds more water than all of the other lakes in Great Britain combined.
• A scientific name was given to Nessie in 1975—Nessiteras rhombopteryx, or “the Ness monster with the diamond shaped fin.” It is also an anagram for “Monster hoax by Sir Peter S.” Peter Scott was the man who gave the name to the monster.

[Urquhart Castle / Loch Ness Image via Shutterstock]

Expand for References

Bath School After Bombing

This Day In History: May 18, 1927

On this day in history, 1927, 55 year old school board treasurer Andrew Kehoe, with his farm in the process of being foreclosed, murdered his wife, burned down his house, then blew up part of the Bath Consolidated School building, which at the time contained around 236 students. He then committing suicide by blowing up his own car when the school board superintendent, Emory Huyck, was near it, so as to take him with him. In the end, 45 people were killed, including 38 students from second to sixth grade, though as you’ll see soon, it was nearly far worse.

It is thought Kehoe chose the school as a target because of a levy to build a new school building that he had staunchly lobbied against, but none-the-less passed (said building was the one he blew up). This levy resulted in additional land taxes, which hit Kehoe particularly hard as he was already supposedly struggling to make the mortgage payments on his 185 acre farm, in part due to medical expenses owing to his wife’s terminal tuberculosis. Eventually he stopped paying on his mortgage, reportedly due to not having any money, and the bank began the process of foreclosing on him.

However, it should be noted that it is estimated that he had enough equipment lying around on his farm that he could have sold it to payoff his mortgage completely with something extra left over. In addition, he had the value of all his animals which he also could have sold. Given his intelligence and educational background, other jobs were available to him besides farming once his farming equipment and animals were sold off. So it’s possible this was more just a case of a slightly deranged person who had a grudge against the school and its board and he simply stopped paying his mortgage as he knew it wouldn’t matter if he was foreclosed upon.

Whatever the initial motivation, he began planning to blow up the school building about a year before he did it, beginning to hoard explosives such as dynamite and pyrotol, left over after WWI, starting around mid-1926. All-total throughout the year, he purchased about one ton of pyrotol, supposedly to be used on his farm, such as to aid in tree stump removal. He also purchased several boxes of dynamite from various stores around his area, careful to never buy too much in too short of a period from one store.

As something of an electrician and an engineer, Kehoe was chosen to do maintenance around the school building in 1926, which he began doing (presumably this is when he first hatched his plan). As a result, no one thought anything strange about him working long hours in the basement of the school. He wasn’t, however, just performing routine maintenance, but was also carefully wiring up explosives to a central alarm clock trigger mechanism.

Either on the day of the explosions or the day before, he murdered his wife by either slashing her throat or bludgeoning her (accounts from newspapers at the time differ on this point). Next, on May 18 at about 8:45 am, he tied up his animals in his barn and then set the house and barn on fire via firebombs he had made and wired up. He left a message on his fence which stated “CRIMINALS ARE MADE, NOT BORN”.

Next he took his car, loaded with dynamite and various metal items, such as nails, to maximize shrapnel, and drove towards the school.

O.H. Buck gave an eyewitness account of both the burning of Kehoe’s home and the explosions at the school:

Arriving near the Kehoe place we saw that the buildings were afire and speeded up. The south side of the house was in flames when we got there. We run around to the north windows and two of us crawled in. We shoved out a davenport, a table and some chairs. Then, in a corner of the room, I found a pile of dynamite. Without thinking much about what I was doing, I picked up an armful and handed it to one of the men. The room was filled with smoke, so we got out.

Then I heard a woman across the road yelling that the school had been blown up. We started for our car and had just arrived there when a terrific blast let go in the house behind us. I was slammed against the car.

We got in and drove rapidly to Bath. A tragic scene confronted us at the school. The north half of the building was a jumble of debris. Several men were digging into the wreckage. We could hear the voices of the imprisoned children calling for help. I ran across the lawn and began helping.

I had no more than started when I was bowled over by an explosion at the roadside. I got up and looked around. A great cloud of black smoke was rolling up. Under it, I saw the tangled remains of a car. Part of a human body was caught in the steering wheel. Three or four other bodies were lying on the ground nearby.

I began to feel as though the world was coming to an end. I guess I was a hit hazy. Anyway, the next thing I remember I was out on the street. One of our men was binding up the wounds of Glenn Smith, the postmaster. His leg had been blown off. I went back to the building and helped with the rescue work until we were ordered to stop while a search was made for dynamite.”

Another account of the event by one of the neighbors of the Kehoe’s, Monty Ellsworth, was as follows:

There was a pile of children of about five or six under the roof and some of them had arms sticking out, some had legs, and some just their heads sticking out. They were unrecognizable because they were covered with dust, plaster, and blood. There were not enough of us to move the roof.

Ellsworth then went back to his house to get some rope to help pull the roof off the kids. On the way, he encountered Kehoe going the other way. He stated, “[Kehoe] grinned and waved his hand; when he grinned, I could see both rows of his teeth.”

What had happened was about one hour after Kehoe blew up his house, the first explosion rocked the school. Kehoe had intended that the entire school be blown up, but luckily the first blast seems to have knocked out the triggering mechanism (the alarm clock), resulting in the 500 pounds of explosives under the other wing of the school not going off, so instead of most all of the 250-ish people at the school being killed, about 80% survived, though many more were injured in addition to those that were killed.

The final blast came when Kehoe drove up to superintendent Huyck and supposedly yelled at him, “I’ll take you with me!” and then fired his gun, it is thought at the dynamite, at which point his car exploded killing Kehoe, the superintendent, and a few others. There was one other tragic causality of this last blast, and 8 year old boy managed to get out of the collapsed school building only to be staggering near Kehoe’s car when it exploded.

Bonus Facts:

• When Kehoe was five years old, his mother died. His father soon remarried, but his stepmother also died, partially thanks to Kehoe’s actions. Kehoe’s stepmother had been cooking over an oil stove when her clothes caught fire. Kehoe then made the problem significantly worse by dumping a bucket of water on his stepmother, resulting in the flames on the oil stove drastically increasing and engulfing his stepmother. She subsequently died from the burns.
• While Kehoe was generally considered a very intelligent person amongst those who knew him, before the bombing he also had something of a reputation for cruelty, particularly with his animals. For instance, after the blast, one neighbor noted that Kehoe had once beaten one of his horses so badly that it died.
• On May 16, 1927 one of the teachers at the school, Bernice Sterling, noted that she had asked Kehoe if she could have a picnic with her class in his grove and he had replied “[If you] want a picnic, you had better have it at once.”
• Another more clear warning sign came when Kehoe was giving the employees of the school their paychecks about a week before the blast. He specifically told Warden Keyes, the school bus driver, that “My boy, you want to take good care of that check as it is probably the last check you will ever get.”
• The last person to have died directly due to the bombing was young Beatrice Gibbs, who died three months after the bombing during a surgery treating injuries from the explosions.
• Kehoe originally purchased his farm in 1919 for $12,000 (about $150,000 today), with $6,000 paid in cash on the spot when he and his wife bought it.

Expand for References