Page 141 - History Facts

The first American born President spoke English as a second language!

Martin van Buren was our 8th President and the first one to be born as an American citizen. He was also the first President not born of English or Irish descent. His family was Dutch.

Van Buren was born in Kinderhook, New York and grew up in a Dutch community. The entire community spoke Dutch. He is the only President to have spoken English as a second language.

Van Buren married his childhood sweetheart and first cousin once removed, Hannah Hoes. They had 5 sons and 1 daughter together. Hannah grew up in Kinderhook, as well, and never lost her Dutch accent. Van Buren became a lawyer and served as the 10th Secretary of State and the 8th Vice President.

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On Good Friday 1930, BBC announced, "There is no news."

You may be thinking this was some kind of anti-religious statement, but in reality it was the result of technological changes in the newsroom combined with government interference in news. 

In 1930, the British Broadcasting Corporation was beginning to distance itself from news agencies such as Reuters. Though Reuters was still supplying much of the news material to the BBC, the BBC was beginning to take charge in deciding which stories would air in the radio bulletins and how. 

This all began because of the introduction of news agency tape machines in the newsroom at the BBC. In addition to the new technology, information began flooding in from the government. 

These were mostly announcements for holidays, traffic warnings, and the like. Because of these, the news staff at the BBC doubled. They soon found themselves teeming with material. 

The government announcements soon began to clutter the news bulletins to such a degree that a separate slot was created for them so that the news staff could concentrate on real news. 

Problems began to arise when it started to become clear that the government was attempting to exploit the news in some degree. On the evening before Good Friday in 1930, the Home Office wanted very much to deny a newspaper account of an interview with the home secretary. 

Because the Home Office knew no newspapers would be published over Easter, it contacted the BBC to make sure the interview didn't take place. Within 24 hours, though, that interview was the only news that presented itself. Pressured by the government to not air it, the bulletin on Good Friday simply said “There is no news,” followed by piano music. 

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The Head of King Henry IV of France was found preserved in an attic in 2010.

It might seem a little strange that the head of a king was in the attic of a tax collector, instead of located on his buried body. The explanation is no less strange. 

King Henry IV ruled France from 1589 to his death in 1610. Many attempts had been made on his life as king. One such attempt left him with a gash across his upper lip. 

While in Paris in 1610, his carriage was stopped in the congested streets and he was assassinated. It was expected for him to be buried at the Basilica of St. Denis, north of Paris, where nearly every French king had been buried since 900 AD. 

His body was embalmed and interred with the kings before him, and was left alone for almost two centuries. In 1793, during the French Revolution, a number of unusual decrees were issued (such as changing calendars and clocks). 

One of these ordered the destruction of all royal tombs, including the one Henry IV was in. A mob tore through the crypt and pulled apart the royal corpses. They were carried outside and had quicklime poured over them to make them decompose faster. 

As a result, most of the bones at St. Denis were lost. For a while, it was thought that no royal remains survived the French Revolution, but rumors continued to creep up. In 1919, the head of Henry IV was found and sold at an auction. Joseph-Emile Bourdais, the photographer who purchased it, could not convince any museums it was authentic. 

When Joseph-Emile died, his widow then sold the head in 1955 to a tax collector named Jacques Bellanger. There the head remained until a journalist looked at it in 2010, and it was confirmed to be that of Henry IV. 

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The first diamond found in South Africa was 21.25 carats and given away by a farmer!

South Africa became famous in the 19th and 20th centuries for its copious amounts of diamonds, yet the first one found has an interesting history. 

It is called the Eureka Diamond, and a boy named Erasmus Jacobs first discovered it in 1867 near Hopetown on the Orange River. Jacobs was only 15 at the time and had no idea what he had found on his farm. 

He took the diamond and used it in a game called “5 Stones”, when it caught the attention of his neighbor. Erasmus’ mother, believing the stone to be worthless, gave it away to their neighbor who presented it to the Civil Commissioner who in turn declared, “I believe it to be a diamond.” 

The diamond was so amazing it was presented to Queen Victoria and displayed at the 1867 Paris Exhibition. 100 years after its initial discovery, the diamond was purchased and donated back to the South African people and is currently on display at the Kimberley Mine Museum.

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Mark Twain intentionally published most of his autobiography 100 years after his death.

Mark Twain started to write his autobiography forty years before his death, in 1870, but did so sporadically. It wasn't until 1904 when he really began hitting his stride in his autobiography. As he called it, it was the “Final (and Right) Plan” for telling the story of his life. The stride was short, though, as by 1907 he resumed only writing sporadically. 

Mark Twain had begun publishing “Chapters from My Autobiography” in twenty-five installments in the North American Review between 1906 and 1907, though these installments did not make up his entire biography. When Twain died, numerous attempts were made to republish the material. He had decided that it would be most entertaining if his autobiography went off on numerous whims and tangents in non-sequential order, but most of these attempts to republish tried to reorder the released autobiography into a linear format, reducing the humor. 

But despite publishing twenty-five installments of his autobiography, Twain outlined a plan for his full autobiography to be published 100 years after his death. It is thought that this is because he was contemplating a 100 year ban. When it was released in 2010, it actually became a best seller, which means Twain holds the rare distinction of publishing a best seller in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. 

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