A History Buff's Blog

2010-12-08T03:22:00.000-08:00

What did Stalin give to almost every major official who helped the city of Leningrad survive its bitter siege?
a) 100,000 roubles
b) A generous pension
c) An execution

Answer below.

c) An execution. After the siege, Leningrad's heroic officials were brought to Moscow and given positions of power. Stalin however, feared they might plot against him and arrested them on trumped-up charges and had them shot after interrogations and secret trials in 1950. He closed the Leningrad siege museum which was only re-opened 40 years later, and suppressed information about the city's history, important aspects of which remain unknown to this day.

2010-11-28T01:34:00.000-08:00

What lasted 900 days?
a) JFK's Presidency
b) The Siege of Leningrad
c) The Iran Hostage Crisis

Answer below

b) The Siege of Leningrad lasted from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944. Less than two and a half months after German troops invaded Russia on June 22, 1941, they outflanked and surrounded the Red Army in Leningrad. Approximately 1 million inhabitants of the city died in the 900 day siege. (JFK's Presidency lasted 1037 days, The Iran Hostage Crisis lasted 444 days)

2010-11-14T03:45:00.000-08:00

What this this Scottish vicar, Reverend Alexander Forsyth, patent in 1807?
a) The chocolate wheel
b) Bingo
c) The percussion lock gun

Answer below.

c) The percussion lock gun. Why a reverend would have need for a gun is a mystery but this Aberdeenshire minister invented and patented the percussion lock gun which fires after the gun's hammer hits a shock-sensitive chemical button held in a nipple screwed into the barrel. Percussion locks replaced flintlock guns which were modified by preplacing the flint and frizzen of the flintlock with a hammer and nipple. Percussion lock guns, easier to load, weather-resistant and more reliable than flintlocks, were used exclusively by both armies during the American Civil War.

2010-10-23T19:54:00.000-07:00

Trivia Question #5
Q. During the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 against his enemy Henry Tudor, what did this English King's allies do?
a) Deserted him at the last minute and watched him charge to his death
b) Fought to the last man
c) Crossed over to the other side

Answer below

A. a) Deserted him at the last minute and watched as he charged to his death. Following this, his naked corpse was slung over a horse and displayed in Leicester for two days, after which he was buried in an unmarked grave. 50 years later his bones were dug up and thrown into the River Soar and his coffin used as a water trough. On an upbeat note, Richard III today has a support group known as the Richard III Society which attempts to rehabilitate his memory and claims he was unfairly slandered by his Tudor enemies - their website is http://www.richardiii.net/begin.htm

Adapted from NOT TONIGHT JOSEPHINE history board game with permission

2010-10-23T04:18:00.000-07:00

Trivia Question #4
Q. Did Enrico Fermi:
a) design the Ferrari?
b) construct the first nuclear reactor?
c) compose the hit song Chain Reaction?

Answer below

A. b) He constructed the first nuclear reactor. The Italian born US physicist built the first nuclear reactor in 1942 at the University of Chicago and took part in the Manhattan Project. Fermium (Fm), a radioactive element found in the debris of the first nuclear explosion, was named after him. When Fermi produced the first self sustaining chain reaction the achievement was announced cryptically to scientists working on the bomb with the coded message "The Italian navigator has reached the New World".

(With permission from "Not Tonight Josephine" board game)

2008-12-02T21:18:00.000-08:00

History Trivia Quiz #3
This is a picture of:
a) musicians practicing the cannon blast in the 1812 Overture
b) a doctor and patient admiring the recently invented armed wheelchair
c) Hiram Maxim demonstrating his machine gun to King Edward VII

Answer below

ANSWER: c) Hiram Maxim (kneeling) demonstrating his automatic machine gun to King Edward VII.

Hiram Maxim had invented an improved version of the hair-curling iron and the incandescent lamp but saw his life change while visiting the Paris Electrical Exhibition in 1881, when someone said to him "If you want to make a lot of money, invent something that will enable these fool Europeans to kill each other with greater facility." He moved to London and produced the world's first automatic machine gun there in 1883.

Reproduced with permission from NOT TONIGHT JOSEPHINE History Trivia Board Game

2008-12-02T15:34:00.000-08:00

History Trivia Quiz #2

Everybody has heard of the Molotov cocktail. But who was Molotov?
a) The longest surviving Soviet communist official
b) The head cocktail waiter in the Paris Ritz
c) A bomb designer

Answer below

ANSWER: a) The longest surviving Soviet communist official.

