Showing posts with label Abraham Lincoln. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abraham Lincoln. Show all posts

Dec 11, 2015

Lawyers and Law School

Well-known American lawyers who did not go to law school or who did not finish
Patrick Henry (1736-1799) governor of Virginia
John Jay (1745-1829) first chief justice of the Supreme Court
John Marshall (1755-1835) chief justice of the Supreme Court
Daniel Webster (1782-1852) secretary of State
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) president, did not go
Stephen A. Douglas (1813-1861) representative, senator from Illinois
Clarence Darrow (1857-1938) defense attorney in Scopes trial of 1925, dropped out
Benjamin N. Cardozo (1870-1938) justice of the Supreme Court
Strom Thurmond (1902- ) US senator, governor of South Carolina
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson.

Apr 11, 2014

Twelve Patent Facts

On March 19, 1474, Venice passed the world’s earliest known law to grant and protect patents.
Around 50,000 patent applications were made from UK inventors in 2013. That is about one new British invention every 10 minutes.
The Japanese submit more than 470,000 a year.
US patents during 2013 464,573.
The second patent in England was for a monopoly on representing an image of the King.
The musical fly swatter was patented in the US in 1994. It played one tune when turned on and another when it hit something.
IBM has gained more patents than any other company in the US for the past 21 years.
US patent number 5528943, issued in 1996, was for a pregnant female crash test dummy.
Thomas Edison accumulated 2,332 patents worldwide for his inventions.
In 1998, the European patent office reported that the patent visitors most often wanted to see was one for sardine-flavored ice-cream. This was because nobody believed it until they saw it.
Abraham Lincoln was the only US president to hold a patent. It was for a device to lift boats over sandbanks.
There are 52,438 US patents for measuring and testing.

Nov 23, 2013

Thanksgiving Terms

There was not always a choice of dark meat or white meat after carving the turkey. These terms have nothing to do with the color of the meat as they were euphemisms for the leg and breast of turkey and other fowl. In the Victorian times, the words “leg” and “breast” were considered fowl, so they awkwardly decided to call the leg “white meat” and the breast “black meat.”

Did you know Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird of the US. or that Abraham Lincoln issued a 'Thanksgiving Proclamation' on third October 1863 and officially set aside the last Thursday of November as the national day for Thanksgiving? He was persuaded by Sarah Josepha Hale, an American magazine editor to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday. She is also the author of the popular nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb".

Apr 13, 2013

The Booth Brothers

On April 14, 1865, just days after the end of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln attended a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. and was shot. He died the next day.

Before the assassination, John Wilkes Booth was well known as a stage actor. He was the son of a famous actor, Junius Brutus Booth, and two of his brothers, Edwin and Junius, Jr., were also actors. Edwin was more famous than John Wilkes, before the assassination.

Months before the assassination of Lincoln, Edwin Booth was on a train platform in New Jersey. A young man was waiting in line to buy a ticket. He was pushed up against the idle train car and as the train began to move, the lad fell into the gap between the platform and the train. Booth grabbed him by his coat collar and brought him safely back onto the platform.

The young man knew who Edwin Booth was, but it was a few months later that Edwin Booth learned that the young man, whose life he saved was Robert Lincoln, the oldest son of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln. History suggests that Edwin was comforted by his deed as he was a staunch supporter of the North.

Jul 11, 2012

Presidential Height Index

Did you know that in the past 27 US presidential elections, the shorter candidate has won only six times? Handlers for Jimmy Carter (5' 9") went to great lengths to prevent him from standing next to the taller Gerald Ford (6'). It worked, Carter won.

The tallest President elected to office was Abraham Lincoln at 6' 4" and George Washington was 6' 2". Eighteen presidents have been 6 foot or taller. James Madison was the shortest at 5 foot 4.

Mitt Romney is 6’2” and Barack Obama is 6’1”.

Michigan is the only state that has a statute prohibiting height discrimination. (Maybe because Jimmy Hoffa was 5'5").

Mar 20, 2012

His Name is Mudd

Dr. Samuel A. Mudd was the physician who set the leg of Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth and whose shame created the expression, "His name is Mudd." 

He was sentenced to life in prison for splinting the fractured leg, but became a hero to guards and inmates of his island prison when he stopped a yellow-fever epidemic there in 1868 after the army doctors had died. President Johnson, Lincoln's successor, pardoned Mudd in early 1869.

Nov 29, 2011

Honest Abe

As election seasons go on, many like to quote the great presidents from the past. Here is something about Abraham Lincoln. He delivered his Gettysburg Address on November 19 1863. The speech was considered so insignificant at the time that coverage was not even front page news.

A few months before, the fields outside Gettysburg, Pennsylvania had one of the bloodiest battles in the Civil War between the states. The Union forces held their positions against Confederate advances. The Confederates, under Robert E. Lee, retreated to Virginia, ending their attempt to invade the North. The battle was the turning point of the war.

President Lincoln traveled to the site of the battle to designate it as a national cemetery. While on the train, he wrote his speech on a small piece of paper. It only took three minutes to deliver the entire speech, which is now considered one of the greatest speeches in American history.

“Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war - testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated - can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate - we cannot consecrate - we cannot hallow this ground.

The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people - by the people - for the people - shall not perish from this earth.”

Jul 1, 2011

IRS

It happened on this day in 1862. It started with the the high cost of the the US at war with itself. To help pay for the Civil War, Congress established the Bureau of Internal Revenue. President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law, for the  feds to collect a three percent tax on incomes ranging from $600 to $10,000, and five percent on incomes over $10,000. It was passed as a temporary law.

The Bureau became the Internal Revenue Service in 1913 when the 16th amendment was added to the Constitution permitting the Government to collect a tax on income. How ironic that a few days before we celebrate our independence, they took away our independence from taxes.

Dec 24, 2010

This Week in 1864

After his Civil War march across Georgia, Union General William T. Sherman sent U.S. President Abraham Lincoln this message: "I beg to present you as a Christmas present the city of Savannah."