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Think back to your school days: Are you nostalgic for flipping through a dusty library card catalog or clacking away on a typewriter? Some subjects you remember from those days are probably things of the past, although the finer points of how schools have changed might surprise you. These six subjects are either fading from U.S. high school curriculums or fundamentally changing.

Shorthand

Shorthand alphabets help people write things down more quickly by hand, making them valuable for recording court testimony, legislative proceedings, or interviews — not to mention reading those notes after they were taken. By the early 20th century, shorthand was taught in public schools. Yet in the ensuing decades, more efficient ways to take notes dominated, like audio recording and typing. Shorthand was mostly phased out of schools by the 1990s.

Latin

Today, around 8% of U.S. high schools have some sort of Latin language class, but it used to be standard practice, especially when many colleges required it for admission. High school Latin education took a hit during World War II, when liberal arts education became less popular. It continued to decline slowly in the 1960s and 1970s in favor of more immediately practical languages, such as French and Spanish.

Shop

Shop class usually refers to hands-on education in building and fixing — as in a woodshop, metalwork, or automotive repair. Now, these classes would fall under the umbrella of career technical education, or CTE. CTE credits took a nosedive between 1990 and 2009, with manufacturing being among the hardest hit. Many blame the focus on standardized tests for the decline (since resources are directed to academic subjects like reading and math rather than vocational classes). There is now a renewed interest in CTE classes, but that includes vocational training in fields like health care and communications, not just traditional “shop” classes.

Home Economics

Home ec developed a reputation for taking in high school girls and making them into perfect homemakers, but it was originally designed to demonstrate the science behind domestic skills and elevate what was considered “women’s work.” Over the years, the topics were increasingly devalued, and some unfortunate teaching tools emerged — like using real human “practice babies.” In schools that still have classes on domestic skills, they’re usually rebranded as family and consumer sciences. Even those are on the decline; enrollment dropped 38% between 2002 and 2012.

The Food Pyramid and the Food Wheel

Depending on when you attended school — and what the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) was recommending at the time — you may have learned about nutrition with a cleanly divided triangle or circle, each outlining several food groups. The food wheel, with differently sized wedges to recommend how much to eat from each food group, came out in the 1980s. In the early 1990s, it was replaced by the food pyramid, showing food with a higher recommended intake at the bottom and lower recommended intake at the top. It was briefly replaced by MyPyramid, a triangle with vertical bands and a staircase running up one side to represent physical activity, in the mid-2000s. Since 2011, the go-to infographic is MyPlate, which shows a place setting with simplified food categories.

Cursive (Kind Of)

Writing in cursive used to be a standard part of school curriculums, but it started fading from classrooms in the early 2010s when states began adopting the federal Common Core State Standards, which didn’t require cursive. A pro-cursive backlash came soon after; in 2016, 14 states required that schools teach cursive. That number is now more than 20. While you probably don’t see cursive in as many classrooms as you did a couple of decades ago, the reports of cursive’s death are greatly exaggerated.

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From sea to shining sea, a lot of history has taken place on America’s shores. While you may think you’re familiar with the country we call home, some of these facts may surprise you. Did you know that you used to be able to send children through the U.S. mail? Or that the Statue of Liberty was originally brown? We’ve collected some of our top facts about American history from around the site, so be prepared to wonder why you probably never learned any of this in school.

The U.S. Actually Voted for Its Independence on July 2

In June 1776, the Second Continental Congress selected a Committee of Five — John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson — to draft a statement of independence that severed the colonies from British rule. When the draft was presented to Congress, only nine of the 13 colonies favored independence. However, the delegates largely fell into line from that point, and on July 2, Congress formally approved the resolution that proclaimed the United States of America as an independent country. Following additional edits, the Declaration of Independence was completed, adopted, and sent for printing on July 4, and on August 2, the rank-and-file delegates began adding their signatures to an engrossed version of the document.

According to historian Pauline Maier, the idea of commemorating the anniversary of independence didn’t gain any traction in 1777 until it was too late to recognize the date of July 2. However, a pair of notable celebrations popped up on July 4 — fireworks in Boston, a military demonstration and more pyrotechnics in Philadelphia — setting forth an annual tradition.

