Bizarre History

by Joe Rhatigan

  One House member said Congress had been reduced to “an assembly of gladiators.” Griswold, not content to leave things alone, got in the last word: “I might perhaps have given him a second beating but the House was called to order.”

  Even More Violence in the House

  Even thought it was outlawed, by the late 1700s dueling had become an accepted (if idiotic) form of resolving political disagreements and preserving honor. Even Abraham Lincoln was once challenged to a duel. Lincoln chose swords as the weapon, and thankfully all was resolved before the duel. Nevertheless, there were dozens of duels from the 1700s until around the end of the Civil War, when dueling finally fell out of favor. Politicians killed in duels included the governor of Georgia in 1789, Alexander Hamilton (1804), Senator Armistead Mason of Virginia (1819), US District Attorney Joshua Barton (1823), North Carolina Congressman Robert Vance (1827), and more!

  The threat of violence during congressional sessions was so real that by 1835, Vice President Martin Van Buren wore a brace of pistols when presiding over the Senate.

  John Fox Potter, Republican congressman from Wisconsin just prior to the Civil War, had a nickname. He was called “Bowie Knife” Potter due to an incident during the spring of 1860. Basically he offered to fight Roger Pryor, congressman from Virginia on the following terms: “Bowie-knives and a dark room, and one of us to die.” The duel never took place, but Potter received several Bowie knives as gifts from sympathizers (including a four-pound, six-and-a-half–foot folding knife) as well as a nifty new nickname.

  In one of the last physically violent episodes in US politics, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Ralph Yarborough of Texas wrestled for more than ten minutes outside a Senate hearing room over the 1964 Civil Rights Bill. Both were sixty-one years old at the time, but Thurmond, who was quite physically fit, pinned Yarborough at least twice.

  Tricky Dick Tricked by Dick

  Dick Tuck has been a political consultant for American politicians for more than fifty years. And although he has worked on political campaigns for Adlai Stevenson, John and Robert Kennedy, and many others, he is best known as a political prankster and Richard Nixon’s arch nemesis. Many historians called Nixon’s administration paranoid, and if that were indeed the case, Dick Tuck had a hand in making it that way. Here’s a list of some of Tuck’s Nixon pranks.

  In 1950, while Nixon was running for California senator, Tuck, who was working for Nixon’s opponent, got himself hired as a Nixon campaign worker. Tuck was put in charge of organizing campaign rallies. At one such rally at UC Santa Barbara, Tuck booked an extremely large auditorium (a capacity of four thousand), yet did very little to promote the event. Fewer than fifty people attended. When the speech was over, Nixon asked Tuck his name and told him, “Dick Tuck, you’ve made your last advance.”

  In 1956, during the Republican National Convention where Nixon was running for reelection as Eisenhower’s vice president, Tuck hired garbage trucks to drive by the convention center with signs that read “Dump Nixon.”

  After the first Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960, Tuck hired an elderly woman to don Nixon buttons and approach Nixon as he got off the plane. While TV cameras were rolling, the woman hugged him and said, “Don’t worry, son! He beat you last night, but you’ll get him next time.”

  During the 1960 presidential campaign, Nixon went on a whistle-stop tour of California. While giving a speech on the caboose, Tuck allegedly disguised himself as a railway employee and waved the train out of the station while Nixon was still talking.

  In a 1962 campaign visit to Chinatown, San Francisco, Nixon spoke to a crowd while children holding welcome signs stood behind him. However, Tuck planted one sign that said “What about the Hughes loan?” which was a reference to a loan the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes made to Nixon’s brother. Nixon grabbed the sign and ripped it up … on camera. (This prank backfired slightly when Tuck found out later that the sign actually said, “What about the huge loan?)

  In 1968, Tuck hired a pregnant African-American woman (some accounts say he hired several pregnant women) to wear a T-shirt with Nixon’s slogan and walk through a Nixon rally. What was the slogan? “Nixon’s the One.”

