Who Was the First President?

George Washington would probably be your guess. According to history books, you are correct. According to some emails that have been circulating for a couple years, you would be wrong. According to these emails, the first President was John Hanson. But is this true? Or are the history books correct? Let's take a look at this a little deeper and see.

In order to know, you have to take a nose dive into the political history of the United States. In the 1770's, while the Revolution was going on, much discussion was going on about what type of government the new country would have. The first proposal that had much weight was a government under the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation would allow states to have a great power, while maintaining a smaller, weaker centralized government. The colonies at the time feared a government that was too powerful, so they wanted a weak government. Many parts of the Articles were debated, so they were not official until 1781.

One common misconception about the Articles is that they believe that they created the United States of America, but they didn't. The colonies under the Articles were actually thirteen sovereign and independent states that were allied together. The closest modern comparison is NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is an organization of nations, but there is no country called NATO. There was the smallest and weakest of a government between the colonies/states, but it had no power over the colonies/states. The Articles called for a Congress that was so limited in its powers that it couldn't enforce any of them, so they couldn't send troops to protect land from the British or Spanish in the West, nor could they raise money through taxes (all they could do was print more money, which led to inflation). In the end, many of the members of Congress stopped even going to sessions of Congress, which resulted in less than a quorum. It is without a doubt that the Articles were a failure, and by 1787, the government was out of money, so it transferred the debt from the Revolution to the states.

All this is important in the discussion of who the first President was because John Hanson was the first one elected to be in charge of this Congress as defined by the Articles of Confederation. However, it is important to know that he was only filling the position of President of the Continental Congress, not the country. The office of the Presidency (or the Executive Branch) was not established until the Constitution was drafted in the late 1780's. The first person selected for this position was George Washington, who ran unopposed, so he was unanimously elected.

John Hanson portrait from late 1760's

So, in reality, George Washington was truly the first President of the United States. John Hanson was the first person who was the head of the Congress under the Articles of Confederation, but that was it. Hanson himself was an important member of the Continental Congress, but that was really about it. The notion that he was the first US President first came from Hanson's grandson, who went around promoting his grandfather as the real first US President. Because of this, Hanson has a statue in the US Capitol. In 1932, a biography of John Hanson was written by Seymour Wemyss Smith that claimed Hanson as being the first President also.

So, this one of the few times that I will say that to get the real story, you should just read your history book, and not an email. Some of the emails about Hanson say that he has been stripped from the history books, but in actuality, he just wasn't as important of a historical figure as anyone that is mentioned in history books. His role as the head of the Continental Congress was basically ceremonial, and if you factor in the difference between the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, then it is clear that John Hanson was just someone who helped the Patriot cause, but in the end just wasn't the first President. That was George Washington.

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The Incredible Traveling Brain Story

Ever heard the old phrase "you couldn't make that up" or "real life is stranger than fiction"? Well, this story is one of those tales. Sometimes, in doing research for expendablenlightenment, stories come along that are very bizarre, but when they're researched, they turn out to be hoaxes or only partially true. This story is remarkably true (and included is a part in paretheses that may or may not be, but it's interesting).

Dr. Albert Einstein, the man who formulated scientific work that is second to none in history, died on April 18, 1955, at Princeton Hopital in New Jersey. An autopsy was performed by Dr. Thomas Harvey, and his body was cremated, according to his wishes. There's just one catch to this. His brain wasn't with the body. Some claim that Einstein wished for his brain to be studied, and others say he wanted his whole body to be cremated. Either way, Dr. Harvey kept the brain for his personal research. It has been mentioned that Einstein's son gave Dr. Harvey permission to study the brain only for research that should be published in highly regarded scientific journals. Dr. Harvey was only a pathologist, so he had to learn how to preserve the brain, which he did in a formulin solution, then encased the brain in a plastic-like substance called collodion before he took pictures of it and cut it into small segments.

And thus began the remarkable journey of Einstein's brain. You see, Dr. Harvey was soon fired from his job because he wouldn't return the brain. Apparently, he was so fascinated with studying the brain that it cost him his first marriage. (But then again, who wouldn't want to stay married to man that kept a famous scientist's brain in mason jars in the basements?) Dr. Harvey went on the road, taking the brain with him. He was married two more times, and ended up working at jobs in Kansas and Texas.

