The man was Paul Winchell, who is perhaps best remembered for hosting the Winchell-Mahoney Time children’s show in the 1960s with his ventriloquist dummies Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff, the originals of which now reside in the Smithsonian.

Other famed characters and voices done by Winchell include: Dick Dastardly, played in multiple series including Wacky Races and Dastardly and Muttley; Fleegle on The Banana Splits; Clyde and Softy on The Perils of Penelope Pitstop;  Grossey Grossem in Germbusters 3: The Infection on the XBOX 360, replacing Casey Kasem; Fearless Freddy the Shark Hunter on the Pink Panther cartoon and spin-off Misterjaw; Sam-I-Am and his unnamed friend in Green Eggs and Ham; Robonic Stooges as Moe; Zummi Gummi on the Adventures of the Gummi Bears; voice of the Scrubbing Bubbles for the commercials; and various voices on The CB Bears, Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch, and the Blue Racer series.

Starting in The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Winchell began alternating with voice actor Jim Cummings, who is now the sole voice of Pooh and Tigger since Winchell’s retirement in 2000.

Besides doing voice acting and ventriloquist work, Winchell also was an inventor, holding over 30 patents including: a fountain pen with a retractable tip; a disposable razor; a blood plasma defroster; a flameless lighter; an invisible garter belt (probably the shortest patent application ever) ; garment for hypothermia; a piezo-electric diaphragm; and heated gloves, among others.

On his patent on the artificial heart, which was applied for in 1961 and granted in 1963, it is often claimed that Winchell was the first to patent and artificial heart, but this is incorrect.  However, Winchell’s design for an artificial heart is often cited as a crude prototype of the only artificial heart granted full PMA approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Jarvik-7.  The Jarvik-7 was successfully used in a human in 1982 and was invented by Robert Jarvik more than a decade after Winchell’s artificial heart patent was approved.

Jarvik denies Winchell’s design influenced his own.   However, Jarvik developed his artificial heart at the University of Utah, which was the same University that Winchell donated his patent for the artificial heart, around the same time Jarvik was working on his version.  Thus, it is unlikely Jarvik was unaware of Winchell’s similar design at the time.  Further, as Dr. Heimlich, inventor of the Heimlich maneuver and collaborator of Winchell’s on the design for the artificial heart, said: “I saw the heart, I saw the patent and I saw the letters. The basic principle used in Winchell’s heart and Jarvik’s heart is exactly the same.”

Whether Jarvik intentionally copied Winchell’s work and improved it or simply came up with a similar, improved design independently is under debate.  Jarvik says his design was influenced by designs by Kolff, Akutsu, Liotta, Kwan-Gett, and many others, but not Winchell’s design.  He also states he considers Winchell’s design “crude and impractical”, though that could probably be said about many predecessors to eventual working advanced technologies.

In any event, one of the designs Jarvik said did influence his was Kolff’s.  Kolff was the one who hired Jarvik and who was Jarvik’s mentor at the University of Utah.  Kolff had a very different view of Winchell’s artificial heart.  Upon discovering Winchell’s artificial heart, after discovering from the patent office that Winchell’s heart was prior art to his own design, Kolff invited Winchell to the medical center at the University of Utah and even allowed Winchell to assist in transplants on animals.  While there, Winchell became so impressed with Kolff’s work that he donated his design to the University of Utah so that Kolff and others working there, such as Jarvik, would have no legal problems due to Winchell’s pre-existing patent for an artificial heart that was very similar in design to the ones they were working on, including the one Jarvik patented sometime after Winchell turned over his design to the University of Utah.

Bonus Factoids:

• Winchell’s last performance as the voice of Tigger came in Winnie the Pooh: A Valentine For You.
• Winchell’s first performance as a ventriloquist came in school, when he persuaded his teacher to let him make a dummy as an art project.  According to Winchell, “I didn’t tell anyone that I’d learned ventriloquism during the last few months. I simply picked up the head and began to make it talk. My classmates were astounded and watched in awe as I began to imitate Charlie McCarthy’s voice. . . . I’d never been particularly popular in school, but suddenly I had found my place in the sun.  I recall vividly twin girls who decided to become my bodyguards and acted as though I was their property; wherever I went, they followed to protect me.”
• It was Winchell’s principal who then helped him get on the radio talent show “Major Bowes Original Amateur Hour” at the age of 15.  This turned out to be his big break and, after winning, he spent the next 10 years or so playing various venues before landing spots on TV.
• Winchell also wrote two books: Ventriloquism for Fun and Profit and Acupuncture without Needles
• Winchell sued Metromedia in 1986 over syndication rights to 288 videotapes of his shows.  As a response, Metromedia destroyed the tapes.  This turned out to be a bad move as the courts subsequently awarded Winchell 17.8 million dollars for the loss of the tapes and future revenue from syndication rights.
• Winchell also owned a t-shirt shop; ran a fish farm; worked as a medical hypnotist at the Gibbs Institute as a licensed hypnotist; and was a licensed acupuncturist.
• In 1974, Winchell won a Grammy Award for Best Recording for Children for “Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too!”
• The now famous Tigger catchphrase “Ta-ta for now” was improvised by Winchell.

