Bag of Randomness for Thursday, April 25, 2019

  • A trusted source has informed me that current and all-time Jeopardy! champion, James Holzhauer, is half-Asian and I should consider him for entry to BagOfNothing’s unkempt Half-Asian Hall of Fame. I guess it’s been a good year for the half-Asian, first with Tiger and now with Holzhauer. This doesn’t make me happy because now I feel pressured to actually succeed in something.
  • If you are a married contestant on Wheel of Fortune I guess you are obligated to mention your spouse and/or family and describe them in overtly affectionate tones.
  • In case you ever wondered who was the “Dewey” in the Dewey Decimal system, it’s Melvil Dewey, not George Dewey, the only officer of the US Navy ever to hold the rank of Admiral of the Navy
  • I thought it was a historical fact that George Washington was posthumously appointed a six-star general so that he’d never be outranked. Close, but not quite:
    • In 1976, as part of commemorations for the US Bicentennial, General George Washington was posthumously promoted to the rank of General of the Armies of the United States. Although the law did not actually specify the number of stars, some U.S. newspapers and Members of Congress described this as a six-star rank.
    • Here’s a bit more info on Washington and his Army rank, which surprised me. I notably left out Pershing stuff for brevity.
      • When Washington actually served in the army, he was a merely a major general—two stars. After his presidency, John Adams promoted him to lieutenant general—three stars. It stayed that way for centuries, with every four- and five-star general who came afterward outranking him.
  • I’m taking WifeGeeding to Hamilton tonight. I thought I should study a bit about early U.S. history to be better aquatinted with the story and performance but got lost in reading about the duel he had with Vice President Aaron Burr.
    • The duel took place in New Jersey but Hamilton actually died in Manhatten. While dueling was illegal in both states, the laws were a bit less strict in Jersey.
    • I remember being in NYC for a college class and we visited some place associated with the duel. Our guide was a pretty young woman, perhaps fresh out of college, and asked if we had any questions. I simply asked, “What was the duel about?” She turned red and bashfully remarked she didn’t know. Interestingly enough, no other adult or student knew either, but all U.S. history scholars know it was over Miller Light and whether it’s less filling or tastes great.
    • The duel took place during the last full year of Burr’s single term as vice president. That’s such a crazy U.S. fact, an acting Vice President shot and killed someone. Burr was charged with multiple crimes, including murder, in New York and New Jersey, but was never tried in either jurisdiction. He fled to South Carolina, where his daughter lived with her family, but soon returned to Philadelphia and then to Washington to complete his term as vice president in 1805. Unrelated to the duel, he was arrested on charges of treason in 1807. The subsequent trial resulted in acquittal,
    • Coincidentally, the duel took place relatively close to the location of the duel that had ended the life of Hamilton’s eldest son, Philip, three years earlier.
    • Burr’s Wikipedia page states Episcopal Bishop Benjamin Moore baptized Hamilton the day before he died, but I’ve read other accounts it was communion.
    • In 2004, for the duel’s bicentennial anniversary, kin of Burr and Hamilton held a re-enactment of the duel, near the Hudson River. In the re-enactment, Douglas Hamilton, fifth-great-grandson of Alexander Hamilton, faced Antonio Burr, a descendant of Aaron Burr’s cousin. More than 1,000 people attended the re-enactment, including an estimated 60 descendants of Hamilton and 40 members of the Aaron Burr Association.
    • I totally forgot about this fantastic “Got Milk?” commercial, and I loved how it was recreated years later with the actor who portrayed Burr in Hamilton.

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4 Responses to Bag of Randomness for Thursday, April 25, 2019

  1. AndreaJN says:

    HAHA! Less Filling!!

  2. Dan F says:

    Tastes Great!!

  3. RPM says:

    By succeed at something, are you saying you feel pressure to become crazy rich?

  4. BSG says:

    I had COMPLETELY had forgotten about that Got Milk commercial, and I must have seen it 100 times.

    Likewise on the Game of Thrones wormholes. Goes to my theory of everyone has at least some questions about every episode because there is something we haven’t seen or have forgotten. (Except one guy at the courthouse yesterday who blatantly claimed he knows the background of every character.)

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