Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Little Known Facts About the Founding Fathers


George Washington's famous wooden teeth were actually carved from the very same cherry tree he couldn't lie to his Father about chopping down. Why did you think he chopped the damned thing down to begin with?

Benjamin Franklin, the inventor of the stove, bifocals and the Hundred Dollar Bill, did not discover electricity by flying his kite in a thunderstorm as legend would have you believe. He actually discovered static electricity when his kite stuck to the culottes he had just put on after removing them fresh from the clothes dryer.

Why did John Hancock sign his name so large on the Declaration of Independence? Because no one had invented shouting at the King by TYPING IN ALL CAPS ON THE INTERNET YET!!!

James Madison drafted the original version of the United States Constitution entirely in Pig Latin just to mess with everyone's minds: "Eway the Eoplepay..."

The Boston Tea Party, in which patriots protested unjust taxes by dressing up like Indians and tossing tea off of British ships in the middle of the night, took place in Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773. Not mentioned nearly as often in the history books is the concurrent Occupy Boston movement, in which a bunch of confused teenagers dressed up in tie-dyes and birkenstocks and sat around banging on drums while complaining that everything ought to be free and defecating in the public square.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both famously died on the same day, July 4th, 1826, exactly 50 years to the day from the signing of the Declaration of Independence. John Adams' famous last words were, "Thomas Jefferson still survives," though, ironically, word had not reached him that Jefferson had indeed passed a mere 5 hours earlier at Monticello after muttering, mysteriously, "Wrong again, John."

The reason so many of our Founding Fathers wore powdered wigs? They had been scalped by Elizabeth Warren's ancestors who liked to run around claiming to be Indians and scalping anyone who laughed at them.

Happy Independence Day!

Cross-posted at IMAO

1 comment:

Glenn B said...

That gave me a good laugh, thanks!