The Statue of Liberty Was Originally Brown

In 1885, French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi dismantled his gleaming copper-skinned creation — a gift to the U.S. from the French people — into 350 pieces for its voyage across the Atlantic. The statue was eventually rebuilt atop Bedloe’s Island (now called Liberty Island) in New York Harbor, but over the next two decades or so, the landmark underwent a prominent color change.

The now-familiar minty tint is actually a patina, a common coating that forms on copper as well as its alloys brass and bronze. The patina is a result of the chemical reactions the statue has endured in its environment, an urban center surrounded by water. Over the years, the copper has reacted to oxygen, sulfuric acid, chloride, and other components of the surrounding air and water, changing its mineral composition in a gradual evolution. Today, chemists believe the seafoam-green hue has stabilized. And while there’s occasionally been talk of repainting the statue or polishing off her patina, public sentiment — and input from copper manufacturers — has kept “Liberty Enlightening the World” from being returned to her initial metallic sheen. Fortunately, the patina is protective, which means Liberty’s chameleonlike qualities actually help preserve her.

Portland, Oregon, Was Named in a Coin Toss

What’s the most you’ve ever lost in a coin toss? For Asa Lovejoy, it was the opportunity in 1845 to name the city he’d recently established with Francis Pettygrove. The men decided to settle their disagreement as to what their new land claim should be called with a two-out-of-three coin flip that Pettygrove won. Pettygrove chose “Portland” because he hailed from the city of the same name in Maine; Lovejoy had intended to name the place after his hometown of Boston. Now known as the Portland Penny, the one-cent piece used in the fateful toss was minted in 1835 and retrieved by Pettygrove after his victory. It remained with him when he founded Port Townsend, Washington, and was eventually given to the Oregon Historical Society, which now keeps it on display.

Shirley Temple Was a U.S. Ambassador

Shirley Temple, the beloved child star who was Hollywood’s No. 1 box-office draw from 1935 to 1938, announced her retirement from film at the age of 22 in 1950. It was anyone’s guess what Temple would do next, but it’s unlikely that many predicted her eventual diplomatic career. After she ran (unsuccessfully) for Congress in 1967, President Nixon appointed her as a delegate to the 24th United Nations General Assembly in 1969, and President Ford named her the ambassador to Ghana in 1974.

Temple’s foreign service didn’t end there. In 1989, just before the Velvet Revolution, President George H.W. Bush made her ambassador to the former Czechoslovakia, a post she held until 1992, as the country became a parliamentary democracy. According to Norman Eisen, who held the same role from 2011 to 2014, the “sunny confidence and optimism” that made Temple a movie star also helped her “really infuse the United States’ role — as our representative here, in the Velvet Revolution — with that good cheer and that hope.”

Napoleon’s Grandnephew Created the Forerunner of the FBI

A grandson of Napoleon Bonaparte’s younger brother Jérôme, Charles Bonaparte lacked his famous relative’s ambition for world domination yet displayed a talent for visionary authority that might have impressed the Little Corporal. In the late 19th century, Charles Bonaparte, then a lawyer from Baltimore, came into the orbit of fast-rising New York politician Theodore Roosevelt through their shared interest in civil service reform. Bonaparte later became President Roosevelt’s secretary of the Navy and then attorney general, a position that thrust “Charlie the Crook Chaser” into the spotlight as a face of the administration’s trust-busting efforts.

Behind the scenes, the attorney general fumed at the lack of an established investigative team within the Department of Justice, which often led to the borrowing of spare Secret Service agents from the Treasury Department for investigating cases that involved federal law. Congressional leaders also frowned on what they felt was becoming an overreach of the executive branch, and in May 1908, Congress passed a bill that halted the DOJ’s ability to commandeer Secret Service personnel. Seizing the opportunity, Bonaparte culled together a “special agent force” of 31 detectives, and on July 26, 1908, he issued an order that directed DOJ attorneys to refer investigative matters to his chief examiner, Stanley Finch.

Bonaparte’s oversight of this unit was short-lived, as he exited the federal government at the end of the Roosevelt administration in March 1909. Nevertheless, his special agent force remained in place under new Attorney General George Wickersham, who began referring to the group as the Bureau of Investigation. By 1935, the now-renamed Federal Bureau of Investigation was firmly embedded as a U.S. law enforcement institution under Director J. Edgar Hoover.