Einstein's brain fell out of the limelight, and most people forgot about it. In the 1950's, he was interviewed frequently and asked when he would publish his discoveries; Dr. Harvey would always say that he was close to finishing, but he never did find anything, and he never published anything. By the 1970's, nobody cared anymore. He had turned almost into a vagabond by then. In 1978, journalist Steven Levy found that Dr. Harvey still had possession of the brain, which had been in mason jars in a cider box for over 20 years. There had been pressure off and on for Dr. Harvey to turn over the brain to more qualified people for study, but he had always refused. (Supposedly in the late 1970's, he decided that he would turn over the brain to a relative of Einstein's if she wanted it. Levy thought it would be a good article, so he drove Dr. Harvey to California to give her the brain, but she didn't want it. The funny thing is that from one source, part of the brain was accidentally left anyway, but Dr. Harvey and Levy turned around and picked it back up.) This part in parentheses is according to the legend, but it may not be true. What is true is that Levy published the article in New Jersey Monthly, and it became a sensation, which made people once again try to convince Dr. Harvey to give up the brain.

Dr. Harvey had actually given some of the sections to a few qualified individuals throughout the years, but most of the brain he kept for himself. One of the scientists who received some brain sections was Dr. Marian Diamond from University of California at Berkeley. She made the first breakthroughs in discoveries from the brain. These breakthroughs once again called for Dr. Harvey to surrendur the remaining pieces. But it wasn't until the late 1990's (over 40 years after Einstein's death) that Dr. Harvey moved back to Princeton and gave the remaining sections to Dr. Elliot Krauss of Princeton Hospital (who oddly enough had the job that Dr. Harvey had been fired from for not returning the brain in 1955).


Dr. Harvey with Einstein's remaining brain segments

There have been some great discoveries made on Einstein's brain since the remaining portions had been turned over. It seems that even in death, Albert Einstein still is educating us. As for Dr. Thomas Harvey, he died in 2007 at the age of 94, back at Princeton where he had taken Einstein's brain in the first place. As far as the public knows, Dr. Harvey's brain was not removed and studied. However, it took 23 years (1955 until 1978, when Levy's article was published) for most people to know that Einstein's brain was missing, so maybe by 2030 we'll see if Dr. Harvey's brain is missing. (just kidding!)

Here is a link to Steven Levy's website where he talks about finding the brain.
http://www.stevenlevy.com/index.php/about/einsteins-brain

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Ohio, the 48th State?

On March 1, 1803, Ohio entered the United States as the 17th state. But did it really? A controversy not well known outside of Ohio (but very well-known in Ohio) is the fact that one can argue that Ohio wasn't actually a state until 1953. But how can this be?

Ohio itself came from a large patch of land known as the Northwest Territory. The western part of the Northwest Territory was deemed as Indian territory, but a large part of the eastern section desired to become a state. It was named Ohio which comes from an Iroquois word meaning "great river".

The whole process of becoming a state at the time was still a little undefined. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 stated that a territory from the Northwest Territory could become a state once the population of the territory reached at least 60,000. In 1801, Ohio's population was only 45,000, but Congress saw that Ohio's population was booming, so it was assumed that the population would be 60,000 by the time of statehood. On February 19, 1803, President Jefferson formally signed an act of Congress that approved Ohio's boundaries and constitution. The funny thing is that Congress never passed a resolution to admit Ohio as a state. Louisiana became the next state in 1812, and a tradition began with Congress declaring an official date of statehood. So, since the population wasn't exactly up to the level it should have been, and since Congress didn't formally pass a resolution declaring Ohio a state, one could argue that Ohio wasn't really a state at all.

It was 150 years later that this oversight was found. So, to be formal (and to celebrate Ohio's 150th anniversary), Ohio congressman George Bender formally introduced a bill in Congress retroactively admitting Ohio to the Union. The bill was retroactive to March 1, 1803. On August 7, 1953, President Eisenhower signed the bill retroactively making March 1, 1803, the official date Ohio joined the Union.

Some people look to this event as being very strange, and indeed it is an odd occurrence. There are some who claim that it isn't legal to make retroactive laws, so Ohio should be deemed as a state as of 1953, but others argue that retroactive laws (ex post facto laws) only deal with criminal law. So, in one sense, Ohio was really a state, but the fine details weren't met (that don't really matter); and on the other hand, the tradition of how a state becomes a state didn't really begin (as it is today) until 1812, 9 years after Ohio became a state. This controversy is an interesting one that is still debated, but in the end, Ohio has really been a state since 1803, and nothing has been voided because of Ohio's participation on anything in the previous 200+ years.

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Who Was Murphy?

There's an old adage that says "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." This saying is referred to as Murphy's Law. There have been books with names using Murphy's Law, usually containing funny pictures of crashes and unusual occurrences that would symbolize a bad day. As humorous as these are, the fact remains that in some cases, if there's a chance of something failing, then it will undoubtedly and eventually happen. The question of this post is a simple one: have you ever wondered who Murphy was?