  Tuck is mentioned in the Nixon tapes! An October 1972 Oval Office tape caught Nixon saying, “Dick Tuck did that to me. Let’s get out what Dick Tuck did!”

  Many historians say that Nixon’s desire to out-Tuck Tuck led to his department of dirty tricks and the resulting Watergate scandal. During the Senate Watergate Committee hearings, Nixon’s former chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, passed Tuck at the Capitol and said, “You started all of this.” Tuck replied, “Yeah, Bob, but you guys ran it into the ground.”

  Note: Tuck ran for a California senate seat in 1966. His campaign slogan was, “The Job Needs Tuck and Tuck Needs the Job.” When he lost, his concession speech included this gem: “The people have spoken … the bastards.”

  Lord of All Beasts

  Although he was known as the Butcher of Uganda for his brutal rule of the country during the 1970s, he preferred to be known as His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular. During his reign, he had around three hundred thousand people tortured and/or killed. And although it has been debated, it’s been reported that he kept the heads and other body parts of some of his victims in a refrigerator and once told his minister of health that he found human flesh rather too salty.

  SIDE NOTES:

  Amin was Uganda’s light heavyweight boxing champion from 1951–1960.

  After receiving a message from God in a dream, Amin decided to make Uganda a “black man’s country.” He expelled the up to eighty thousand Indians and Pakistanis in the country.

  He wore specially designed tunics that were lengthened so that he could wear more World War II medals.

  Amin wiped out entire villages and had their bodies thrown in the Nile. Workers had to keep fishing the bodies out in order to stop the ducts at a nearby dam from becoming clogged.

  In 1974, he praised Adolf Hitler and condemned the Jews in front of the United Nations General Assembly.

  In 1976, he declared himself “the uncrowned King of Scotland.” He also liked to wear kilts.

  Amin once wrote to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, “Dear Liz, if you want to know a real man, come to Kampala.”

  After the British broke diplomatic relations with his regime, Amin said he had beaten the British, and then considered himself Conqueror of the British Empire.

  The United States didn’t end diplomatic relations with Amin until 1978—seven years into Amin’s reign of terror.

  A Real Stinker

  “Maybe if I hadn’t been so fastidious, I could have changed history,” Lina Basquette once remarked. But she would have had to put up with a lot….

  Basquette was an American actress known for her long-ranging career, which began in the silent film era, and her nine marriages. She received a fan letter from Adolf Hitler in 1929 that proclaimed her his favorite movie star after seeing her performance in The Godless Girl. In 1937, she was even invited to Germany, and she accepted. She met with Hitler and reported that he made a pass at her. Basquette recounted, “The man repelled me so much. He had terrible body odor; he was flatulent. But he had a sweet smile, and above all, he had these strange penetrating eyes.” When Hitler got too close for her comfort, Basquette declared that she kicked him in the groin and then told him she was part Jewish. There was no one else present, so it’s impossible to corroborate the story; however, in a 1989 profile, the New Yorker found all the other claims she made about the visit to be accurate. Plus, it’s an awesome story, and if it isn’t true, it should be.

  Behind Every Strong Man …

  Rutherford B. Hayes’s wife, Lucy, began the beloved tradition of the Easter Egg Roll at the White House. She, however, was not so beloved of State Department
officials because of her insistence on not serving alcohol at state dinners. The officials nicknamed her Lemonade Lucy and spiked oranges with rum punch behind her back and served them with dinner.

  President William McKinley’s wife, Ida, hated the color yellow and banned it from the White House. She even ordered gardeners to pull up all the yellow flowers. Ida suffered from seizures, though that didn’t stop her from crocheting hundreds of slippers for veterans of the Civil War: blue slippers for Union vets and gray for Confederate vets. Nobody got any yellow slippers, that’s for sure.

  Who was one of the most powerful woman of the sixteenth century? Diane de Poitiers, mistress to King Henri II of France. Henri was married to Queen Catherine, but he let Diane sign documents, appoint ministers, and even hand out titles. A British medical journal reported in 2009 that de Poitiers most likely died from consuming too much gold, which at the time was believed to preserve one’s youth.