By Some Accounts, North Dakota Didn’t Technically Become a State Until 2012

North Dakota was admitted to the Union as the 39th state on November 2, 1889, except it kind of sort of wasn’t. Its constitution left out a key detail that, according to some, was enough of a technicality that North Dakota didn’t actually become a state until 2012. A local historian by the name of John Rolczynski first noticed in 1995 that North Dakota’s state constitution failed to mention the executive branch in its section concerning the oath of office, which he felt made it invalid; the United States Constitution requires that officers of all three branches of a state’s government be bound by said oath, and North Dakota’s only mentioned the legislative and judiciary branches.

This led to a campaign that included an unanswered letter to then-President Bill Clinton and ended with the successful 2012 passage of an amendment to Section 4 of Article XI of the state constitution, which fixed the omission.

Before Time Zones Were Established in 1883, North America Had Over 144 Local Times

Before time zones were established in 1883, North America alone had at least 144 local times. Noon was when the sun reached its zenith, and in many places the only thing making time official was a town clock. This didn’t affect many people’s day-to-day lives, as it often took several days to travel from one place to another, but confusion intensified once the expanding railroad system drastically cut travel times. Because time wasn’t standardized, coordinating schedules across multiple rail lines was nearly impossible, and travelers occasionally found themselves arriving at their final destination earlier than they’d departed. Sometimes, trains even collided.

Those problems more or less evaporated after November 18, 1883, when American railroads adopted the first four time zones (Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific) and all clocks in each zone were synchronized. The number of time zones rose to five with the passage of 1918’s Standard Time Act, which added Alaska. (The act also established the use of daylight saving time in the U.S., to the chagrin of many.) Including its territories, the United States now has four more time zones — Chamorro (which is used in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands), Samoa, Hawaii-Aleutian, and Atlantic — for a total of nine.

Tenth President John Tyler Still Has a Living Grandson

More than 200 years after the 10th President of the United States was born, one of his grandsons is still alive. As impossible as that may seem, the math — and biology — checks out. John Tyler, who was born in 1790 and became President in 1841 after William Henry Harrison died in office, had a son named Lyon Gardiner Tyler in 1853. This son was born to the then-60-something Tyler and his second, much younger, wife, Julia Gardiner. Lyon then had two sons of his own in his 70s (also with a much younger second wife), one of whom — Harrison Ruffin Tyler, born in 1928 — is still gracing the Earth in his mid-nineties.

Amelia Earhart Once Took Eleanor Roosevelt on a Nighttime Joyride

Although her aviation career lasted just 17 years, Amelia Earhart remains one of the most famous people ever to take to the sky. In addition to being renowned for her many firsts — including being the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and the first person to fly alone from Hawaii to the mainland U.S. — she’s known for her 1937 disappearance and the many theories it spawned. Less well known but considerably more fun to imagine is the time she took Eleanor Roosevelt on a nighttime joyride from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore on April 20, 1933. The brief flight took place with both of them in their evening wear following a White House dinner party.

“I’d love to do it myself. I make no bones about it,” the First Lady told the Baltimore Sun after the flight. “It does mark an epoch, doesn’t it, when a girl in an evening dress and slippers can pilot a plane at night.”

In fact, Roosevelt herself had recently received a student pilot license and briefly took over the controls of the twin-engine Curtiss Condor, borrowed from Eastern Air Transport at nearby Hoover Field. Eleanor’s brother Hall also ditched the dinner party in favor of the flight that night, as did Thomas Wardwell Doe, the president of Eastern Air Transport, and Eugene Luther Vidal (head of the Bureau of Air Commerce) and his wife Nina Gore, parents of author Gore Vidal. When the plane returned after the short journey, the Secret Service guided everyone back to the White House table for dessert.

Memorial Day’s Date Was First Chosen Because It Was When Flowers Would Be in Full Bloom

Deciding when to observe holidays isn’t always an exact science. George Washington wasn’t born on the third Monday of February, for example. Memorial Day’s precise date on the calendar also shifts from year to year (though it’s always the final Monday of May), but at least the reasoning behind it is sound: The late spring date was chosen because it was when flowers would be in full bloom. As adorning the graves of fallen soldiers with wreaths was once the most important part of the holiday, it’s difficult to imagine Memorial Day taking place at another time of year — especially considering that it was first celebrated in the 1860s, when floristry wasn’t quite as commercially developed as it is today. Originally celebrated on a state and community level, Memorial Day became an official federal holiday in 1971.