There have been many books and websites that claim to know the origin of Murphy's Law. There is an official website of Murphy's Law that claims to know the origin, but it is filled with Murphy legends that are no better or worse than any other place. According to some sources, Murphy was actually Capt. Edward A. Murphy of the US Air Force. He worked on many projects including one called the MX981, which was designed to see how a person would react to sudden deceleration, and how much a person could withstand. As legend goes, there was wiring problem, and Capt. Murphy said of the technician who'd wired it wrong: "If there's a way to wire it wrong, he'll find it." In 1949, supposedly the project manager kept a list of laws, and he wrote this one down, and next to it he put "Murphy's Law".

But is this really the origin of Murphy's Law? Can it realle be that simple? Nothing in life is, I'm afraid. The American Dialect Society (ADS) has researched the origin of this and many other phrases. They found that in 1877 there was a version of Murphy's Law in a report from an engineering society by Alfred Holt: "It is found that anything that can go wrong at sea generally does go wrong sooner or later." In 1866, a mathematician named Augustus de Morgan wrote the phrase "what-ever can happen will happen". A British stage magician named Nevil Maskelyne wrote in 1908: "everything that can go wrong will go wrong." In the early 1950's, the saying begins to pop up more prevalently. In a mountaineering book by Jack Sack in 1952, he writes "anything that can go wrong, does", and he attributes it to an old mountaineering saying. In a book by Anne Roe, the saying went "If anything can go wrong, it will", and it is called the "Murphy's law or the fourth law of thermodynamics". And so on and so on.

The origin becomes rather murky when you take into account all these other places where it could have been originated. There was a book published in 1977 by Arthur Bloch called "Murphy's Law, and other reasons why things go WRONG", which was the first in a series. Once again, the Capt. Ed Murphy story came up at publication. George Nichols wrote a letter to Bloch explaining the story about Capt. Ed Murphy, claiming it was the first public time the phrase was used. The letter itself was published in the book, and since then, Capt. Murphy has been attributed as the originator.

But did he really create it? In 2003, in an article called "Why Everything You Know About Murphy's Law Is Wrong" and then a book called "A History of Murphy's Law" both by Nick T. Spark, Capt. Murphy's origination of the law is called into question. Supposedly it is true that Murphy said such things, but people referred to it as Murphy's Law as a mockery of Capt. Murphy and his supposed arrogance. Apparently, not all people liked Capt. Murphy, but this has been a debate for many years as to the original meaning and intent of the saying. However, it is clear that the phrase itself (in one form or another) had existed for a long time. The phrase itself has become part of history, but it is impossible to trace where it actually came from. The fact that people put Murphy's name on it would indicate that Murphy originated the phrase, but as it turned out, he didn't. Many people attribute the phrase to him, but he was just simply the first person to have his name attached to it.



A History of Murphy's Law - Nick T. Spark

 And that is a lesson of history. It doesn't matter who said what first, it only matters who remembers who said it. Because the idea of Murphy's Law made it into pop culture, Capt. Murphy was solidified into the lexicon of phrases. It doesn't really matter who said the phrase first or where it came from, the fact that it has been associated with Capt. Murphy will not be taken away until the true origin is found, which I don't think is possible. Pop culture is one of those odd things that is filled with a mixture of half-truths, and this is just another example. So, in conclusion, the actual text of Murphy's Law is really no more than an older phrase that has been attributed to one man. And that's that.

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Uncle Fester's Law?

Jackie Coogan was born in 1914 to a family of actors who had been in Vaudeville for years. Jackie was discovered by Charlie Chaplin, and was immediately put in a film with Chaplin. The film worked out for both of them, so Chaplin and Coogan starred in the 1921 film The Kid which was big for Coogan and Chaplin, making Coogan a cemented child star. He starred in several other films throughout the 1920's. However, at age 13, in 1927, his career began to decline, as does many other child actors.

Things really changed in 1935 for Coogan. That year Coogan's father died. His mother married Arthur Bernstein, who was his business manager. Coogan wanted his money that he'd made from the 1920's, but his mother and Bernstein refused to give it to him. Coogan filed suit for around $4 million, which was approximately how much he'd earned. California law at the time stated that he had no rights to the money since he was a child, and he was awarded only $126,000 in 1939. The public was outraged, and the California legislature went on to enact the Child Actors Bill which was signed into law. This law is also known as the Coogan Act or the Coogan Bill.