Sources:

• Paul Winchell
• Henry Heimlich
• TV Ventriloquist, Cartoon Voice, And Inventor Paul Winchell Dies
• Invention of the Artificial Heart
• Robert Jarvik
• Winchell’s Heart
• Winchell’s Heart Patent
• Jarvik’s Heart
• Artificial Heart

In 1940, Jimmy Stewart was drafted into the United States Army, but ended up being rejected due to being five pounds under the required weight, given his height (at the time he weighed 143 pounds).  Not to be dissuaded, Stewart then sought out the help of Don Loomis, who was known to be able to help people add or subtract pounds.  Once he had gained a little weight, he enlisted with the Army Air Corps in March of 1941 and was eventually accepted, once he convinced the enlisting officer to re-run the tests.

Initially, Stewart was given the rank of private; by the time he had completed training, he had advanced to the rank of second lieutenant (January of 1942).  Much to his chagrin, due to his celebrity status and extensive flight expertise (having tallied over 400 flight hours before even joining the military), Stewart was initially assigned to various “behind the lines” type duties such as training pilots and making promotional videos in the states.  Eventually, when he realized they were not going to ever put him in the front line, he appealed to his commanding officer and managed to get himself assigned to a unit overseas.

In August of 1943, he found himself with the 703rd Bombardment Squadron, initially as a first officer, and shortly thereafter as a Captain.  During combat operations over Germany, Stewart found himself promoted to the rank of Major.  During this time, Stewart participated in several uncounted missions (on his orders) into Nazi occupied Europe, flying his B-24 in the lead position of his group in order to inspire his troops.

For his bravery during these missions, he twice received the Distinguished Flying Cross; three times received the Air Medal; and once received the Croix de Guerre from France.  This latter medal was an award given by France and Belgium to individuals allied with themselves who distinguished themselves with acts of heroism.

By July of 1944, Stewart was promoted chief of staff of the 2nd Combat Bombardment wing of the Eighth Air Force.  Shortly thereafter, he was promoted to the rank of colonel, becoming one of only a handful of American soldiers to ever rise from private to colonel within a four year span.

After the war, Stewart was an active part of the United States Air Force Reserve, serving as the Reserve commander of Dobbins Air Reserve Base.  On July 24, 1959, he attained the rank of brigadier general (one star general).

During the Vietnam War, he flew (not the pilot) in a B-52 on a bombing mission and otherwise continued to fulfill his duty with the Air Force Reserve.  He finally retired from the Air Force on May 31, 1968 after 27 years of service and was subsequently promoted to Major General (two star general).

Bonus Factoids:

• Both Stewart’s grandfathers fought in the American Civil War.  He also had ancestors on his mother’s side that served in the American Revolution and the War of 1812.  His father served in the Spanish-American War and World War I.  His adopted son, Ronald, was killed at the age of 24 as a Marine in Vietnam.
• The full list of military awards achieved by Stewart are: 2 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 4 Air Medals, 1 Army Commendation Medal, 1 Armed Forces Reserve Medal, 1 Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1 French Croix de Guerre with Palm.
• As a child, Stewart was a Second Class Scout and eventually became an adult Scout leader.  He was also the recipient of the prestigious Boy Scouts of America Silver Buffalo Award, of which only 674 to date have been given out since 1926.  Of the other recipients besides Stewart, 14 have held the office of President of the United States.
• A brigadier general is equivalent to a lower rear admiral in the navy.  A major general is equivalent to a rear admiral and is typically given 10,000-20,000 troops to command and is authorized to command them independently.
• U.S. law limits the number of general officers that may be on active duty at any time to 302 for the Army, 279 for the Air Force, and 80 for the Marine Corps.
• Eligible officers to be considered to promotion for the rank of brigadier general (one star) are recommended to the President from a list compiled by current general officers.  The President then selects officers from this list to be given the promotion.  Occasionally, the President will also nominate officers not on this list, but this almost never happens.  Once the President makes their selection, the Senate confirms or rejects the selected individuals by a majority vote.
• The name “brigadier general” comes from the American Revolutionary War when the first brigadier generals were appointed.  At that time, they were simply general officers put in charge of a brigade, hence “brigadier general”.  For a time in the very early 19th century, this was the highest rank any officer in the military could achieve as the rank of major general (two star) had been abolished.  The rank of major general was later re-established just before the war of 1812.
• At Princeton, Stewart excelled at architecture and was eventually awarded a full scholarship for graduate work by his professors as a result of his thesis on airport design.
• Stewart and Henry Fonda were roommates early in their careers.  Later in life, they still shared a close friendship and, when they weren’t working, they often spent their time building and painting model airplanes with each other.
• Jimmy Stewart also was an avid pilot before his military service.  He received his private pilot certificate in 1935 and used to fly cross-country to visit his parents.  Interestingly, when he did so, he stated that he used rail road tracks to navigate.
• Stewart was also one of the investors and collaborators who helped build Thunderbird Field, which was a pilot training school built to help train pilots during WWII.  During the WWII alone, over 10,000 pilots were trained there.
• After WWII, he strongly considered abandoning acting and entering the aviation field, due to personal doubts that he could still act.
• His first film after the war was Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life which, at the time, was considered somewhat of a flop with the public, though it was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Stewart.  Partially due to this film’s poor showing at the box office, Capra’s production company went bankrupt and Stewart began to further doubt his ability to act following the war.
• On January 5, 1992, It’s a Wonderful Life became the first American program ever to be broadcast on Russian television.  A translated version, courtesy of Stewart and Lomonosov Moscow State University, was broadcast to over 200 million Russians on that day.
• Stewart went on to act in several flops, as well as several critically acclaimed films, and by the 1950s was still considered a top tier actor over all.  This was important because in 1950 he became one of the first top tier actors to work for no money up front, but rather a percentage of the gross of the film.  Others had done this before, but it was rare and generally only lower end actors on the tail of their careers would agree to this.  He did this on the movie Winchester ’73 where he had asked for $200,000 pay to appear in that movie and Harvey.  The studio rejected, so he countered that he’d work for a percentage of the gross.  He ended up taking home nearly $600,000 for Winchester ’73 alone.  Hollywood’s other top-tier stars took noticed and this practiced began becoming the norm for top tier actors.
• By 1954, Stewart was voted the most popular Hollywood actor in the world, displacing John Wayne.  He also was the highest grossing actor that year.
• Stewart was also known somewhat for his poetry.  He frequently would appear on Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show and would read various poems he had written throughout his life.  One of his poems, written about his dog, so moved Carson that, by the end, Carson was choking back tears.  Dana Carvey and Dennis Miller, in 1980, parodied this on Saturday Night Live.  These poems were later compiled into a book called Jimmy Stewart and His Poems.
• Later in life, Stewart appeared in The Magic of Lassie (1978), much to the dismay of critics and the general public, as the film was a universal flop and seen to be beneath him.  Stewart’s response to them was that it was the only script he was offered that didn’t have sex, profanity, or graphic violence.
• Stewart’s final film role was as the voice of Wylie Burp, in the 1991 movie An American Tail: Fievel Goes West.
• Stewart devoted much of the last years of his life to trying to enhance the public’s understanding and appreciation of the U.S. constitution and the Bill of Rights as well as promote education.  He died of a blood clot in his lung on July 2, 1997.  Over his life, his professions included a hardware store shop-hand; a brick layer; a road worker; an assistant magician; an actor; an investor; a war hero; and a philanthropist.  He also held a bachelors degree in architecture from Princeton.