Jimmy Carter Was the First President Born in a Hospital

In his nearly 100 years on Earth, Jimmy Carter has set a number of records and achieved almost as many firsts. In addition to being the longest-living President in U.S. history, he was also the first one born in a hospital — an event that occurred on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia. It was much more common for babies to be born at home in the early 20th century than it is now, but Carter’s mother was a nurse at what was then known as Wise Sanitarium. There happened to be a room available on that fateful October night, and the hospital has since been renamed the Lillian G. Carter Nursing Center.

There Have Been 27 Versions of the American Flag

When it comes to the American flag, it’s not just about 13 stripes and 50 stars — the number 27 also has an important meaning. That’s how many different versions of Old Glory have been officially recognized since the nation began. The inaugural 13-star, 13-stripe flag was approved by the Continental Congress on June 14, 1777, and later underwent an update in May 1795. That redesign — due to Vermont and Kentucky joining the Union — featured 15 stars and 15 stripes. While the number of stripes initially continued to increase as more states were admitted, the government reverted back to 13 stripes in 1818, representing the original 13 colonies, and let the stars represent the number of states instead. The current and 27th official design was adopted on July 4, 1960, after Hawaii’s admission into the United States. It is the only version in U.S. history to remain unchanged for over 50 years.

You Used To Be Able To Send Children Through U.S. Mail

You can send a lot of things in the mail, but you can’t send a person — at least not anymore. There was nothing preventing people from mailing their own children in the early days of the U.S. Postal Service’s parcel post service, and at least seven families took advantage of it. That includes the Beagues, an Ohio couple who in 1913 paid 15 cents in postage to mail their newborn son to his grandmother’s house a mile down the road. Beyond the novelty of it — when the parcel post service began on January 1, 1913, some were eager to see which packages they could get away with sending — it was a surprisingly practical way of getting one’s kiddo from point A to point B.

To start with, many people in rural areas knew their postal carriers fairly well, which meant the children were simply walked or carried on often-short trips. In other instances, children traveled on trains as Railway Mail, but with stamps instead of (usually more expensive) train tickets. The longest known trip of a child through the mail occurred in 1915, when a 6-year-old was sent 720 miles from Florida to Virginia — a lengthy trip that cost just 15 cents. Fortunately, there are no reports of children being injured by being sent through the mail. (Pictures of children in literal mailbags were staged.) The practice ended, as so many do, when certain higher-ups became aware of the loophole and decided to close it, also around 1915.

No U.S. President Has Been an Only Child

In the sibling department, every President has had, at minimum, one half-brother or half-sister. However, a few Presidents are sometimes considered to have been raised as only children — most notably Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose only half-sibling (his father’s oldest son, James) was 28 years FDR’s senior. Bill Clinton’s half-brother, Roger, is about a decade younger than him. Barack Obama also has a 10-year age gap with his younger half-sister Maya, although he learned later in life that he possessed at least five more half-siblings on his father’s side. Meanwhile, Gerald Ford is the only child his mother and father produced, but he was raised with three younger half-brothers after his mother remarried, and as a teen, he learned that he also had three younger half-sisters, via his father.

The Labor Department Was the First U.S. Cabinet Agency Led by a Woman

George Washington held the country’s first full Cabinet meeting on November 26, 1791. That meeting, and every subsequent Cabinet meeting over the next 142 years, consisted exclusively of men. But all that changed on March 4, 1933, when Frances Perkins became secretary of labor under President Franklin D. Roosevelt — and the first woman to hold any position in a presidential Cabinet. The occasion was marked several months later by Time, which put Perkins on the cover of its August 14, 1933, edition. Perkins had previously served under FDR in a similar capacity, having been appointed commissioner of the New York State Department of Labor after Roosevelt was elected governor of New York in 1929.

