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-First successful use of insanity murder defense for gunning down his wifes lover
-Almost lost the battle at Gettysburg for the union
-Lost leg to cannon ball which is in the Smithsonian (the leg, not the cannonball lol)
-Introduced a hooker to the Queen of England under the name of a political rivals wife
Wow. I actually remember seeing this way back in the 60’s when I was in the military stationed in Washington. At the time I think it was in a place called the Army Medical Museum. They had lots of grisly things on display.
William Walker certainly deserves more attention simply as a bad example. An American schemer and "filibustero", he was the most persistent invader and pain in the butt for Mexico and several Central American countries. He tried to carve out a personal kingdom in Sonora and Baja Mexico. His intent was to make it a slave state to be annexed to the US. He later set himself up as the President of Nicaragua for a while and was finally dispatched by a Honduran firing-squad. https://www.historynet.com/william-w...ilibusters.htm
He's not obscure, but also not widely known especially considering his influence on the world.
He led the breeding program that created miracle wheat. Miracle wheat is a strain of wheat that produces lots of crop and grows under adverse conditions.
Because of the population explosion in the mid-twentieth century, many experts were predicting malthusian famine as the human population exceeded our ability to feed ourselves. There were lots of bad sci-fi movies about this subject like Soylent Green.
Why didn't it happen? Largely because of Norman Borlaug. His efforts led the Green Revolution that caused global crop yields to grow faster than the population.
John Hanson was elected President of the United States in Congress assembled in 1781, giving him the distinction of being the first President of the United States. There were two before him, Samuel Johnson, refused to serve, and the other Thomas McKean resigned shortly after taking office. Hanson was the first to serve his 1 year term.
he's not obscure, but also not widely known especially considering his influence on the world.
He led the breeding program that created miracle wheat. Miracle wheat is a strain of wheat that produces lots of crop and grows under adverse conditions.
Because of the population explosion in the mid-twentieth century, many experts were predicting malthusian famine as the human population exceeded our ability to feed ourselves. There were lots of bad sci-fi movies about this subject like soylent green.
Why didn't it happen? Largely because of norman borlaug. His efforts led the green revolution that caused global crop yields to grow faster than the population.
One individual that comes to mind is A.P. Giannini, once a well known name in the U.S. but now largely forgotten.
Born in San Jose, California in 1870 to Italian immigrant parents, Amadeo Pietro Giannini started his business career at the age of 13, when he left school to work in his stepfather's produce business. Giannini was quite successful at it to the point that he retired at the age of 31, feeling he had acquired enough wealth for one lifetime. But he didn't stay retired for long. Giannini's father in law, who worked in banking, passed away and Giannini was asked to take his father in law's place on the board of Columbus Savings and Loan. Once there though he grew frustrated with the banking policy of the day which was to concentrate solely on the financial needs of the wealthy while ignoring those of the underprivileged and working poor. So finally in 1904, Giannini sold all of his bank shares and with the help of investors, founded his own financial institution, the Bank of Italy, which operated out of a defunct saloon in San Francisco.
Once he was up and running, Giannini began to specifically target the immigrant population of San Francisco, offering them a wide range of banking services that other banks in the city refused to. When the earthquake struck the city in 1906, Giannini was the first to be able to reopen his bank (which at that point was a plank stretched across two beer barrels) and began to immediately loan money to people to rebuild the devastated city. This single act made Giannini and his Bank of Italy one of the most trusted and respected financial institutions in San Francisco. In fact, his bank had become so popular that in 1909, Giannini began expanding, buying up and opening up more branches across California. By 1918, the Bank of Italy became the first statewide branch banking system in the United States.
In 1919, Giannini was presented with the opportunity to take his bank both nationwide and worldwide, first with the purchase of the East River National Bank in New York and the Banca Meridionale, a branch bank system in Italy. In 1927, Giannini expanded again, buying up another system of branch banks, eventually unifying them in 1928 under the name of "Bank of America of California". In the same year, Giannini created a holding company, "Transamerica Corporation" under which, in 1930, the Bank of Italy and Bank of America of California were merged into one entity the "Bank of America National Trust & Savings Association". By 1939, the Bank of America possessed assets of $6 billion dollars. Some notable investments were made by Giannini during the Depression era which included the funding needed by Walt Disney to complete the film "Snow White", construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, and start up money for this little garage based electronic testing and measurement equipment business run by Bill Hewlett and David Packard.
A.P. Giannini remained chairman of the board of Transamerica until his passing in 1949, leaving behind a banking institution that was the largest in the world. Oddly enough, his total net worth at the time of his death was a whopping $500 dollars which puzzled many but is best explained by Giannini himself who once stated "I don't want to be rich. No man owns a fortune; it owns him". True to those words, he often took no salary, and when he felt he had accumulated too much money, gave it away through charitable foundations to fund scholarships and medical and agricultural research. One such entity, the A.P. Giannini Foundation which began with a personal endowment of $500,000 from him in 1945, is still carrying out his wishes to this day.
Sergeant William H. Carney, 54th. Colored Volunteer Infantry became the first black soldier to win the Medal of Honor, on July 18, 1863, at Fort Wagner, outside Charleston S.C.
He picked up the Stars and Stripes, dropped by the fallen flag bearer, and although getting wounded three times on the way, got the flag back to Union lines.
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