Wednesday, February 17, 2010

291. One of my new favorite snacks is a couple of dried apricots with a small amount of peanut butter -- salty and tangy. What's not to love?

292. Frederick Douglass's quote upon being in the Lincoln White House, "I felt big there."

293. Robert Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's son, who was present or arrived just after the assassinations of several presidents, loved the statue of his father at the Lincoln memorial so much that he used to go see it often, muttering, "Isn't it beautiful," under his breath.

294. The victims of many political assassinations -- including Lincoln and King -- got to have a good moment just before. While it stinks that they were assassinated, at least they got to go out having just had a happy time. Lincoln went out on a laugh line -- "Don't know the manners of good society, eh? Wal, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal -- you sockdologizing old man -trap" -- and King died after having a pillow fight with his brother and several friends.

295. Sockdologizing means manipulative, in case you were wondering.

296. In Philadelphia, there is a museum called the Mutter Museum which features medical specimans, including Chief Justice Marshall's kidney stones and specimens of John Wilkes Booth.

297. FindAGrave.com will list, with biographies, the final resting place of over 200 historical figures. Knock yourself out.

298. Jeremy Bentham stipulated in his will, in the eighteenth century, that his body should be mummified and brought into all meetings at the University of London. It's still there in a case. When Matt attended University College, London, he showed me Mr. B. He's still taken to meetings.

299. Teddy Roosevelt was saved, in part, from shooting by the thickness of his written speech folded up in his pocket.

300. "With malice towards none." Take that, Sarah Palin.

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