Perkins’ tenure lasted for the entirety of Roosevelt’s 12-year administration, making her the longest-serving secretary of labor in U.S. history. Described by historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. as “brisk and articulate” and “intent on beating sense into the heads of those foolish people who resisted progress,” Perkins is best known for her role as chairwoman of the President’s Committee on Economic Security, which led to the 1935 act that created Social Security. She was also active in issues around child labor, safety, minimum-wage laws, worker’s compensation, and more. She resigned in 1945, after Roosevelt’s death, and then served on the United States Civil Service Commission under President Truman until 1952.

Alaska’s Flag Was Created by a 13-Year-Old

Every flag has a story, but few are as endearing as Alaska’s. One of the rare places to have a flag before it was actually a state, the Last Frontier held a contest to design its territorial standard in 1926 and 1927 — and a 13-year-old won. (The contest was only open to Alaskan children in the seventh to 12th grade, but still.) Benny Benson lived in an orphanage known as the Jesse Lee Home in Seward, Alaska, when he came up with the winning design, which included a description he wrote himself: “The blue field is for the Alaska sky and the forget-me-not, an Alaska flower. The North Star is for the future of the state of Alaska, the most northerly in the Union. The dipper is for the Great Bear — symbolizing strength.” His design also featured “1867” in commemoration of the year the United States bought Alaska from Russia, although the numbers didn’t make the final cut.

In addition to being hailed as a local hero, Benson won a watch with his design on it and a $1,000 scholarship. He eventually used that money to attend Hemphill Diesel Engineering School after moving to Seattle in 1936. He was 45 when Alaska became a state in 1959, fulfilling the hopeful description of his design. Alaska kept its flag rather than adopt a new one, and Benson’s work lives on today.

U.S. Elections Used To Be Held Over a 34-Day Window

As implied by its name, Election Day is, well, a single day. That wasn’t always the case, however: States used to hold elections whenever they wanted within a 34-day period leading up to the first Wednesday in December. This ultimately created some issues, as you might imagine — early voting results ended up holding too much sway over late-deciding voters, for one thing. The current date was implemented by the Presidential Election Day Act of 1845, and federal elections now occur every two years on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

That may sound arbitrary at first, but the date was chosen quite deliberately. American society was much more agrarian in the mid-19th century than it is today, and it took a full day of traveling for many to reach their polling place. Church made weekends impractical, and Wednesday was market day for farmers, so Tuesday proved ideal. November, meanwhile, worked because weather was still fairly mild, and the harvest was complete by then.

The Last U.S. President With Facial Hair Was William Howard Taft

On Inauguration Day in 1913, mustachioed President William Howard Taft passed the presidential baton to clean-shaven Woodrow Wilson. What Taft couldn’t have known at the time was that his departure began a long streak of clean-shaven faces occupying the Oval Office.

In fact, out of the 46 Presidents in U.S. history so far, only 13 have had any facial hair whatsoever. Although sixth President John Quincy Adams, eighth President Martin Van Buren, and 12th President Zachary Taylor sported impressive mutton chops, the first serious presidential facial fuzz belonged to 16th President Abraham Lincoln — thanks to an 11-year-old girl whose 1860 letter convinced him to grow out his whiskers. After Lincoln, eight of the next 10 Presidents sported some sort of facial hair.

Some Historians Consider Cracker Jack America’s First Junk Food

Cracker Jack’s early marketing warned prospective customers about the effects of the product. “Do not taste it,” one 1896 article cautioned. “If you do, you will part with your money easy.” Some historians believe that the caramel-coated popcorn and peanut treat jump-started the American snack food industry around the turn of the 20th century. It may even hold the title of the country’s first junk food, though the types of junk food popular today didn’t make their appearances until the 1950s. It all started with Chicago candy and popcorn peddlers Frederick and Louis Rueckheim, German immigrants who crafted a nonsticky caramelized popcorn as a way to stand out from other popcorn vendors. Their version — with a sweet, crunchy coating that was different from the salted popcorn and kettle corn available at the time — became a hit after it was mass-produced in 1896.

It was a song, however, that helped cement Cracker Jack’s snack status. In 1908, songwriter Jack Norworth — entirely unknown to the Rueckheims — composed “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” after seeing an advertisement for an upcoming game. The song, which mentions the snack by name, led to a surge in sales that forever linked Cracker Jack with sports. Four years later, the Rueckheims sweetened their popcorn business with a marketing gimmick that would eventually be replicated by cereal brands, fast-food restaurants, and candymakers for decades to come: a toy in every box. By 1916, Cracker Jack was the bestselling snack worldwide.

