Hart - Unknown America: myths and little known oddities about the greatest nation on earth

UNKNOWN AMERICA

Myths and little known oddities about the greatest nation on earth

MICHAEL P. HART

Copyright 2017 Michael P Hart

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 0692827803

ISBN 13: 9780692827802

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017901546

Hart of America Productions, Birmingham, ALABAMA

Dedication

Many people, both living and dead, inspired me to write this book.

But none more so than my children

Victoria Grace, Mathew Patrick, and Lily Anastasia

Who I hope will always remember the importance of preserving, honoring and retelling the past accurately lest we forget the lessons it leaves behind.

And to the love of my life, Tracy Renee, who inspires me every day with her wit, beauty, caring, grace and charm, and who pushes me to reach for heights I myself could not see.

To each of them I dedicate this book.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE

UNKNOWN STATES: Offbeat factoids and oddities about the states

CHAPTER TWO

UNKNOWN AMERICANS: Fascinating Americans that the history books mostly ignored or whose stories they just got wrong

CHAPTER THREE

UNKNOWN AMERICANA: Little known facts about life in America

CHAPTER FOUR

UNKNOWN MILITARY HISTORY: Odd plans, little known events, and bizarre ideas in defense of America

CHAPTER FIVE

UNKNOWN SPORTS: Weird Stats and facts from the playing field

CHAPTER SIX

BEFORE AMERICA: What America looked like before it was America

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE UNKNOWN PRESIDENTS: Stuff you just never learned in school

CHAPTER EIGHT

UNKNOWN BLACK HISTORY: The often ignored facts and faces that helped shape America

CHAPTER NINE

THE UNKNOWN FRAMERS: Some of the most misunderstood people in American history

CHAPTER TEN

UNKNOWN RELIGION: From the subliminal to the sublime. A peek inside worship & religion in the states

CHAPTER ELEVEN

UNKNOWN POLITICS: Weird stuff you probably didn't know, you didn't know

Introduction

In the book The LIFE OF REASON, Philosopher, writer and essayist George Santayana famously penned the words: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

What Santayana was referring to is the failures that occur when people do not learn from their past mistakes and continue in their misguided ways; and in a larger sense the tragedies that can occur when societies fail to learn, buries the truth of past mistakes, ignores or revises atrocities or worse, simply forgets.

Over the last several centuries, whether through human error, false reporting or simple neglect, history has all-to-often been a victim of forgetfulness or in many cases, revision.

While this book is chock full of historical trivia that many people have either forgotten, never knew, or were never taught, it also serves to set the record straight on some of the inaccuracies and myths that have persisted throughout the history of this nation.

In this book you will learn about the lives of some of the most famous Americans that shaped this nation as well as people you may never have heard of that the history books either ignored or whose stories were simply forgotten, altered or considered not worth telling.

In Unknown America, you will also learn fascinating facts, not just about the people that shaped America, but about the American culture and even about some of the little known oddities of the American experience.

While this book is far from comprehensive, hopefully it will inspire you to do your own research on the commonly held beliefs and teachings too many people passively accept as truth.

Simply stated; there's a lot of history in the past and unfortunately too much of it ignored, changed to fit a narrative or deemed not worthy of being taught.

So be prepared to be amazed while you learn about some of the most fascinating people, places, plans and peculiarities that make up the Unknown America.

CHAPTER ONE

UNKNOWN STATES

Offbeat factoids and oddities about the states

Alabama

Weird AL: Alabama is the only state where sex toys are technically illegal. You need a Doctors prescription or risk facing serious penalties (Note: This law has been involved in several legal challenges over the last few years and several adult stores do exist and are fighting to stay open)

* Alabama introduced the Mardi Gras to the western world. The celebration is held the day before Lent begins, on Shrove Tuesday (commonly called Fat Tuesday) in the port city of Mobile on the Alabama coast.

* Alabamians built the first rocket that put humans on the moon. Actually they can rightfully claim the US Space program was started in their state when in 1950 Dr. Wernher von Braun arrived in the then tiny town of Huntsville in North Alabama. Von Braun lead The Marshall Space Flight Center which was formerly part of the US Army, but now under NASA.

* The first 911 emergency call was made in Alabama. It was February 16 th , 1968 in the town of Haleyville. At that time the President of the Alabama Telephone Company, a guy named B.W. Gallagher, caught wind that AT&T was about to implement the new emergency system nationwide. Being a bit offended that the smaller service providers had not been consulted on the new plan, Gallagher decided to beat the big boys to the punch. Haleyville was chosen as the site because the towns existing equipment was best suited to make the conversion swiftly.

That first call was not an actual emergency. Rather it was placed by the Alabama Speaker of the House, Rankin Fite, from a room in the Haleyville City Hall to a special phone in the police department. The call was successfully answered by Congressman Tom Bevill. Although not an actual emergency, the new technology worked and Alabama can rightfully claim having successfully answered the first 911 call.

* Montgomery was the first capital and the birthplace of the Confederate States of America and the Confederate flag was designed and first flown in Alabama in 1861. Jefferson Davis, the first and only the President of the Confederacy took the oath of office on the outside steps of the Alabama Statehouse. There is a plaque on the spot to commemorate the occasion.

* In 1902 Dr. Luther Leonidas Hill performed the first operation on a heart in the Western Hemisphere when he sutured a stab wound in a young boy.

The surgery occurred in Montgomery. (This is not to be confused with the first corrective heart surgery)

* Alabama can boast the very first woman in America with disabilities to serve as Miss America. Crowned in 1995, Heather Whitestone is deaf.

* Adolph Hitler's typewriter is on exhibit at the history museum in Bessemer a town southwest of Birmingham. At the end of World War II a German-Groma 1930s typewriter was captured by the Allies at Adolf Hitler's mountain hideaway, the Eagle's Nest, near Saltzburg, Austria. Although it's the Hall of History's most popular exhibit, it is not featured in any of the museum's literature.

Alaska

Weird AK: If the island of Manhattan in New York was as sparsely inhabited as Alaska there would be a whooping 28 people on the entire island.

* Alaska was discovered in 1741 when the Danish explorer Vitus Jonassen Bering sighted it on a voyage from Siberia. Hence the strait that bears his name.

* In 1867 United States Secretary of State William H. Seward offered Russia $7,200,000 or two cents per acre, for the entire state. In October of 1867 Alaska officially became the property of the United States. The Alaska Purchase would be called Seward's Folly.