Interesting Facts - Page 3

11
Mark Twain was born two weeks after the appearance of Halley's Comet in 1835 and died one day after it returned 75 years later.
12
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on the Fourth of July, 1826.
13
Marie Curie was both the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first person of any gender to win twice.
14
The city of Paris is not named after the figure from Greek mythology. Instead, it is named for an ancient Celtic tribe called the Parisii.
15
The United States is older than Germany. Germany did not become a unified country until 1871.
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Level 57
Apr 22, 2018
Lovely.
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Level 57
Jun 2, 2018
Canada is also an older country than Germany, with Confederation taking place in 1867.
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Level 89
Oct 28, 2018
Italy only dates to 1861.
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Level 68
Mar 7, 2020
Roman empire
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Level 59
Jun 7, 2020
Italy≠Roman Empire, Rome was a city that is now the capital of Italy. Italy it self only came around at a similar time to Germany causing the fall of the HRE.
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Level 59
Aug 8, 2020
Italian and German unifications did not cause the fall of the HRE, because the HRE didn't exist anymore at this moment. It was dissolved in 1806. Although a very similar thing, the German Confederation, existed from 1815 to 1866.
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Level 59
Aug 8, 2020
Canada didn't become a country in 1867. It became a dominion, which was still part of the British Empire. While it was autonomous, the UK still controlled its foreign policy. Canada really became independent only with the Statute of Westminster 1931, or even arguably in 1982 when it gained the right to modify its constitution without the UK's consent.
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Level 84
Aug 7, 2018
Twain even said that he would "go out with it [Halley's Comet]", and that if he didn't, it would be "the greatest disappointment of my life".
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Level 10
Aug 22, 2018
Adams' last words were "Thomas Jefferson still survives". He was wrong - Jefferson had died a few hours before.
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Level 89
Nov 13, 2018
Adams and Jefferson died in the 50th anniversary if the Declaration of Independence, written mainly by Jefferson. Monroe died on the 55th anniversary. Thus the 2nd, 3rd and 5th Presidents all died on the Fourth of July. Hannibal Hamlin, Lincoln's Vice President who was replaced 41 days before Lincoln was shot would have been the 17th President and died July 4 on the 115th anniversary. Reconstruction would have been radically different and there would have been no precedent for a President getting impeached when they decided to impeach Clinton for lying about extramarital sex behind his wife's back.
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Level 89
Nov 13, 2018
Other trivia: Maine's other 2 shots at having a President from the state were James G. Blaine and Edmund Muskie. Blaine, perpetually in scandals, was snubbed at the Republican National Convention of 1876 after 7 rounds of ballots to get a majority nominee ended in backroom deals. He had long been the front runner. The disputed Presidential election was decided by Congress with another backroom deal that allowed the Republican candidate to be President if troops were removed from the South and Civil War Reconstruction brought to an end. This reversed the empowerment of blacks in the South, many of whom political office, and disenfranchised them for 80 years. Failing again in 1880, he was nominated in 1884, losing the Presidency by 1,000 votes in winner Grover Cleveland's home state of New York. In 1888 Cleveland lost his home state and thus reelection. He subsequently won the 1892 election, the only person to be President in nonconsecutive terms.
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Level 89
Nov 13, 2018
The elections of 1876 and 1888 were the only times people became President despite not being chosen by the majority of the people until George W. Bush and Donald Trump.
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Level 89
Nov 13, 2018
Muskie, the foremost challenger to Nixon's reelection, was famously sabotaged by fraudulent propaganda by Nixon staff in the Watergate scandal.
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Level 89
Nov 14, 2018
That was what I knew off the top of my head. Googling, I also see Eva Gabor died on July 4th, 1995. She was famous for being on the hokey Hollywood stylized version of podunk known as Green Acres. Its outdoor scenes were obviously filmed on a stage with painted trees in the background. Mellow painter of happy trees and Mr. Rogers-esque televised painting instructor Bob Ross died the same day. Ross was also name of the maker of the flag flown by the first President while rebelling to create the country. With that ominous note (you reading all this, Alex Jones???), I end my encyclopedia of July 4th death.
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Level 38
Sep 16, 2018
Actually Germany has existed as it is only since 1990, that's when it was unified with the GDR.
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Level 89
Nov 13, 2018
The Holy Roman Empire never got no respects from nobody nevers.
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Level 45
Nov 14, 2018
the hre was sort of a special group of countries who could do anything a sovereign nation could do, but had an 'emperor' as well.
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Level 49
Apr 3, 2020
the hre practiclly wasnt a unified state since like the 1200s hundreds, but before then, it was very much a nation, very centralized or at least as much as a medieval state could be
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Level 59
Jun 7, 2020
Yes but then it wasn't a country for a while and so it can't be deemed 'germany' also for a while there it was neither holy, roman, or an empire.
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Level 74
Jun 9, 2020
The HRE was a country, but it was never a nation. Also, it has nothing to do with Germany. The concept of Germany wasn't even invented until the early 19th century.
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Level 78
Feb 20, 2020
That is the same as to say that the United States existed as it is only since 1959 (when Hawaii was added). The Federal Republic of Germany has existed under that name and under that constitution since 1949. The German Democratic Republic (East) dissolved in 1990 and accepted to be part of the Federal Republic. Look at Wikipedia's last paragraph in the introduction of German reunification: "The post-1990 united Germany is not a successor state, but an enlarged continuation of the former West Germany."
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Level 40
Feb 22, 2019
So on 4 July 1826 the States lost both the man who practically wrote all of the Declaration of Independence and an egoistic man whose clothes were stolen when he went for a swim in the Potomac?

