1,001 Facts That Will Scare the S#*t Out of You: The Ultimate Bathroom Reader (97 page)

730

FACT :
The Indian removal put in place by President Andrew Jackson forced the Cherokee nation to vacate the southern U.S. and move west to what is now Oklahoma. Their long journey in 1838–1839 was dubbed the “Trail Of Tears” after it claimed the lives of 4,000 Cherokee—
almost a third of their population
—from hunger, disease, and exhaustion.
I’d rather die than live in Oklahoma, too.

“Indian removal,” PBS.org,
www.pbs.org
.

“The Trail of Tears,” PBS.org,
www.pbs.org
.

731

FACT :
Roman Emperor Gaius (Caligula) was so proud of his horse that
he gave the animal a position in the Senate
.
This practice continues today in America, but we only let the horse’s ass in the Senate, not the entire animal.

Facts Library,
www.factlib.com
.

732

FACT :
By the Civil War’s end in 1865, victorious Union general Ulysses S.

Grant owned four slaves, whom
he refused to free
. Confederate General Robert E. Lee had freed his slaves in the late 1840s.
Grant: “Wait. We were fighting for what?”

Jack Mingo and Erin Barrett, Just Curious, Jeeves: What Are the 1001 Most Intriguing Questions Asked on the Internet? (Emeryville, CA: Ask Jeeves Inc., 2000).

733

FACT :
In 1898, the American battleship
USS Maine
blew up in Havana harbor, Cuba, killing 266 American servicemen. The American media blamed Spanish forces and helped create a frenzy that ultimately led to the Spanish-American war. Yet,
no terrorist activity was ever proven
, and today, many researchers believe the explosion was accidental.
Oops.

Alan Axelrod, Profiles in Folly: History’s Worst Decisions and Why They Went Wrong (Sterling Publishing Company, 2008), 72.

“The Destruction of USS Maine,” Department Of The Navy, Naval Historical Center,
www.history.navy.mil
.

“Yellow Journalism,” PBS.org,
www.pbs.org
.

734

FACT :
In May 1902, volcanic activity on the Caribbean island of Martinique drove
more than a hundred fer-de-lance snakes into the town of St.Pierre
, where the large, venomous reptiles killed fifty people and hundreds of animals.
Fer-de-love of God, do they not have cats on that island?

David Wallechinsky, The New Book of Lists: The Original Compendium of Curious Information (Canongate U.S., 2005).

735

FACT :
In 1919, a large tank of molasses burst in Boston’s North End,
causing a deadly wave of molasses to flow through the streets
at an estimated 35 mph, killing 21 people and injuring 150 more.
The victims knew the wave was coming, but probably figured they had plenty of time to escape. I mean, come on, it’s molasses.

Stephen Puleo, Dark Tide (Beacon Press, 2004).

736

FACT :
India tested its
first nuclear bomb
in 1974.
Indian food sets off a few bombs of its own.

“Nuclear Proliferation,” U.S. Department Of Energy, Office Of History & Heritage,
www.doe.gov
.

737