Before They Built Airplanes, the Wright Brothers Owned a Bicycle Shop

The Wright brothers are best known for their historical flight over Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in 1903, but years before the siblings made aviation history, they were busy running a bicycle shop in western Ohio. Wilbur Wright and his younger brother Orville had long dreamed of gliding through the wild blue yonder, but it would take years of work to finance their costly first attempts. In the 1880s, the brothers undertook their first joint business, a small printing shop in Dayton that churned out local newspapers, church pamphlets, and bicycle parts catalogs. By 1892 the brothers had moved from printing for bicycle companies to starting their own, inspired by their shared passion for cycling; Wilbur reportedly loved leisurely rides through the countryside, while Orville was known to participate in bike races.

The Wright Cycle Company initially offered repairs and rentals, but as cycling became more popular, the brothers turned to manufacturing their own designs in an effort to compete with the dozens of nearby bike shops. Their first model, the “Wright Special,” was released in May 1896, followed by the “Van Cleve.” Together, Wilbur and Orville hand-built around 300 bikes per year during their peak production years before 1900, using the profits to fund their flight experiments. By 1908, they had abandoned their shop to focus solely on aeronautics. Today, only five antique Van Cleve bikes exist, two of which remain in the brothers’ hometown at the Wright Brothers National Museum in Dayton.

The Earliest U.S. Presidents Didn’t Wear Pants

The very first American Presidents — George Washington included — led the country through the American Revolution and its earliest days without wearing a single pair of pants. That’s because the Founding Fathers actually wore breeches, pairs of tight-fitting men’s bottoms that cut off at the knee. (Their calves were covered with knee-high stockings.) Breeches were a status symbol; full-length pantaloons were generally reserved for working folk who needed more ease to complete manual labor, which was difficult to do in custom-fitted breeches.

Another revolution — in France — eventually led Americans to turn their backside on breeches around the start of the 19th century. French political groups such as the sans-culottes (literally meaning “without knee breeches”) stylized longer trousers as the apparel of the everyday man, disparaging breeches as the clothing of the wealthy elite. For a while, American Presidents continued to stick with cropped breeches, though pants slowly crept into everyday style. Americans wouldn’t see the country’s highest leader don full-length pants until 1825, when John Quincy Adams became the sixth President — and the first to be inaugurated while wearing a pair of trousers. (He also ditched the powdered wig.)

The Library of Congress Has a Piece of Wedding Cake From the 1800s

Celebrity weddings — love them or ignore them, they’ve seemingly always been a topic of fascination for Americans. One famous case: the wedding of Charles Stratton, aka General Tom Thumb, an entertainer known for his particularly small stature. At 40 inches tall, Stratton enjoyed a lucrative career singing, dancing, and acting; part of his success came from employment with famed showman P.T. Barnum, who dubbed him the “smallest man alive.” In February 1863, Stratton married the similarly sized “Queen of Beauty,” Lavinia Warren, in a dazzling New York display that attracted thousands of onlookers trying to get a glimpse of the couple. After the ceremony, a reception — to which Barnum had sold thousands of tickets — allowed guests to meet the pair in a receiving line. Ladies were handed a boxed slice of brandy-soaked wedding fruitcake on their way out.

After the wedding, Stratton and Lavinia were even welcomed at the White House by President Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd. But Lavinia’s career dimmed after Stratton’s death in 1883, and she used a slice of her wedding cake at least once to help her career. In 1905, she sent the then-42-year-old slice of cake to actress Minnie Maddern Fiske and her husband, an editor at a theater publication, along with a letter that said, “The public are under the impression that I am not living.” Lavinia would eventually continue performing until her 70s, even starring in a silent film in 1915 with her second husband, “Count” Primo Magri. Today, two pieces of Stratton and Lavinia’s wedding cake have outlived the couple — one donated to the Library of Congress in the 1950s as part of the Fiskes’ papers, another at the Barnum Museum in Connecticut.