  Edith Wilson, wife of President Woodrow Wilson, was so traditional in her views that she was against women’s suffrage. But that didn’t stop her from continuing with her husband’s administration after he suffered a debilitating stroke. She lied to Congress and said Wilson was only suffering from “temporary exhaustion,” and then set it up so that all memos and correspondences from the president’s cabinet went through her. This went on for several months. Edith was also a ninth-generation descendant of Pocahontas.

  After the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan, his wife, Nancy, would consult with an astrologer to tell them which days were good and which should be avoided. This advice would then affect the president’s schedule to the point that his chief of staff, Donald Regan, complained. She worked tirelessly for Regan’s dismissal. Nancy also controlled access to the president and encouraged him to hold conferences with Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev.

  John Wayne Gacy, democratic party activist, director of Chicago’s annual Polish Constitution Day Parade, volunteer clown, and notorious serial killer, met with first lady Rosalynn Carter twice in 1978. They had their picture taken together both times, and she signed one of them, “To John Gacy, Best Wishes.” The signed photo later became a major embarrassment to the United States Secret Service because Gacy was wearing an S pin in the photo, which indicated that he had received special clearance from the Secret Service.

  Presidential Pets

  “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”—attributed to Harry Truman

  Over the years, the US presidents have brought much with them to the White House: their wives, their children, their grandchildren, their mothers-in-law, their obsessions, and best of all … their pets.

  Thomas Jefferson had more than thirty White House pets, including two grizzly bear cubs. They were a gift from the explorer Zebulon Pike. The bears didn’t stick around for long, as Jefferson saw fit to send them to a museum in Philadelphia.

  John Quincy Adams kept a pet alligator in the East Room of the White House. It slithered around and chased visitors. He also had silkworms.

  Andrew Jackson kept fighting cocks. No word if he had any cock fights at the White House.

  Martin Van Buren kept two tiger cubs for a short time.

  The Lincolns let their sons Willie and Tad keep their pet goats in their rooms. They also had dogs, a rabbit, a horse, and a turkey.

  Andrew Johnson fed the white mice he found in his White House bedroom.

  Benjamin Harrison had a goat, a collie, and two opossums named Mr. Reciprocity and Mr. Protection.

  Teddy Roosevelt’s brood brought a veritable zoo to the White House. Their animal retinue included badgers, mice, raccoons, pigs, parrots, dogs, cats, baby bears, snakes, a one-legged rooster, a kangaroo rat, and a Shetland pony named Algonquin that once had the pleasure of riding the White House elevator. Oh yeah, I almost forgot the spotted hyena named Bill. It was a gift from the emperor of Ethiopia, and Roosevelt taught it tricks and let it beg for scraps at the dinner table.

  William Taft had two cows, Mooly Wooly and Pauline Wayne. At least one of them lived in the White House kitchen, since Taft was quite fond of fresh milk. Really fresh.

  Woodrow Wilson kept a herd of sheep that he let graze on the White House lawn. He also had a ram named Old Ike that liked to chew tobacco.

  Calvin Coolidge had Rebecca and Horace, raccoons; Ebenezer the donkey; Smoky the bobcat; Tax Reduction and Budget Bureau, lion cubs; Billy the pygmy hippo; several dogs; canaries; a wallaby; a small antelope; and a black bear.

  Herbert Hoover one-upped J. Q. Adams by bringing two crocodiles to the White House.

  Franklin Roosevelt once accidentally left his Scottish Terrier, Fala, behind when visiting the Aleutian Islands. Roosevelt was criticized after then spending thousands of dollars to send ships back to find the dog. As Roosevelt was running for his fourth term in office, he had to address the issue. He said, “You can criticize me, my wife, and my family, but you can’t criticize my little dog. He’s Scotch, and all these allegations about spending all this money have just made his little soul furious.” All was then forgiven, and he won the presidency.

