Did you know that Lyndon B. Johnson’s first election was rigged?

            That’s right! During the Democratic primary in 1948, when Lyndon B. Johnson ran for the senate seat in Texas, the vote was so close between him and Coke Stevenson that a recount was called for. The infamous Box 13, from the town of Alice in Jim Wells County ended up finding an additional 203 votes. Of those votes, 202 were for LBJ. The problem with those votes were that the “voters had signed their names in alphabetical order and all had identical handwriting.”[1] This gave LBJ a narrow victory of a mere 87 votes. He was given the title of “Landslide Lyndon” after he won the senate seat in 1949.[2] It sure looks like LBJ would stop at nothing to win the election, even to go so far as to have it rigged.

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[1] Randolph B. Campbell, Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 413.

[2] Ibid, 414.

Did you know that Virginia declared its independence on May 15, 1776?

            That is right! Before the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, the colony of Virginia held a Convention with members of the House of Burgesses, who “adopted resolutions saying that a declaration of rights, a republican constitution, federation with other colonies, and alliances must be adopted.”[1] After the Constitution of Virginia was finished declaring their Bill of Rights—with a preamble written by Thomas Jefferson—Virginia declared its independence;[2] however, men like James Madison, “considered Virginia independent from May 15, 1776.”[3]    

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[1] Kevin R. C. Gutzman, James Madison and the Making of America, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2012), 9.

[2] Winton U. Solberg, The Constitutional Convention and the Formation of the Union, (Champaign:University of Illinois Press, 1990), 30.

[3] Gutzman, James Madison and the Making of America, 9.

Did you know that America’s first movie was a western?

            That’s right! The first American movie was a western—The Great Train Robbery, which was released in 1903. 

It is true that motion pictures existed before this film was directed by Edwin S. Porter, but this twelve-minute movie “was the first film to use modern film techniques, such as multiple camera positions, filming out of sequence, and editing the scenes into their proper order afterwards.”[1] The movie was a huge hit in theaters and was also shown in traveling carnivals, such as the Pawnee Bill Show. The Paducah Evening Sun called The Great Train Robbery a “vastly exciting dramatic spectacle, which made New York rub its eyes in wonder during 747 performances.”[2] Also exciting to the newspaper was how the film makers had “employ[ed] a real engine and train of cars.”[3] 

            Enjoy the movie that established the foundation of American cinema for the past 112 years!

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[1] Sharon Packer, Movies and the Modern Psyche, (Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2007), 20-21.

[2] The Paducah evening sun. (Paducah, Ky.), 23 April 1907. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85052114/1907-04-23/ed-1/seq-2/.

[3] Ibid.

When was the Loch Ness Monster first spotted?

Did you know that the first recorded sighting of the Loch Ness Monster was 1,450 years ago?

The first known recorded sighting of old Nessie comes from an early Christian Irish missionary, by the name of Saint Columbia. In 565 A.D., Saint Columbia reported a “certain water monster” in the 24-mile long loch near the village of Drumnadrochit, Scotland.[1]

However, Nessie has been pretty shy since her famous sighting in 1925, until last year after a 90 year game of hide and seek.[2]

According to Glen Campbell, founder of The Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club, Nessie has now been captured on satellite imagery after all these years.[3]  

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[1] Macduff Everton, “Nessie, Un-Loched?” Islands Magazine (May-June 1987), 12.

[2] “No Loch Ness Monster sightings for first time since 1925,” BBC News, February 7, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-26081992

[3] Liz Fields, “Loch Ness Monster Reportings on the Rise After Sighting on Apple Maps,” ABC News, April 20, 2014, http://abcnews.go.com/International/loch-ness-monster-report-rise-sighting-apple-maps/story?id=23394714.

Lincoln and Davis Battle at Niagara Falls

Did you know that Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis duked it out at Niagara Falls during the Civil War?

Well, not the two presidents anyways. The story goes that according to a South Carolina newspaper, the Yorkville Enquirer, published on October 1, 1862, two ships christened after the presidents of the United States and Confederate States were sent adrift down Niagara Falls to show the fate of each other’s government. The newspaper’s sources, Confederate Officers released from a Federal prison in the area of the supposed incident, said the Yankees at Niagara Falls obtained an old ship and hoped to demonstrate the destiny of the Southern States. These Northerners “painted the name of ‘Jeff Davis’ on her; then they hoisted a Confederate flag on her mast” and sent her down the river towards the falls.[1]

Despite all the huzzas and jeers from the crowd for old “Jeff Davis,” neither the ship nor the river cooperated as planned for the Northerners. Soon they all stood staring at the defiant “Confederate” ship as it became “lodged on the rocks above the precipice...with her noble flag flying proudly to the breeze.”[2] Angered and humiliated by the stubborn ship, people present for the spectacle began to discuss sending for a battery from Buffalo “to dislodge her.”[3]

Not to be outdone, Confederate sympathizers and local Canadians obtained their own vessel and dubbed it the “Abe Lincoln.”[4] In the same spirit of resentment toward the other’s government, they raised the “Stars and Stripes” on Abe Lincoln and turned it “loose to the current;” however, this Union vessel “made the mad leap and was dashed into a thousand fragments.”[5] Naturally, this Southern newspaper hoped the story was a premonition for the fate of the United States government.

   

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[1] Yorkville Enquirer. (Yorkville, S.C.), Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress, October 1, 1862, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026925/1862-10-01/ed-1/seq-1/.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.