While President, Ulysses S. Grant Was Arrested for Speeding

Nearly 25 years after Ulysses S. Grant’s death, a peculiar story hit the pages of the Washington Evening Star. Within the paper’s Sunday edition one day in 1908, retired police officer William H. West recounted how he had caught the 18th President speeding through the streets of Washington, D.C. — and decided the only appropriate course of action was to proceed with an arrest.

West’s tale harkened back to 1872, during a particularly bad bout of traffic issues, when complaints of speeding carriages were on the rise. West had been out investigating a collision when he witnessed Grant — then the sitting President — careening his horse-drawn carriage down the road. The officer flagged down the carriage, issued a warning, and sent Grant on his way. But Grant, who had a reputation for hightailing horse rides, couldn’t resist the need to speed. West caught him the very next day once again tearing through the city. Feeling he had no other option, the officer placed the President under arrest. At the police department, Grant was required to put $20 (about $490 in today’s money) toward his bond before being released.

Historian John F. Marszalek, who oversaw Grant’s presidential collection at Mississippi State University, says the situation blew over pretty quickly. Grant’s arrest wasn’t the first time he had been cited for speeding. It also wasn’t a political quagmire for either party. At the time, West — a formerly enslaved Civil War veteran who became one of just two Black police officers in Washington, D.C., immediately after the war — was commended for his actions in trying to make the city streets safer. And Grant owned up to his mistake — though he did choose to skip his court appearance scheduled for the following day, which meant he forfeited his $20. He didn’t face any further consequences, however.

The Last American To Collect a Civil War Pension Died in 2020

Irene Triplett, a 90-year-old North Carolina woman, was the last person to receive a Civil War pension, thanks to her father’s service in the Union Army. Mose Triplett was originally a Confederate soldier who deserted in 1863 and later joined a Union regiment, a move that kept him out of the fight at Gettysburg, where 90% of his former infantry was killed. Switching sides also guaranteed Mose a pension for the remainder of his life, which would later play a role in him remarrying after the death of his first wife. At age 78, Mose married 27-year-old Elida Hall — a move historians say was common during the Great Depression, when aging veterans needing care could provide financial security to younger women. The couple had two children, including Irene, who was diagnosed with cognitive impairments that allowed her to qualify for her father’s pension after both parents’ deaths. By the time of Irene’s own passing in 2020, the U.S. government had held up its duty, paying out Mose Triplett’s pension for more than 100 years.

Idaho Has the Only State Seal Designed by a Woman

Idaho became the 43rd state on July 3, 1890, formed from a territory that once included land in present-day Montana and Wyoming. Upon statehood, Idaho legislators looked to commission the state seal’s design by way of a competition, with a generous $100 prize (about $3,300 today) for the winning artist. Emma Edwards Green, an art teacher who had relocated to Boise after attending school in New York, was in part inspired by the fact that it seemed Idaho would soon give women the right to vote. In March 1891, Green’s work was selected as the winner, beating out submissions from around the country.

The final design, which is also featured on Idaho’s flag, is packed with symbolism. Worked into the design are cornucopias and wheat to represent Idaho’s agriculture, a tree meant to be reminiscent of the state’s vast timberlands, and a pick and shovel held by a miner. Green’s most forward-thinking detail, however, is a man and woman standing at equal heights in the seal’s center, a symbol of gender equality that would eventually come with voting rights for all. True to their word, Idaho legislators passed women’s suffrage in 1896 — five years after Green’s seal became the state’s official symbol — making Idaho the fourth state to enfranchise women, more than 20 years before the 19th Amendment gave the same right to women nationwide.

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Sometimes, a President’s words continue to echo long after they were first uttered, and some become a permanent part of our cultural fabric. Here’s a look at eight noteworthy presidential quotations — and the oft-forgotten story behind each one.

“Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.” — George Washington

At the height of the Revolutionary War, General George Washington was worried about spies. He was especially suspicious of double agents enlisted among his own ranks — particularly one named Elijah Hunter, a prominent farmer who had first been recruited as a British spy by a Loyalist governor and then convinced to play both sides by patriot leaders. In August 1779, Washington wrote a letter to Major General Robert Howe, explaining why he didn’t trust the young spy. The British, Washington explained, possessed significantly more money than the Americans and could corrupt the agents to favor their side. He advised Howe that he thought it “necessary to be very guarded, with those who are professedly acting as double characters.”