Sources:

• Brigadier General
• James Stewart
• Image Source
• Silver Buffalo Award
• Croix de guerre
• Air Medal
• Oak Leaf Clusters
• Major General

Kittie Smith: "How I sharpen my lead pencil. How I use shears in cutting paper and cloth. The Position I occupy when I write."

Today I found out the first woman to cast a vote in Chicago did so with her feet.

The woman was Kittie Smith.  Smith lost her arms as a child, after having both her arms and hands burned badly on a kitchen stove.  It is unclear exactly how her arms came to be burned so badly so that they needed amputated.  It is thought by many that her father did it intentionally, given his history of alcoholism and abuse of his children, as well as the manner and severity in which she was burned.  However, later in life, Kittie denied this and said it was an accident.  In Kittie’s own words:

Kittie Smith: "My picture is the one standing at the right. It is not very good of me for I moved. But it is the only picture I have showing my arms, so I value it very highly."

Her father shortly after waived all rights to her and her care was given to the Children’s Home Society of Illinois (her mother already having died when Kittie was 9 years old).  During the next several years, she was taken in to a variety of homes, often for only a few weeks at a time, and was supported by donations through the “Kittie Smith fund”.  She learned to write, sew, and do other tasks at the Home for Destitute and Crippled Children.

Upon reaching adulthood, Kittie was on her own as far as supporting herself and earned money by selling drawings, embroidery, and writing cards, all made with her feet.

Kittie eventually became the first woman to vote in Chicago Illinois in 1913.  “Hold on there!”  You say? “The 19th Amendment wasn’t passed until 1920.  How was she able to vote in 1913?”  She was able to vote largely by the tenacious and persistent efforts of Gracie Wilbur Trout and her cohorts, in 1912 through 1913.  By their efforts, Illinois became the first state west of the Mississippi, on June 26, 1913, to allow women to vote on presidential elections as well as many other elections, with the bill being signed by the Governor of Illinois in front of Trout.  In 1913, an estimated 250,000 women, with Kittie Smith leading the way, voted in Chicago Illinois when the first Illinois election took place after that bill passed.

For those who are curious, here is an example of her penmanship:

Bonus Factoids:

• Along with writing and doing embroidery, Kittie was also able to dress herself; brush her teeth; comb her hair; and do other such common tasks, despite her lack of arms.  She could also do common household tasks such as sweeping, mopping, cleaning stoves, etc.  More amazingly, she could play the piano, and type, as well as do semi-skilled wood-work, having made book cases, desks, and other furniture completely by herself.  Beyond all this, Kittie’s story moved many people due to her extreme optimist and positive thinking, generally known to consider herself extremely lucky in life.
• By 1906, largely due to her endearing qualities and heart wrenching story, she had collected over $35,000 worth of quarters, sent to her as a response to her distributed pamphlets which included a slot for a quarter if people felt so moved to give.  She then used this money to start her own company which was dedicated to helping disabled children overcome their handicaps.
• After the U.S. Revolution, women were actually allowed to vote in a few places in the United States, with the restriction typically just being on relative wealth (both for men and women).  For instance, in New Jersey, whether male or female, you needed to have at least £50 to vote, which is equivalent to about $7,800 today.  The laws were later revised though and, by the early 1800s, women were no longer allowed to vote in most all places in the United States.
• Ellen Martin, in 1891, was the first woman able to vote in Lombard, Illinois.  She noticed that the Lombard charter on who could vote didn’t mention gender.  This charter superseded Illinois law and, thus, she was legally allowed to vote.  She and 14 other women voted in the 1891 elections, before the charter was amended.
• President Woodrow Wilson pushed hard for the suffrage bill that would allow women across the nation to vote to pass.  Despite this, the bill failed in 1915, 1918 (although in this case, it made it passed the House and into the Senate), and 1919.  Wilson then called a special session of congress in May of 1919, with the purpose of finally passing the suffrage bill.   It passed with 42 more votes than  necessary in the House.  It then passed 56 to 25 in the Senate.  The states themselves then ratified it with Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan being the first.  Tennessee was the last of the needed 36 states to ratify the bill.  Thus, in the summer of 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was put in place, allowing women in all states to vote.

