10 Things You Might Not Know About America's Independence

[Malthus]

I don't like this list of "10 Things You Might Not Know About America's Independence" and propose to start my own.

1. The original government of the US included provision for a poet laureate. However, this position was unfilled for a century because the public was scandalized by efforts of the first, a certain Mr. Limerik, who wrote only about life in his home on Nantucket. 

[Razgovory]

I'm pretty sure that it's possible to come up with 10 little known facts about the American Revolution that are in fact true.

Not if you are a moron, and that's the only type Fox News seems to hire.

I'm a moron and I bet I could.

[grumbler]

I don't like this list of "10 Things You Might Not Know About America's Independence" and propose to start my own.

1. The original government of the US included provision for a poet laureate. However, this position was unfilled for a century because the public was scandalized by efforts of the first, a certain Mr. Limerik, who wrote only about life in his home on Nantucket.

2.  There used to be more cherry trees near the reflecting pond, but George Washington chopped them down.  He confessed to the crime ("I can't tell a lie"), but was not punished.  Festering resentment for this act would later lead Japan to attack Pearl Harbor.

[garbon]

No doubt that some of the Founding Fathers were somewhat hypocritical on the matter of slavery, but since it abolition of slavery wasn't an aim of the rebellion, that has nothing to do with whether or not it was justified.

I think we all can agree with that.

[Ed Anger]

I don't like this list of "10 Things You Might Not Know About America's Independence" and propose to start my own.

1. The original government of the US included provision for a poet laureate. However, this position was unfilled for a century because the public was scandalized by efforts of the first, a certain Mr. Limerik, who wrote only about life in his home on Nantucket.

2.  There used to be more cherry trees near the reflecting pond, but George Washington chopped them down.  He confessed to the crime ("I can't tell a lie"), but was not punished.  Festering resentment for this act would later lead Japan to attack Pearl Harbor.

I thought the Germans attacked Pearl Harbor.

[Malthus]

I don't like this list of "10 Things You Might Not Know About America's Independence" and propose to start my own.

1. The original government of the US included provision for a poet laureate. However, this position was unfilled for a century because the public was scandalized by efforts of the first, a certain Mr. Limerik, who wrote only about life in his home on Nantucket.

2.  There used to be more cherry trees near the reflecting pond, but George Washington chopped them down.  He confessed to the crime ("I can't tell a lie"), but was not punished.  Festering resentment for this act would later lead Japan to attack Pearl Harbor.

I thought the Germans attacked Pearl Harbor.

No, they attacked Pearl Harbour. Different place.

[grumbler]

No, they attacked Pearl Harbour. Different place.

At the mouth of the Pearl Riveur.

[The Brain]

3. It's normal to grow hair "down there".

[Grey Fox]

4. The White House takes it's name from John Hancock the White, the powerfull architect who designed & conjured it on July 4th 1778.

[HisMajestyBOB]

4. The White House takes it's name from John Hancock the White, the powerfull architect who designed & conjured it on July 4th 1778.

5. He later went on to defeat King George III of Many Colours, securing American independence.

[Malthus]

4. The White House takes it's name from John Hancock the White, the powerfull architect who designed & conjured it on July 4th 1778.

5. He later went on to defeat King George III of Many Colours, securing American independence.

6. The Revolution gained considerable propaganda value from claiming that the Hessian troops employed by the British as mercenaries were, in fact, orcs. This aroused the hatred of the colonists.

In reality, only some of them were.

[grumbler]

   Well, I though you had an interesting idea there, Malthus...

for about two posts! 

[Malthus]

  Well, I though you had an interesting idea there, Malthus...

for about two posts! 

It is hard work to come up with more silliness than Fox. 

[Grey Fox]

  Well, I though you had an interesting idea there, Malthus...

for about two posts! 

It is hard work to come up with more silliness than Fox. 

You don't have to, you can come up with plausible stuff.

[viper37]

I'm not sure why you'd have doubts about 3.  I don't necessarily know that the info in 3 is 100% accurate, but the general thrust of it seems right.

The date of 1774.  That people in their local assembly decided it would be a good thing to be independant before the Congress did, I think it's probably right.   But as early as 1774, 90 counties declared themselves independant?  It just seem a bit too much, given that as late as 1776, many Americans still hoped to solve their problems with England without going into rebellion.

5 is a matter of interpretation,

that's why I have doubts.  Rejecting the King and embracing a Republic would be somewhat seen as radical in the time.  In fact, just protesting the British parliament was seen as radical, given that the American patriots were branded as traitors by the motherland.

and 6 is definately technically correct, but it's just semantics, at least now--in casual modern usage,  a "democracy" and a "republic" are the same thing, but they weren't in the 18 century.  Don't see why you'd doubt it, though.

explain how they weren't the same.

7?  Who knows, really?  Who cares?

That's why I have doubts... It's such a trivial fact, that it looks like some Tea Party mumbo jumbo...