"Molotov" was the alias of Russian diplomat Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Skryabin (1890-1986). He was the longest surviving member of the top rank of Soviet communist officials, having been a member of the Bolshevik Party (which predated the Communist Party), participated in the revolution, survived Stalin's purges of the 30s and became ambassador to Outer Mongolia in 1957.

His main claim to fame is that the Molotov cocktail, a home-made bomb, was named after him in irony by the Finns who used them against the Russian tanks in 1940 during the Soviet invasion of Finland known as the Winter War of 1939.

Reproduced with permission from NOT TONIGHT JOSEPHINE, history trivia board game.

2008-12-02T01:11:00.000-08:00

History Trivia Quiz #1 Aircraft

Which aircraft is generally held to have won the day battle over Germany in World War 2?
a) The Mustang
b) The Spitfire
c) The Hawker Hurricane

CLUE 1 - It was a single seater long range (1000 miles) fighter.

CLUE 2 - The prototype was built from scratch in America in 120 days by NAA (North American Aviation) in 1940 for the RAF who were running out of planes during the Battle of Britain.

CLUE 3 - Initially it performed badly at high altitudes but when the engine was changed to a Merlin Rolls Royce engine, it could reach over 30,000 feet.

CLUE 4 - It was versatile - it could escort long-range bombers deep into enemy territory because it carried fuel in its wings and drop tanks, could engage in dogfights (6 machine guns) and could bomb from the air (2x 1000 lb bombs)

CLUE 5 - Chuck Yeager famously flew one of these

CLUE 6 - It made its name in long range escort duty, protecting heavy bombers from Luftwaffe raids, outmatching any attacking Fw190 or Bf109s.

CLUE 7 - It was used in the Korean War as a ground attack fighter.

Answer below.

ANSWER - The P-51DMustang

2008-02-23T18:01:00.000-08:00

Cold War Warrior puts Career on Ice

"...I want a drink, Harry was thinking. What the hell do I care about his revolution. F___ his revolution. To help the working man he robs a bank and kills a fellow worked with him and then kills that poor damned Albert that never did any harm. That's a working man he kills. He never thinks of that. With a family. It's the Cubans run Cuba. They all double cross each other. They sell each other out. They get what they deserve. The hell with their revolutions. All I got to do is make a living for my family and I can't do that. Then he tells me about his revolution. The hell with his revolution...." Harry Morgan's thoughts after having his vessel commandered and first mate shot by Cuban rebels who have just robbed a bank to raise funds for the revolution in To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway.

81 year old victim of colon cancer, Fidel Castro has just announced his retirement from active political life, replacing himself with his brother Raul and stirring fresh debate about the future of Cuba.

After ousting the decadent US backed government of Fulgencio Batista in the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the Jesuit-educated lawyer and socialist idealist has been in charge for almost 50 years , surviving a crippling economic embargo instigated by the US in 1962 and innumerable CIA assassination attempts. Holding power by force of charisma, cunning and luck and having been given little alternative by the US, he looked for and found political friends wherever he could.

His affiliation with the Soviets bankrolled his regime, brought the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis and provided Cuba with a market for a new export product - soldiers - who fought with the Soviets in Angola and Ethiopia. Castro wryly rid himself of noxious criminals and malcontents by allowing them passage to Florida to expand the USA's underclass. More dangerous political threats were incarcerated. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, the resourceful Castro found a new backer, President Chavez, from oil rich Venezuela.

His ideology inhibited investment and industrial development and drove countless Cubans across the water to Maimi , the base of the Anti-Castro movement. Histrionics between the two camps, never in short supply were highlighted by a tortuous public tug-of-war over 6 year old Elian Gonzalez, whose mother drowned while attempting to reach Miami in 2000. Castro's illegitimate daughter is a vociferous critic of his regime and runs an anti Castro radio show in Miami.

Now that Castro is stepping down, what of the future? Cuba has not had a democratic election for almost 50 years. How realistically can one expect an abrupt transition from dicatorship to democracy to be smooth? A rudderless economically weak and ideologically confused post-dictator state without a strong leader is more than likely to crumble into chaos.