Sources:

• Sideshow World: Kitty Smith
• Kitty Smith
• Women’s Suffrage in the United States

Although Carver didn’t invent peanut butter, he did play a significant role in popularizing it and his 1880 “invention” of peanut butter preceded most of the other modern “inventors” of peanut butter.  Carver was one of the greatest inventors in American history, discovering over 300 hundred uses for peanuts with100 or so of those not being related to one another in terms of the end product produced; he also discovered hundreds of uses for soybeans, pecans, and sweet potatoes.

Among the various products he created from peanuts, pecans, soybeans, sweet potatoes, and a few other types of plants were:

• Antiseptic soaps
• Face bleach and tanning lotions
• Various other cosmetic products such as face powders and creams
• Shaving cream
• Shampoo
• Dyes
• Paints
• Wood stains
• Chicken food specialized to increase egg production in hens
• Milk substitute from soybeans and peanuts
• Emulsion for Bronchitis
• Laxatives
• Goiter treatments
• Axle grease
• Charcoal from peanut shells
• Diesel fuel
• Gasoline fuel
• Lamp oil
• Insecticide
• Linoleum
• Lubricating oil
• Nitroglycerin
• Colored paper
• Printer’s ink
• Plastics from soybeans
• Synthetic Rubber
• Laundry soap
• Synthetic marble
• Paving blocks from cotton

Among his peanut inventions were:

• 19 types of leather dyes
• 18 types of insulating boards
• 11 types of wall boards
• 17 types of wood stains
• 11 types of peanut flours
• 30 types of cloth dyes
• 50 types of food products

Among his sweet potato related inventions were:

• 73 types of dye
• 17 types of wood fillers
• 14 types of candy
• 5 types of library paste
• 5 types of breakfast foods
• 4 types of starches
• 4 types of flour
• 3 types of molasses

Bonus Factoids:

• Some of the more interesting food related products Carver was able to make from peanuts were: cocoa substitute; mayonnaise; dehydrated milk flakes; cheese; instant coffee; asparagus substitute; pepper;  meat substitutes including Mock Goose, Mock Chicken, Mock Oyster, Mock Pig,  and Mock Veal.
• Joseph L. Rosenfield in 1928 invented the churning process that gives peanut butter the smooth texture we have today.  He originally licensed this process to Pond Company, who makes Peter Pan peanut butter.  In 1932, he started his own peanut butter company which he named Skippy.
• Carver did not patent the vast majority of his inventions; in fact, he only patented three.  He believed his discoveries with food products were all gifts from God.   “God gave them to me.”  He would say about his ideas, “How can I sell them to someone else?”
• In 1940, three years before his death, Carver donated his life savings of $60,000 to the establishment of the Carver Research Foundation at Tuskegee, which is an organization dedicated to continuing research in agriculture.
• The epitaph on the grave of Carver reads as follows: “He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.”
• Not only did he not patent most of his discoveries, Carver once turned down a job to work for Thomas Edison for an annual salary of $100,000 (in today’s currency that would be around 1 million dollars a year), because Edison would have not made the inventions Carver came up with, while he worked there, free to the public.  Carver wanted his inventions available for anyone to use at no cost.
• Carver also liked to make his discoveries easy for other people to reproduce, including farmers, many of whom were barely literate.  He published many pamphlets giving instructions for farmers to make such things as adhesives, axle grease, bleach, buttermilk, chili sauce, fuel briquettes, instant coffee, inks, meat tenderizers, metal polish, paper, plastics, pavement, synthetic rubber, wood stain, etc.
• The three patents Carver did apply for were #1,522,176, 1/6/1925, Cosmetics & Plant Products;  #1,541,478, 6/9/1925, Paints & Stains; #1,632,365, 6/14/1927, Paints & Stains
• Peanut butter is made by:
  • First roasting the peanuts at around 240 degrees Celsius (464 degrees Fahrenheit).  At this stage the peanuts turn from white to light brown.
  • The peanuts are then cooled rapidly so that they don’t continue to cook and so that the natural oils remain in the peanut.
  • They are then blanched with the blancher machine removing the skins and splitting the kernels and removing the heart at the center.  The skins are typically then sold for pig food and the hearts for bird food.
  • The split peanut kernels are then dropped into a grinder where they are slowly ground into a paste.  This is done slowly to make sure the peanuts don’t heat up too much in the grinding process.
  • Additional ingredients are then added to the peanut paste, such as sugar, salt, and hydrogenated vegetable oil.  The purpose of the vegetable oil is to make it so the natural peanut oils do not separate from the butter; though, in some brands of peanut butter, you will still see this happen at times, as with one of the creamier brands of peanut butter, Peter Pan.
• Despite peanut butter not needing refrigerated, most major brands of peanut butter do not contain any preservatives.
• Over 50% of all peanuts grown in the United States are used for making peanut butter and other peanut spreads.
• Carver played a huge role in the recovery of the South’s economy, which had formerly been based primarily on the production of cotton and tobacco, which depleted soils and had the secondary side effect of having near the entire southern economy based on just two crops; one of which was being threatened by weevils in Carver’s time.
• It was Carver who developed a system for rotating specific crops in the South which would allow for the fields to be used in a sustainable fashion and provided a more diverse income source for farmers.  This rotation included alternating nitrate producing legumes, such as peanuts and peas, with cotton.  He later discovered that pecans and sweet potatoes also enriched the depleted soils and so proceeded to recommend those in the rotation.  *note: crop rotation methods have been around for thousands of years.  Carver simply put forth a specific system which would allow the South to still grow cotton and tobacco in large quantities, while at the same time be able to grow other crops to sell that would replenish the soil with the nutrients the cotton and tobacco used up.
• He then successfully campaigned to get the farmers to use this system.  After that, he invented numerous ways for these crops to be used to make them valuable things to grow; such as with peanuts, which previously were not a valuable crop outside of being used for feed for livestock.  With the South now producing significantly more peanuts than was needed at the time, it created a massive surplus and the prices plummeted.  Not to be deterred, Carver then proceeded to discover over 300 uses of peanuts that made the crops valuable once again.   He did the same thing for sweet potatoes and pecans; this all then created a huge market for these products that the southern farmers were now growing in-mass.  By the time of Carver’s death, peanuts alone had gone from a rarely grown crop, to one of the six largest crops produced in America.
• Carver also developed many cures and preventative measures for stopping various fungi from killing plants, such as cherry plants.  In the process, he discovered two new types of fungus that now bear his name.
• Carver’s significant aid to the country didn’t stop there.  During WWI, when textile dyes that had previously been imported from Europe were in short supply, he managed to produce over 500 shades of dye from products such as soybeans and peanuts, which were readily available in America.  This didn’t just help the textile companies, but also diverted cash that used to go to Europe from America, but now went to American farmers.
• Also during WWI, his method for creating synthetic rubber from goldenrod, which is a weed, was a huge boon to the United States Army.  Carver had developed this method with Henry Ford, whom he was close friends with.
• When Carver’s health declined in 1937, Henry Ford had an elevator installed for Carver in his home as Carver could no longer use stairs.
• The area in Diamond Grove, Missouri, where George Washington Carver grew up, is now preserved as a park.  It was the first national monument in the United States dedicated to an American with black skin.
• Carver’s fame skyrocketed after being selected by the United Peanut Association of America to speak to the U.S. House of Representatives on the issue of peanut tariffs.  Initially, he was mocked, primarily by southern congressmen; but by the end of his speech, he was given a standing ovation.  His eloquence and intelligence during this speech endeared him both to the congressman and the general public.
• During his lifetime, Carver was often mocked by other scientists for his steadfast Christian beliefs and the fact that he believed God guided his research.  This frequent criticism also aided in his rise to fame, as the general public viewed these criticisms as an attack on religion.
• Carver compiled a list of eight cardinal virtues for all his students to try to emulate.  These were:
  • Be clean both inside and out.
  • Neither look up to the rich nor down on the poor.
  • Lose, if need be, without squealing.
  • Win without bragging.
  • Always be considerate of women, children, and older people.
  • Be too brave to lie.
  • Be too generous to cheat.
  • Take your share of the world and let others take theirs.

• George Washington Carver was born in 1864, near the end of the Civil War, in Missouri, at the farm of Moses Carver, who owned George’s mother Mary and father Giles.  Moses Carver had purchased Mary and Giles for $700 in 1855.  His mother and he were kidnapped by Civil War raiders and sent to Arkansas.  Moses Carver hired John Bentley to find George and reclaimed him by swapping a racehorse for him, but his mother was never found.  George was raised by Moses and Susan Carver as if he were their own son.  George struggled to get a proper education, owing to the color of his skin, but eventually found a schoolhouse and later, at the age of 30, a University that would take him. He was the first black man at Iowa State University.
• Carver earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1897 from Iowa State University and a Master of Botany and Agriculture in 1897.  He then became a member of the faculty at Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanics and later at the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute for Negroes, where he remained until his death in 1943.  While there however, he was frequently known to tender his resignation for various reasons, generally stemming from wounded pride.
• Early in life, Carver had a mysterious illness that made him somewhat frail.  He was not expected to live into adulthood.  All 10 of his sisters and his one brother died prematurely from similar ailments.

Sources:

• History of Peanut Butter
• Biography: George Washington Carver
• George Washington Carver
• List of Common Misconceptions
• How Peanut Butter is Made
• George Washington Carver
• This Day in Tech: Events That Shaped the World
• George Washington Carver’s Inventions
• Intellectual World: George Washington Carver’s Inventions

Ballou was a major in the U.S. Army and a member of the Rhode Island Volunteers.  Before joining the army, Ballou was a self made lawyer and budding politician.  He lost his parents at a very young age and was forced to fend for himself, eventually attending Brown University and the National Law School in Ballston, New York.   Shortly after he began practicing law, he was elected to the Rhode Island House of Representatives as a clerk and eventually became speaker.  Being a big supporter of Abraham Lincoln, when war began, he left his law practice and birthing political career and volunteered for military service.