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” — John Adams

In March 1770, a group of British soldiers fired into a rebellious crowd of Boston colonists, killing five civilians. John Adams, a lawyer who steadfastly believed in the right to counsel, was asked to defend the redcoats when everyone else refused. In the trial, Adams claimed that the soldiers were victims of a mob — “if an assault was made to endanger their lives, the law is clear, they had a right to kill in their own defence [sic]” — and had fired their muskets in self defense. He uttered the quote “facts are stubborn things …” while making his case to the jury, and the strategy worked: The Captain and six of his soldiers were found innocent, with only two convicted of manslaughter.

“If I were two-faced, would I be showing you this one?” — Abraham Lincoln

Today, lacking a sense of humor in politics can be a liability. But back in the 19th century, the opposite was true: humor could be considered a sign that the office holder was not taking the gravity of elected office seriously. That problem rang true for Abraham Lincoln, who loved getting a laugh. A journalist once said of Lincoln: “I could not take a real personal liking to the man, owing to an inborn weakness for … jokes, anecdotes, and stories.” Lincoln didn’t care. The quip above — or some variant of it — reportedly came to his mind when Stephen A. Douglas called him a “two-faced man.”

“Speak softly, and carry a big stick.” — Theodore Roosevelt

Roosevelt’s “Big Stick Diplomacy” policy was a mainstay during his career. When he was New York’s governor, he credited the phrase as a South African proverb, according to a 1900 article in the Brooklyn Eagle. The following year, as Vice President, he gave a speech at the 1901 Minnesota State Fair that touted his approach to American power, metaphorically explaining how the soft-power of diplomacy was best bolstered by the lingering presence of military might. (Roosevelt became President just two weeks later, when President William McKinley was assassinated.) The rest of Teddy’s quotation, however, is worth hearing: “If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble, and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power. In private life there are few beings more obnoxious than the man who is always loudly boasting, and if the boaster is not prepared to back up his words, his position becomes absolutely contemptible.”

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933, when the Great Depression was arguably at its worst. In the months between his election and inauguration, unemployment had exploded and anxieties were high. Franklin tried to soothe matters during a solemn inaugural address, saying, “This Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Within hours, his administration would shut down the country’s banking system in the hopes of resetting it; a move that’s regarded as having helped to set the nation’s banking system right after years of losses.

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower

It was March 1953, and Josef Stalin had just died. Seeing an opportunity to end Cold War hostilities, President Eisenhower wanted to give a speech that would do more than just indict the Soviet regime — he wanted to call an end to the growing arms race. Eisenhower, formerly a five-star general and Supreme Commander of NATO, sincerely believed that war-fighting nations were bound to be derelict of their duties at home and needed to shift priorities. He presented the speech, called “The Chance for Peace,” to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. He considered these words so important, they’d later be engraved over his tomb.

“Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” — John F. Kennedy

This brilliant chiasmus appeared during Kennedy’s inaugural address on a cold January day in 1961. At the time, the Cold War was still roaring and many Americans were worried. Kennedy decided to transform his speech into a challenge, a plea for Americans to honor a duty to help the greater good. Kennedy’s speechwriting team employed material from an abundance of sources, with his most famous line echoing the words of President Warren G. Harding, who once said, “We must have a citizenship less concerned about what the government can do for it and more anxious about what it can do for the nation.” (But Harding didn’t originate it, either. Variations existed as early as 1884.)

“We did get something — a gift — a gift after the election. A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog.” — Richard Nixon

These might not be the most famous words uttered by President Richard Nixon — that title probably belongs to “I am not a crook” — but they’re arguably the most consequential. In 1952, Nixon was running for Vice President when allegations appeared that he had improperly taken $18,000 from a secret campaign fund. To counter the charges, Nixon gave America’s first nationally televised address, openly discussing his family’s financial history before an audience of 60 million people. But what resonated most with viewers was Nixon’s story about a supporter who mailed his family a dog named Checkers. The so-called “Checkers Speech” would not only save Nixon’s career, it also demonstrated to politicians how, in the words of Nixon’s speechwriter, “television was a way to do an end-run around the press.” Politics hasn’t been the same since.