2008-02-09T01:15:00.000-08:00

King Charles III, George VII or Edward IX?

The eldest son of the ageing Queen of England, HRH Elizabeth II - Charles, Prince of Wales - is next in line for the throne. English monarchs usually choose a regnal (ruling) name to give a sense of continuity.

What are the pros and cons of Prince Charles' options?

Rule as George VII - Pros:
The last couple of Georges - VI & V - have been popular kings.

George VI was a stuttering chain smoker who reluctantly took on the burden of the throne (the stress of which eventually killed him) when his playboy brother abdicated because he wasn't allowed to marry a scrawny American dominatrix.

The modern Georges established the famous George Cross & the Order of the British Empire Medals which everybody loves.

Rule as George VII - Cons:
The earlier Georges in all manner & form constitute the cons.

Starting from George I, a plump disaffected non-English speaking German who imprisoned his wife for the sin of adultery, his son George II who was delighted when his own son was killed by a blow to the head with a cricket ball, and the most infamous of all - George III, the insane porphyria victim who lost the American colonies.

Not to overlook his son George IV whose profligate lifestyle and obscene spending led to this obituary in TheTimes - "There was never an individual less regretted by his fellow creatures than this deceased king."

Rule as Charles III - Pros: Nil

Rule as Charles III - Cons:
Charles I was voted out of office and beheaded.

His son, Charles II roamed aimlessly about Europe for 9 years sponging off sympathisers before being restored to the throne after Oliver Cromwell's grim puritan regime ended. Upon restoration, Charles II lived it up and is remembered as the "merrie monarch" for the number of mistresses he was able to accommodate.

His son, James II was kicked off the throne for being Catholic and despite many attempts, never regained it.

His grandson, Bonnie Prince Charlie, also failed dismally to regain the throne and when his dreams of ruling as Charles III were dashed, he died an alcoholic in Rome.

Not looking good so far....

Edward IX?

I think Prince Charles' best bet to reflect his unique persona would be Edward IX. He fits in well in continuity with Edward VII who came to the throne as an old man after spending a virtual lifetime waiting for his mother Queen Victoria to die and the effete playboy Edward VIII with his divorcee-mistress-wife. But that might be a little too close to the bone...

2008-02-07T20:22:00.000-08:00

Abandon all hope ye who enter here.

I am the way into the city of woe
I am the way to a forsaken people
I am the way into eternal sorrow.....
Abandon all hope ye who enter here.

So is marked the gateway through which begins Dante's journey through the nine circles of hell with his guide Virgil, as described in his 12th century masterpiece, the Divine Comedy.

All manner of sins and peccadillos find their appropriate punishment levels in Dante's multilayered Hades.

Virgil? Well he was an "unbaptised virtuous pagan", so he spends eternity in the 1st circle together with Homer, Socrates, Plato and Saladin.

Opportunists? They are a very special lot for whom Dante has found a tailor-made punishment to suit their peculiar crime - that of not taking sides. For this they spend eternity chasing a perpetually waving and unobtainable banner while being stung by hornets. Streams of blood and putrid matter issue from their bodies and fall to the ground providing food for myriads of maggots the sinners walk upon. As they didn't commit, neither does Dante - they are neither in hell or not in hell - he places them in the vestibule to hell!

The Lustful are tossed about by storms of perpetual desire in the 2nd circle of hell.

Gluttons are rewarded with an eternity in freezing putrid slush in level 3 in the company of a snarling three-headed dog called Cerberus.

Penny-pinching misers push heavy weights around in level 4 while the souls of the spiteful and sullen spend eternity drowning in the river Styx in level 5.

Commit suicide and you are stuck with blasphemers, sodomites and money lenders in level 7 for the rest of eternity and flattery, seduction, sorcery and theft will land you in the 8th circle with a bunch of liars and panderers.

But the WORST, the very, very worst, the absolute ROCK BOTTOM of hell......is reserved for ......the TURNCOATS. Yes the TURNCOATS. For the sin of betrayal - of a special relationship or your country - your soul spends eternity in a frozen lake of ice together with the likes of Satan himself, Judas, Brutus, Cassius and.....Bocca... yes, Bocca...the turncoat Ghibelline who during the Battle of Montaperti ("Hill of Death") in the conflicts between two medieval Italian factions, severed the arm of the standard bearer for the rival Guelphs. Because uniforms were not worn in those days, standard bearers were vital and the loss of the standard bearer plunged the army into chaos.