This is his letter to his wife, Sara Hunt Shumway, later named Sara Ballou.  It was written days before the first major land battle of the American Civil War, the First Battle of Bull Run (also called the First Battle of Manassas by the Confederacy):

Sullivan Ballou was mortally wounded along with 93 of his men just 7 days later at the First Battle of Bull Run and died shortly thereafter at the age of 32 with his wife being 24.  The letter was found in his trunk and delivered to his wife by Governor William Sprague, who had traveled to Virginia to retrieve the remains of the fallen Rhode Island soldiers.

Bonus Factoids:

• In an attempt to better direct his men, Ballou placed himself at the front of his regiment, rather than the traditional back as most officers would have done.  This made him easy pickings for Confederate troops.  He was hit with a 6 pound shot which tore off his leg and killed his horse.  He was then carried off the field and died a week later.
• Sara Ballou never re-married and died at the age of 80 years old in 1917.  They are buried next to each other in the Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, RI.
• Sullivan Ballou’s body ended up being hard to track down when the Governor came to retrieve it.  The place where he was initially buried by U.S. soldiers had been desecrated by Confederate soldiers.  When they dug the grave, they found no body.  A young black girl recounted to them a tale of what happened to it, which was later verified.  Soldiers from the 21st Georgia Regiment had dug up the grave of Kernel Slocum and Major Sullivan Ballou.  They had decapitated Ballou and mutilated his corpse and then burned it.  They then used the bones as trophies.  His body was never found, but evidence at the scene where she said the body was burned supported the girl’s story.  Although, she thought it was Slokum, not Ballou that had been mutilated; it was later found it had been Ballou.  The ashes from the fire were taken and eventually buried in Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, RI.
• Union casualties in the battle were estimated at 460 killed; 1,124 wounded; and 1,312 missing or captured.  Confederate casualties were 387 killed; 1582 wounded; and 13 missing or captured.  These were staggering mortality numbers compared to most battles of the day, but would soon be eclipsed by coming battles in the Civil War, such as the battle at “The Wilderness” from May 5-7 which resulted in nearly 18,000 Federal deaths and a similar amount of Confederate deaths estimated.   For comparison, on D-Day during WWII “only” 1,465 Americans were killed and about 2,500 allied troops.
• The total number of American deaths during the Civil War were about 292,000 in battle, which was about 2% of the population, and about 625,000 total killed as a result of the war (including those dead of disease and the like, which was a major problem in soldier’s camps).   That is a total of about 4.3% of the U.S population.  By today’s population numbers that would be about 13.32 million Americans.
• Union casualties at the Second Battle of Bull Run were about 10,000 killed out of 62,000 that took part in the battle.  The Confederate casualties were about 1,300 killed out of 50,000 engaged.  As you can tell from those numbers, the Union suffered from a string of incredibly incompetent Generals while the South was lead by one of the greatest Generals in the history of the world, Robert E. Lee.
• General Lee was offered the position of the head of the Union army by Abraham Lincoln, but decided to lead the Confederate army instead as he couldn’t bring himself to lead troops against his native Virginia.  Despite the Confederates being vastly outnumbered and not as well equipped as the North, Lee and his right hand man, Stonewall Jackson, managed to post victory after victory against the North, primarily due to Lee’s brilliance, Jackson’s audacity, and the North’s moronic Generals.

Sources:

• Ken Burns: Civil War, Disk 1
• Ballou Letter
• Sullivan Ballou: The Macabre Fate of an American Civil War Major
• Sullivan Ballou
• First Battle of Bull Run
• Second Battle of Bull Run
• United States Casualties of War
• Casualties in the Civil War

In 1789, Wilson and his brother Ebeneezer moved to Troy New York where they set up a counting house; Sam Wilson later died, then came back to haunt Ebeneezer on Christmas Eve trying to get him to change his tight fisted ways… wait…  wrong story.  In fact, the two ended up setting up the business E. & S. Wilson which, among other things, dealt in meat packing.

By the war of 1812, his business was fairly prosperous.   During the war, E. & S. Wilson obtained a contract with the U.S. government to provide the army with beef and pork.  They shipped this beef in barrels and because the meat was now the property of the U.S. government, he marked them with “U.S.” on the barrels.  The teamsters and eventually soldiers took to saying that the “U.S.” on the barrels stood for “Uncle Sam”, referring to the co-owner of the supplying company, Samuel Wilson.

Eventually, they took to referring to all U.S. branded property as “Uncle Sam’s”, even though E. & S. Wilson only had supplied the beef and pork.  This eventually evolved into calling the federal government itself “Uncle Sam”.  Widespread use of this anthropomorphic figure of the U.S. government later became popular among the masses through various political cartoons; often squaring off against the English equivalent “John Bull”.

Bonus Factoids:

• Uncle Sam was first mentioned in public print as early as 1813 and later was connected to Sam Wilson by the New York Gazette on May 12, 1830.
• Uncle Sam was first portrayed in human form by cartoonist Frank Bellew in the March 13th, 1852 issue of the New York Lantern.
• The “Abe Lincoln” look, along with the star spangled outfit, was the brain child of political cartoonist Thomas Nast in the late 1800s (aside: Nast was also the cartoonist who came up with the now popular image of Santa Claus, the Republican Elephant, and the Democratic Donkey)
• The famous recruiting image of the Uncle Sam during WWI that depicted a stern Uncle Sam pointing his finger and saying “I want you” was drawn by artist James Montgomery Flagg in 1917.  This was based on a famous series of British war recruitment posters featuring Lord Kitchener and is now the standard image used to depict Uncle Sam.
• The Senate and the House of Representatives officially saluted Uncle Sam Wilson of Troy, New York, as the progenitor of America’s National symbol of Uncle Sam, including creating a national monument marking his birthplace in Arlington Massachusetts and his burial site in Oakwood Cemetery, Troy, New York.

