Page 125 - History Facts

A college student got a C on a paper that claimed it was still possible to ratify the 27th amendment. It was ratified ten years later.

Gregory Watson was a student at the University of Texas when he came across research about an un-ratified amendment to the constitution. Intrigued he wrote a paper with the thesis that the amendment was still possible to ratify. 

His teacher, Sharon Waite, gave Watson a C on the paper. She claimed that his thesis was unlikely, irrelevant to modern politics or government. Ironically, it would take only ten years for that exact amendment to be ratified as the 27th amendment. 

The 27th amendment says that laws about salaries for congress can’t take effect until the next session of Congress. Watson himself was instrumental in seeing that it got ratified. 

He wrote letters to individual states in order to convince them to ratify the old amendment, which could be ratified since it had no deadline for ratification. Maine was the first to ratify it, and was followed by Colorado. It took ten years, but all of the state legislatures ratified it and it was adopted as an amendment. 

Watson also did more research into ratification and history. He found out that Mississippi had never ratified the 13th amendment, the amendment barring slavery. With some letters to African-American state legislators, the amendment was symbolically ratified by Mississippi in 1995. 

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“Des Moines” is actually a dirty joke.

Des Moines is a city in Iowa. Its name allegedly comes from a French derivation of “Moingoana,” an Indian tribe that once lived along the banks of what is now the Des Moines River. But it turns out that part’s not actually true. 

The name was actually a joke offered to the French explorers Marquette and Jolliet in 1673. Based on the work of several linguists, “Moingoana” comes from the word “mooyiinkweena,” which means “the poop faces.”

It’s thought that the name was actually given by the people of the Peoria village near the mouth of the Des Moines River, and when they were asked about neighboring villages by Marquette, the Peoria chief gave him “the poop faces” to throw him off. 

What’s funny is Marquette was fluent in the language. He just didn’t pick up any mischief behind it. 

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Mannequins have been used very successfully in wars.

Apparently those shop window dummies have fought in wars too. Their first recorded use (and probably the most clever) was in ancient China. It’s been recorded in battles like the Battle of Yongqiu. 

There, the Tang army (which was under attack) tied scarecrows to rope and lowered them down the walls of the castles. They were instantly targeted by archers. This served two purposes. The first was to lure the fire away from the Tang soldiers, and the second was to replenish the supply of arrows. 

Once the scarecrows were full of arrows, they would be pulled back up to the top, and the arrows would be reused by the archers. Mannequins were also used in World War I. World War I, in case you don’t know, was fought in many places with trench warfare, where each side had dug a large trench to stage attacks from. Typically, these battles were ongoing stalemates. 

The area between the trenches was called no man’s land, because running into it would be a guaranteed death. Mannequins were then employed to draw sniper fire so that enemy snipers could be targeted or allied units could move more safely. 

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The Hudson Bay Company once owned 10% of the Earth’s surface!

The Hudson Bay Company began in 1670 and is the oldest commercial corporation in North America. It is also one of the oldest in the entire world. 

It began as a fur trading business and they currently own many retail stores throughout Canada. Its headquarters are in Toronto, Ontario. When the fur trading business declined, the company evolved into a mercantile business that sold vital goods to settlers in the Canadian West. 

In the 19th century the company became the largest private landowner. They owned 10% of the Earth’s surface. When HBC traded with native people, they exchanged wool blankets for beaver pelts trapped by native hunters. 

The number of stripes woven into the blanket signified its weight and size. In 1821 the North West Company and the HBC merged. The merger made the company reach all the way to the Arctic Ocean to the North and the Pacific Ocean to the West. They maintained a monopoly on fur trade into the 19th century. 

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The first women to run the Boston Marathon were chased by organizers of the event!

Katherine Switzer had registered for the Boston Marathon used the name K. V. Switzer to sign up for the marathon. She was used to abbreviating her first name because she used K.V. Switzer to sign the articles she wrote for a college newspaper. 

Because of this abbreviation organizers didn’t realize she was a woman, and so allowed her to register. This was a mistake because, at the time, women were not allowed to run the Boston Marathon. The organizers only realized the mistake when Switzer began running the race. Because she was wearing a number, it was clear that she was registered. 

Alternatively, Bobbi Gibb, another woman, also ran, but she ran unregistered. Jock Semple pursued Switzer, who was running with her boyfriend. He is recorded as having said: "Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers." 

When Semple got close, Switzer’s boyfriend pushed him out of the way and sent him flying. The picture of Semple being pushed became infamous. It wasn’t until 1972 when women were officially allowed to compete in the Boston Marathon.

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