The 9th circle is the most interesting level where one can imagine the likes of Quizling, Petain, Benedict Arnold, Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and Aldrich Ames as frozen popsicles... and maybe also an ex-boyfriend or two....

Take a virtual tour of hell at:

http://web.eku.edu/flash/inferno/

2008-01-03T00:50:00.000-08:00

Should Flashman be read?

I picked up a few of the Flashman series of books on the recommendation of old friends who had read them as children and had greatly enjoyed them back in them ol' days. I settled back expecting some jolly retro "boys only" type adventure stories. I ended up clawing my armrest, upright & pop-eyed with incredulity.

Look I don't know who else have read these tales, more like millions I expect and all undoubtly enjoyed a thundering good yarn.

Flashman is a self confessed liar, coward, lecher & bully who always manages to fall on his feet after becoming personally embroiled in an assortment of history's stickiest situations. A flawed diamond, his heart probably is in the right place although the preoccupation in much of the books is on another portion of his anatomy .

The issue I have is the ideological correctness of much of the work, or rather, the lack of it.

This is got around by the author, George MacDonald Fraser, claiming to have found the papers of the erstwhile Flashman in a box in an attic or cellar thus washing his hands of some of the most blood-curdling racist & sexist sentiments I have ever seen make it to print.

Is this literature available in the USA? I would be especially interested to know if Flash for Freedom, a tale of Flashman's experiences aboard a slave trader made it to the bookshelves there.

I realise the sentiments the character expresses are probably typical of the times, and to their credit, the Flashman books bring to life the history of the times and have a veracity and vibrancy I have not ever encountered in historical fiction.

But beware, politically correct they ain't.

Flashman
Flash for Freedom
by George MacDonald Fraser Pub: Harper Collins ISBN 0 00 651125 2 & ISBN 0 00 651127 9

2007-12-25T14:25:00.000-08:00

The Oxford English Dictionary, The Battle of the Wilderness and the Irish

Some of us arrive at information from peculiar sources.

I found a most coherent and concise explanation of the Battle of the Wilderness of the American Civil War from the most unlikely source of a book about the origins of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester - The Surgeon of Crowthorne.

This is a true and poignant story of an erudite and well connected American surgeon, W.C. Minor, whose experiences of the brutality of the Battle of the Wilderness precipitated a paranoid schizophrenia that drove him to murder and self multilation.

Incarcerated for life in Broadmoor lunatic asylum, he spent the years becoming one of the most significant contributors to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The chapter titled "The Madness of War" is a historical gem that outlines the strategy of Grant's military machine after the turning point of the Battle of Gettysburg when the fighting simply became a war of attrition against the Confederate forces and explains the cruel landscape of this particular battle - dense fire-prone scrub country where the only combat possible was hand-to-hand with bayonet or sabre or the use of musket shooting the dreadful Minie ball that expanded to tear wide holes in flesh and sparked fires that incinerated the dead and injured.

The chapter touches on Irish soldiers fighting for the Union and their complex motives - some fighting in support of the country that gave them succour, others out of antipathy to a South backed by the British they loathed, and others hoping to develop war skills to be used against the British back in Ireland.

The Emancipation Proclamation however, provided a turning point for many Irish soldiers when, as fierce rivals with blacks at the base of the social ladder, they felt they lost any advantage due to the colour of their skin. After the Emancipation Proclamation, desertion increased.

Punishment of caught deserters included having the letter "D" branded onto their face by the field surgeon, and it was the performance of this onerous task upon an Irishman during the Battle of the Wilderness that was said to have plunged Dr Minor into his terminal insanity.

The valuable insights into the Battle of the Wilderness and indeed into the American Civil War in this chapter almost outshine the remaining brilliant treatise on lexicography.

The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester Penguin Books ISBN 0 14 027128 7

2006-11-01T00:12:00.000-08:00

Flags of our Fathers
The iconic image of six determined marines raising a flag on Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima was a fluke shot that provided a photographic masterpiece and symbol of the end of the Pacific war, paralleling the image of Red Army soldiers hoisting the red flag on the Reichstag.

Three of the men pictured were killed within days of the photo being taken. The lives of the surviving three are examined in a book by James Bradley, son of one of the survivors.

Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley involves the efforts of a son to reveal the reasons for his fathers silence about the image and its consequences on the lives of the three men. It is an intensely personal tale but it is also the story of the Marine Corps, the story of the Battle of Iwo Jima and of the Pacific Front.

The story touches on the nature of fame and notoriety as the battle weary and shell shocked survivors were made paper heroes and paraded in a circus-like campaign to raise money for war bonds. The effects on one of the men, a native American indian is exquisitely sad.

A tale also of the bond between a father and son and the things that tie us all together, this nuanced and heavily layered book is worthy of all the accolades it has received.

Flags of our Fathers by James Bradley (Bantam Books)

2006-10-20T14:17:00.000-07:00

USS Arizona memorial oil slick
The recent Hawaiian earthquake (6.7 Richter scale) and the number of aftershocks underscore that nature, as well as war, can be unpredictable. A catastrophic release of oil would be a dishonor to those who died there.

Most of the USS Arizona, a Pennsylvania class "superdreadnought" battleship, lies submerged in shallow water in Pearl Harbor, Oahu.

The USS Arizona is the watery grave of 1,177 sailors killed by a surprise air attack by Japanese warplanes on Pearl Harbor at 8.06 on Sunday, December 7, 1941, the day that would "live in infamy" and which led the US to declare war on Japan.

A bomb from a Japanese Hiryu Kate detonated the ammunition magazine that caused the massive explosion that destroyed the forward part of the Arizona. Within a year, all but three ships destroyed in the attack were restored for service, but the Arizona remained unsalveagable and in 1962 was designated a national shrine and the men trapped in her hull were considered buried at sea.

A visitor to the memorial can take an audio tour, narrated by the movie sea-salt Ernest Borgnine (of McHales Navy and The Poseidon Adventure fame) and view archival movie footage.

A short boat trip, attended with mainly solemn dignity, takes the visitor to the memorial, an elevated covered platform welded to the ship, to gaze down into the coral-encrusted submerged structure which forms a ghostly background for coloured reef fish, and across the rusting remnants of gun turrets and portions of the structure peeking above the waterline.

Oil leaks from the vessel and forms spectral colours across the water's surface and moving shapes in the oil encourage contemplation and speculation as many shapes take on forms dictated by the observer's state of mind.

A local mythology claims the oil is the "tears of the dead" and women toss orchids from their leis and others shed a tear.

More sinister however, is the fact that the Arizona still holds 500,000 gallons (2,200 tons) of fuel oil within its corroding hull. Although marine surveyors have mapped the hull, high-tech computer modelling systems such as Finite Element Analysis predict the sequence of the ship's deterioration and National Parks Service archaelogists employ ultrasound to measure the thickness of the hull and to analyse load and stress on the structure, it seems a catastrophic release of oil is inevitable.

The recent Hawaiian earthquake (6.7 Richter scale) and the number of aftershocks underscore that nature, as well as war, can be unpredictable. A catastrophic release of oil because of unpreparedness would be a dishonor to those that died there.

2006-09-09T04:40:00.000-07:00

Tecumseh's Curse (Zero Year or Twenty Year Curse)

In the shortest US Presidency on record, William Henry Harrison died after only one month in office.

Ironically, he died of a cold he contracted after standing in the rain and delivering the longest inaugural speech in the history of the Presidency.

Some believe his bizarre death was the fulfillment of a Shawnee curse placed on the Presidency and the first in a string of deaths in a twenty year cycle.

Tecumseh (pictured) was the leader of the Midwestern Shawnee whose dream of uniting Indian tribes into an Indian Confederacy was crushed when Harrison, then as Governor of Indiana Territory, decimated his forces at the Battle of Tippecanoe.

Unable to regroup, the embittered Tecumseh joined with the English against the Americans in the War of 1812 and laid a curse on Harrison - "Harrison will die. And after him, every Great Chief chosen every twenty years thereafter will die."

This curse/prophesy has held true for 120 years.

In 1840 the hapless Harrison died and was replaced by Tyler.

Elected twenty years later in 1860 Abraham Lincoln was shot dead by pro Confederate John Wilkes Booth.

James Garlfield, elected in 1880, died after being shot by Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled man whom Garflield had turned down for a civil service job.