Sources:

• Uncle Sam
• Samuel Wilson
• Forgotten Origins: Uncle Sam

Other fun Elvis Related Facts:

• There are an estimated 50,000 people in the world today that make a living as Elvis impersonators.
• Elvis had a black belt in Karate and loved the martial art so much he gave his instructor $50,000 to start a Karate school in Memphis.
• (irony alert) Elvis once wrote a letter to President Nixon asking to become an undercover narcotics cop. Nixon responded by personally giving Elvis a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge.
• During Elvis’s autopsy, doctors found 10 different drugs in Elvis’s blood stream.

Sources:

• Elvis Presley, a natural blond
• Elvis Presley Bio
• Elvis Presley Facts and Photos
• Picture Source

Ettore Boiardi was an Italian-American immigrant born in 1897.  He worked as a cook at his first restaurant at the tender age of 10 years old in Italy.  He later immigrating to America at the age of 16 and took the name “Hector Boiardi” as he passed through Ellis Island.

From there, he worked at a variety of high end restaurants in New York as a cook, eventually working his way up to Chef.  At the age of 24, he moved to Cleveland and opened a restaurant with his new wife.  The restaurant was called “Il Giardino d’Italia”, which means “The Garden of Italy”.

As he developed a strong customer base, he found himself in the enviable position of having customers clamber after his food so much, they wanted to take it home with them so they could have it any time.  He thus began bottling up his sauces in old milk bottles and packaging his special blends of cheeses and spices with dried pasta and selling these meal kits to customers.  It wasn’t long before the sale totals of these products surpassed his restaurant earnings, despite the restaurant itself doing booming business.

Fast forward around 4 years and the amount of his carry out meals being sold per day required a factory to produce.  Another 6 years later and he came up with the now famous brand name “Chef Boyardee”, changing the spelling of his name to be phonetically correct, as he was tired of explaining to people how to pronounce his name and thought if he was going to be selling nationally, he should make it easy for Americans to pronounce.  And the rest is history.

Bonus Factoids:

• Unlike Chef Boyardee, the following brands feature fictitious people: Betty Crocker, Mrs. Butterworth, Aunt Jemima, and Ronald McDonald.
• Some other real people behind brands, besides Chef Boyardee, were Uncle Ben; KFC’s Harland Sanders; popcorn’s Orville Redenbacher; and McDonald’s Dick and Mac McDonald.
• Before launching the Chef Boyardee line of products, Chef Boiardi, in 1915 at the age of 17 years old, supervised the catering for President Woodrow Wilson’s wedding reception.
• Boiardi used to grow his own tomatoes and mushrooms in the basement of the factory where his product line was produced.  This not only helped cut down on the cost of ingredients, but also helped insure that the ingredients were top quality and provided a steady supply.
• When stirring sauce, you should always stir with the spoon’s rounded side down, rather than stir sideways like pretty much everyone does.  This will help you not spill any sauce as well as create little whirlpools in the sauce as the curve side down glides through the sauce; this provides optimal mixing.
• During the Depression, Boiardi’s company grew by leaps and bounds due to the fact that his product was incredibly cheap compared to most other meals and was very tasty (one assumes more tasty back then when Boiardi was directly involved in the production and quality control).
• Chef Boiardi was awarded a Gold Star Order of Excellence from the United States War Department for supplying millions of rations for American and Allied troops during WWII.
• Boiardi originally grew his trademark mustache to try to make himself look older as he was generally the youngest cook in the often top notch restaurants where he was a cook at, starting around 16 when he moved to America.  One of the more famous he worked at as a youth was New York’s famous Plaza and Ritz-Carlton hotel.
• Boiardi met his future factory superintendent when he approached the then employee of Vincennes Packing Co with the idea of canning his sauces.   He said “I run a restaurant in Cleveland and am catering parties by putting my spaghetti in a bucket.  Could spaghetti be canned?”  The future superintendent responded with, “You can can almost anything, but I don’t know what it would taste like.  Let’s try!”
• Boiardi sold his company for six million dollars in 1946 primarily due to the fact that he was having trouble managing the incredible rapid growth of the company (at this time annually grossing 20 million dollars worth of sales a year, which makes that 6 million dollar sale price a crazy good deal).  The company he sold to was American Home Products (today called International Home Foods).  He stayed on as a consultant there until 1978.   The Chef Boyardee line was later sold, in 2000, to ConAgra Foods.
• At the time of his death in 1985, at the age of 87 years old, the Chef Boyardee line of food products was grossing over five hundred million dollars per year.
• Boiardi was survived by his wife Helen Wroblewski Boiardi, who eventually died in 1995, and his son Mario Boiardi, who in turn died in 2007.
• Mario Boiardi was a sharpshooter Army Ranger in WWII and later in the Korean War.  He also held a degree in business and co-owned a steel mill with his father.  He later started a successful flooring and tile company.  He dated his future wife, whom he stayed married to until his death, for two years before telling her his real name.  When he did so, he took her to a grocery store at 1am, this followed: Wife: “I thought he was going to tell me it was a no-go and that he thought the relationship was a mistake, so I said, ‘Look, it’s been great. Just remember one thing, let’s part friends.’ He looked at me and said, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ He put his hand into my trolley cart, pulled out a can and said, ‘this is my father.’ We both cried.”