About the John Adams story: he sent a farm lad to the White House to get him something to wear.

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Level 78
Nov 23, 2019
I think you have John Adams confused with his son, John Quincy Adams.
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Level 58
May 21, 2019
France is even younger: The Fifth Republic was founded in 1958. :-)
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Level 62
Sep 28, 2021
I don't think that's how you should count it, given that modern germany (the federal republic of germany) only has existed since 1949, and unified germany since 1980; while France has existed since at least the 11th century
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Level 75
Jul 3, 2019
I mean, it's a bit of a pointless fact that might only interest those with very little historical knowledge. Almost all nations as we know them today emerged relatively recently (within the last 200 years or so). One thing is for sure though: German history goes back way further than US history.
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Level 74
Nov 22, 2019
Germany as a concept appeared at the beginning of the 19th century. German Nationalism tried to retcon the history to make it appear longer, but it really is an artefact that grow after Napoleon and the American Revolution. Of course, as you said, Nationalism is a relativly young phenomenon in both countries, just that the US tends to ignore the Native history, while Germany tries to appropriate it.
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Level 51
Nov 4, 2019
If an American citizen was born in 1825 and lived until the end of 1919 he would have shared part of his lifespan with every president between John Adams and Ronald Reagan, except for Jimmy Carter who wasn't born until 1924.
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Level 89
Oct 19, 2022
Might as well bump him up to 99 years old, then he not only gets Carter, but Bush One who was born in 1924 as well.
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Level 18
Jan 13, 2020
Maria Sklodowska-Curie, not Marie Curie...
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Level 60
Jun 27, 2020
I sincerely hope this is a joke.
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Level 35
Jun 11, 2022
Huh?
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Level 62
Jul 28, 2022
Curie was born Marja Sklodowska but changed her first name to Marie when she moved to France and her surname to Curie when she married Pierre Curie, a prominent scientist at the Sorbonne.
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Level 24
Jan 16, 2020
I love how Germany only needed about 40 years to prepare before attempting to take over the planet.
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Level 78
Feb 3, 2020
It wasn't really about the world. Neither did Germany 'attempt' much more than the other major powers. Somehow, WWII rubs off retrospectively on WWI in the minds of many people.
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Level 78
May 11, 2020
Germany really didn't want to get into WWI. Yes, they did antagonize the British by building up the navy, but they did this in response to the threat of Royal Navy blockade. The Germans only really got involved in WWI because Serbia refused to hand over the Black Hand members to Austria-Hungary. A-H did not like that and declared war. Serbia appealed to Russia for help. Russia declared war on A-H. A-H appealed to their ally, Germany, and Germany had to declare war on Russia. France and the UK, both allies of Russia, had to declare war on Germany. Italy, who had territorial disputes with A-H declared war on A-H (the failure of the UK and France to give Italy the territory they wanted is what caused Italy to join the Axis in WWII). The Ottoman Empire declared war on Russia. The Ottoman Empire had been on their deathbed for a century and A-H was not much better, so Germany, with the best military, provided the leadership and were blamed by a vengeful France for the start of the War.
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Level 61
Mar 26, 2020
calvin coolidge is the only president born on july 4th
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Level 87
Sep 11, 2020
The USA is technically in the top 3 oldest countries in the world.
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Level 55
Sep 25, 2020
John Adams' last words were "Thomas Jefferson survives," not knowing that Jefferson had died just a few hours earlier.
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Level 51
Nov 19, 2020
In a way, St. Lucia is older than Germany.
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Level 65
Dec 8, 2020
Actually, the HRE was destroyed by Napoleon in around 1806. The Austrian, then the Austro-Hungarian Empire took part of it (the Habsburgs remaining Emperors). Prussia unified Germany in 1871, taking most of it's former territory. Italy was unified after a series of wars between the 1860 and 1870 but most of Italy had been independent of the HRE for centuries. Modern Germany only really came into being in 1990 after reunification. The USA as we know it today only came about when Hawaii joined. Therefore, Italy is older and Germany is younger.
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Level 71
Mar 27, 2022
The US has really been around since the late 1700s, Hawaii doesn't really have anything to do with when the US becomes a country.
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Level 56
Oct 13, 2022
Well if you think about it, because of reclaimed land, the Netherlands and Monaco both became a country just yesterday.
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Level 69
Apr 20, 2021
Part of the Spy Who Loved me was set on Malta. I also thought there was an opening scene set in Malta.
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Level 44
Apr 7, 2022
Here's a fun fact Jetpunk should use: There is enough water in Lake Superior to flood all of north and south America in a foot of water.
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Level 30
Apr 25, 2022
Though being a country ever since 1848, Switzerland joined the UN in September 10, 2002, 17 days before Timor-Leste joined in September 27, 2002.