Elected in 1900, William McKinley was assassinated by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist.

Elected in 1920, Warren Harding died three years later of a mysterious illness while on tour.

Re-elected in 1940, Franklin D Roosevelt died of a cerebral haemorrhage early in his fourth term in 1945.

John F Kennedy, elected in 1960, was shot dead in 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald.

Although there have been many attempts on the lives of Presidents not elected in "zero years", no assassination attempt on a President elected in any other year resulted in death. Conversely, all but one attempt on a "zero year" President did.

Only one sitting President not elected in a year starting with a zero died in office (Zahary Taylor who died of cholera in 1850).

Put another way, of 46 total elections (between Washington to Clinton), nine vice presidents inherited the Presidency, an overall chance of 19.5% but from a zero year election (of which there were 8 over that time frame), the chance of a vice president coming to the Presidency was 87.5%.

Ronald Reagan was the first exception - elected in 1980, he survived a bullet fired by John Hinkley. George W Bush, elected in 2000 is still going strong.

Perhaps it was all just coincidence after all.

2006-08-09T01:53:00.000-07:00

"Doubt me a river"

Theodore Roosevelt had his own way of responding to loss and rejection throughout his life.

This sickly asthmatic son of a wealthy Knickerbocker family, whom some doubted would even reach adulthood, overcame his nervous and timid childhood by following the advice of his father to "make your own body".

He embraced physical challenges and adopted, in his own words, a "strenuous life", developing a Hemingway-esque machisimo.

When told he shouldn't climb stairs because of a bad heart, he climbed the Matterhorn.

He boxed, rowed, lifted weights, hiked, hunted and collected, setting a pattern in his life where, when burdened by grief or rejection, he replenished himself in action and nature. After the death of his first wife he found solace in the Dakotas.

The hero of the Battle of San Juan Heights in Cuba during the Spanish American War became the youngest man ever to come to the Presidency when McKinley was assassinated.

Elected in his own right for a second term, he brokered the Treaty of Portsmouth which ended the Russo-Japanese War for which he became the first American Noblel laureate.

He built up the US Navy that helped vanquish Spain and fomented a revolution (which he never officially admitted) in Panama that allowed the US to built the Panama canal, becoming the first President to leave the US while in office when he inspected the partly built Canal.

After his failed bid for a third term in 1912, (by which he split the Republican party running against his once friend Taft), he beame a political pariah, abandoned by his friends and ridiculed by his enemies. His actions had put a Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, into the White House, the first in 16 years.

Struggling with depression and despair, he took up an offer by Brazil's Foreign Minister to explore an unmapped river in the Amazon, named the Rio da Duvida, River of Doubt, because the man who had discovered its headwaters had no idea where it led.

The chance for renewal went disastrously wrong with a malarial and delerious Roosevelt at one stage contemplating taking his own life with morphine.

Just to reach the river Roosevelt's party endured a gruelling monthlong journey across the Brazilian Highlands, and lost dozens of mules to starvation and exhaustion, forcing them to abandon provisions.

Dugout canoes bought from local tribesmen sat only a few centimetres above the caiman and piranha infested water. The party was plagued by insects and all fell prey to malaria. More sinister, they were shadowed by an indigenous tribe that never showed itself but attacked one of their members.

One man drowned, another was murdered in an argument. Short of food and unlucky in catching fish, the men ate nuts, hearts of palm and the white sap of milk trees.

When they came to a series of six waterfalls, each over 9m high they were at the end of their tether. Roosevelt was delerious with fever and malaria and asked the men to go on without him. His son Kermit, a bridge-builder, worked out a sytem by which he could lower the dugouts over the falls with ropes and get everyone out.

All but three men including Roosevelt and his son, survived the expedition. The river was put on the map and renamed Rio Roosevelt.

Of the expedition Roosevelt later said "I had to go. It was my last chance to be a boy."

In 1918, his son Quentin was killed in the war in France. Roosevelt died of a coronary in his sleep the next year at the age of 60. Roosevelt's face is one of the four on Mt Rushmore. He had been nominated for the Medal of Honour for his actions in Cuba during the Spanish American War, but had been denied it at the time for political reasons. In 2001 President Bill Clinton awarded him the medal posthumously.

Ref: The River of Doubt by Candice Millard

Have you read something interesting you would like to share? Send it along!