Sources:

• Chef Boyardee
• Ettore Boiardi
• Image Source
• Hector Boiardi
• Chef Boyardee
• The Real Chef Boyardee
• Lieut Mario Joseph Boiardi
• Hector Boiardi
• Uncle Ben

He would start with one of the virtues and plot his progress on the chart until he mastered that virtue; then moving on to the next; and so on until he mastered them all.  He ordered them specifically as shown below, as some of them naturally lend towards others.  Thus by sticking to this order, he felt it made it easier to achieve the whole.

This code is as follows:

1. Temperance: Eat not to Dullness, drink not to elevation

2. Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling Conversation
3. Order: Let all your Things have their Places. Let each Part of your Business have its Time
4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality: Make no Expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e. Waste Nothing
6. Industry: Lose no Time. Be always employ’d in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary Actions
7. Sincerity: Use no hurtful Deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak; speak accordingly.
8. Justice: Wrong none, by doing Injuries or omitting the Benefits that are your Duty.
9. Moderation: Avoid Extremes. Forbear resenting Injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no Uncleanness in Body, Clothes, or Habitation
11. Tranquility: Be not disturbed at Trifles, or at Accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity: Rarely use Venery but for Health or Offspring; Never to Dullness, Weakness, or the Injury of your own or another’s Peace or Reputation.
13. Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Sources:

• Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography and other Writings

Thomas first worked at a Knoxville restaurant at the young age of 12 years old, from which he was eventually fired due to a misunderstanding with his boss about a vacation.  At 15, he worked at a Hobby House Restaurant in Ft. Wayne.  His father and step-family at that time were moving but he decided to drop out of high school and stay.  He moved into the YMCA and started working full time at the Hobby House Restaurant.

This worked out for him though, as through his job at the Hobby House restaurant, he met none other than Colonel Sanders himself, the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, who later became his mentor.

Many years later, after a stint in the Korean war as a cook in the army for which he volunteered, in 1962, Thomas invested in and was placed in a managerial position over four of Colonel Sanders’ KFC’s that were failing.   He saw that one of the problems with KFC, and all fast food restaurants of the day, was that they had much too complicated menu’s.  He then worked with Colonel Sanders to drastically simplify the menus, focusing on a few signature meals. This small change particularly helped turn around the KFC franchise; and though it was a minor thing, helped revolutionize fast food restaurant menus all over the world.  Even to this day, the staple of most fast food restaurants is their overly simplistic menus, focusing on a handful of signature meals.  After he had turned these failing KFC restaurants around, he then sold his stake in them back to Colonel Sanders and the restaurants were doing so well now, he received 1.5 million dollars for the sale.

He then took this money and invested it by opening the first “Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers” on November 15, 1969;  the restaurant being named after his fourth child, Melinda Lou Thomas.  You might be asking yourself, “How do you get ‘Wendy’ out of Melinda Lou Thomas?”  This was a nickname given to her as she couldn’t pronounce her own name when she was young, instead she would say “Wenda”, which is how she got the nickname Wendy and how the restaurant got its name.  6000 restaurants later, Wendy’s is now the third largest “hamburger” fast food restaurant in the world with annual revenue of about 7 billion dollars, lagging behind Burger King (12,000 restaurants), and McDonald’s (31,000 restaurants).

Other interesting Dave Thomas Facts:

• As a child, his favorite restaurant was Kewpee Hamburgers, the second known chain of hamburger fast-food restaurants.  Their staple items were square hamburgers and thick malt milkshakes, much like Wendy’s.
• Introduced the KFC trademark sign featuring a revolving red-striped bucket of chicken.
• First to successfully implement a drive through pickup in a restaurant, which is of course, now used by all fast food restaurants.
• First to successfully create a “fast food” style restaurant that didn’t pre-cook its food nor used pre-made frozen items.  He credits his ability to do this with knowledge gained in cooking for over 2000 soldiers daily while in the army.
• Never met or knew who his biological parents were, other than that they were of Greek descent and that his biological mother was single and dirt poor do the Great Depression.
• Thomas was a Freemason, member of the Shriners, and an honorary Kentucky Colonel.
• Realizing that his success as a high school dropout might convince other teenagers to quit school (something he later admitted was one of his life’s greatest mistakes), became a student at Coconut Creek High School and in 1993 received his G.E.D. being voted by his classmates as “most likely to succeed”.
• Appeared in over 800 Wendy’s commercials; a record for “Longest Running Television Advertising Campaign Starring a Company Founder”; according to the Guinness Book of World Records
• Founded the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption to help children find homes and help them and their new families afterward.
• In 1979, Thomas’ rags-to-riches story earned him the Horatio Alger Award from the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans.
• On the death of “Colonel” Harland Sanders, Kentucky Fried Chicken’s founder and a mentor of his, Dave Thomas ordered that all flags at Wendy’s franchises be flown at half-staff.
• Died January 8th, 2002 after a decade long battle with liver cancer.
• Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003.

Sources:

• Dave Thomas Biography
• Dave Thomas, American Businessman
• Dave Thomas Biography