  Lyndon Johnson got into trouble when he was photographed holding up his two beagles, Him and Her, by their ears.

  WHEN THINGS WERE ROTTEN

  “History is little else than a long succession of useless cruelties.”—Voltaire

  A quick look back at our past would make one think that our ancestors had it a tad rougher than we did. Okay, let’s face it: Things back then sucked! Disease. Torture. Victorian England. It’s a wonder we’ve made it this far. So travel back with us now (five miles through the snow, uphill both ways) to a few of the trifling difficulties our forebears endured.

  Wife for Sale … Barely Used

  Single woman in England during the Middle Ages? No problem! You could own property and sign your name to contracts. Married? Sorry, but you are now property of your husband. As one legal entity, as defined by a legal doctrine called coverture, you would be completely subordinated to your husband.

  William Blackstone described it best in the late eighteenth century: “By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law: that is, the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband: under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs every thing.”

  So … if you were the property of your husband, could he sell you? Of course! Toward the end of the 1600s all the way through the early twentieth century, there were numerous stories of men selling their wives at auction. Here’s one titillating glimpse gathered by Ancestors magazine: “Rodney Hall, a labouring man of idle and dissolute habits … led his wife into the town with a halter round her body … he led her twice round the market, where he was met by a man named Barlow, of the same class of life, who purchased her for eighteen pence and a quart of ale.”

  The magazine goes on to report that in 1897, a shoemaker “on a drinking spree at Irthlingborough” ran out of money and sold his wife so he and his friends could keep drinking. Nice.

  Dying Aid

  It was low in calories (not that the Romans were counting), it had a sweet taste, and it killed you. Yes, it seems that in ancient Rome, the perfect diet aid was also the perfect dying aid. A popular way to sweeten wine was to throw in some sugar of lead (lead acetate), which was made by boiling grape juice in lead pots. The resulting syrup, called defrutum, was then concentrated again into sapa— yummy, but deadly. Friends, Romans, and countrymen used sugar of lead in their wine or to preserve fruit. It probably didn’t help that wine was often served in lead cups.

  Speaking of Deadly

  Mercury is the only metal that’s liquid at “standard conditions,” which is why civilization has always been fascinated with its silvery awesomeness. So even though it’s extremely toxic, it has been used as a medicine for centuries. It has been found in Egyptian tombs dating back 3,500 years. In China, it was thought to prolong life, heal broken bones, and prevent pregnanc
y. (It prevented pregnancies the way it prevented long life.) Other cultures used it as a cosmetic and medicine. “Blue mass,” which was a pill with mercury as a main ingredient, was prescribed in the 1800s for constipation, depression, and toothaches. In the twentieth century, kids were given mercury as a laxative. As far as we know, the only thing mercury cures you of is life.

  Favorite Forms of Torture

  The mechanical flagellator, invented in the early eighteenth century in England, could service forty people at the same time. Talk about service!

  Gossip much? During the 1500s, the British had a neat little device called the scold’s bridle or branks. It was a cage that locked around a woman’s head. The cage also had a spiked plate that was inserted in the mouth to curb the tongue, literally. If that wasn’t enough, the gabber was then sometimes led through the streets on a leash.

  During the Middle Ages, if you were told to sit on the Judas Cradle, you were in big trouble. Basically, it was a stool with a wooden pyramid on the top. Guess where you had to sit.

  Need a confession? Nothing was as effective during the Middle Ages as the rack. Place the guilty party (you know he’s guilty!) on the wooden frame, tie his arms to the ropes on the top and his legs to the ropes on the bottom. Turn the handle and wait for your captive to “stretch” the truth.

  The brazen bull was used by the ancient Greeks. Basically, you threw your guilty party in a hollowed-out bronze statue of a bull, closed the trapdoor, lit a fire underneath the statue, and, well, that was about it. When that got boring, the Greeks invented a system of tubes so the victim’s screams sounded like an angry bull.