In case you are not familiar with this law, it states very clearly that the child actor's employer has to set aside a trust fund in the child's name with a portion of the child's earnings. The law has since been changed to state that all of the child's earnings is the child's, and use of the funds by a parent is considered stealing. Any time a child actor goes to court because of their parents and the money they'd earned, the issue of the Coogan Act comes up.

And at this point, you're probably thinking, "Hmm, that's nice. But what does this have to do with Uncle Fester?

Well, as with all child actors, they grow up. Jackie Coogan went on to have roles after he grew up, but his most famous role was one that he landed in 1964. Child star Jackie Coogan, who was discovered by Charlie Chaplin, who starred in several films, who sued his parents over money, and who had a law protecting child actors from their parents.... was none other than Uncle Fester in the 1964-66 series The Addams Family.

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Monopoly That Helped Win the War

Spy stories are very popular and have been for a long time. Perhaps the most popular spy character is James Bond, who is recognized the world over. Spy stories that are fictional can be clever, interesting, and creative, but spy stories that are real are usually more bizarre than any fictional story. An example of this was how the board game Monopoly helped to win World War II. Yes, you read that right.

This story goes back to 1941. Members of the RAF found themselves as POWs under Germany. Britain tried to find ways to help these men escape and find their way back to safe territories. The best method for this is to have a map. But maps would have to be hidden or else the Germans would take them. Maps themselves aren't very durable: their loud when they fold, they don't fold very small, they wear out rapidly, and if they get wet, well, the map is done. So the thinkers in Britain tried to find a way to create a map that could be easily concealed, durable, and withstand water. They wanted the maps to contain not only escape routes back to safe territories, but also locations of safe houses for food and shelter. MI-5 came up with the perfect solution: print the maps on silk. A silk map can be folded repeatedly without wearing out, it can be easily concealed, and it resists water damage.

However, this is where things get unusual. There was only one company in Britain who had actually perfected the technology of printing on silk, and that was John Waddington, Ltd. Waddington was happy to help with the war effort, so they did their job printing the maps. Now, Americans wouldn't recognize the Waddington name, but the Brits might. You see, Waddington was the UK licensee for the board game Monopoly. The International Red Cross was allowed to give care packages to Prisoners of War, and a qualified category for inclusion was "games and pastimes". MI-9 is credited with the smuggling of the Monopoly sets into the hands of POWs. Waddington employees who took part in the printing were sworn to secrecy and printed the maps in what has been described as "a guarded and inaccessible workshop" on the Waddington factory grounds. The maps themselves were designed specifically for the areas of German or Italian camps.

This is the really interesting part. The maps could be folded up into small dots and hidden inside the Monopoly playing pieces. But it wasn't only maps that were smuggled in. A playing token was modified to have a tiny compass in it. A metal file that could be screwed together was smuggled in as well. And then there's the Monopoly money, which also contained real German, Italian, Austrian, or French bills. British airmen (and soon American also) were instructed on how to spot a Monopoly set that had the smuggled materials inside. Any serviceman who was trained on the clever ruse was sworn to secrecy for their life because Britain thought it might use the trick again, and why not? It's been reported that the trick has been very successful, but the exact numbers of POWs that had escaped using this method is unknown.

The Monopoly ruse was classified until 2007, but it wasn't unknown. There were reports of it before 2007, such as an Associated Press article in 1985 and a book Game Makers in 2004. The reason it was officially declassified in 2007 was because John Waddington, Ltd. was given special recognition for their work. Some finer elements of the story are still debated, as are all former classified stories. An article appeared in 2007 in the London Times and an archivist for Waddington wrote in saying that the maps didn't have safe houses because they knew that some maps would be confiscated by Germans and Italians, and no one wanted to risk the safety of the safe houses.

Whether the safe houses were printed on the maps or not doesn't take away from the creativity of the smuggling of the materials into the POW camps. This story is an amazing story that seems like a crazy movie. This definitely gets filed in the "more bizarre than fiction" category!

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Origin of Daylight Savings

Daylight Saving Time goes into effect on March 11 this year, and with it we will lose an hour of sleep, but we also gain light in the evening. The practice of taking away an hour in the spring and adding it back again in the fall has origins that date back a long time. The outcomes of the practice are highly disputed and questioned, and are all far from proven. Retail and sports that use evening sunlight love the Daylight Saving Time, but can be a problem for entertainment and jobs that need light in the morning. The real question we're dealing with today isn't whether or not it's a good thing, but where did it come from?

Oddly enough, a form of Daylight Saving Time was around in ancient times. The Romans, for example, created a water clock that was based on the time of sunlight during the day, so an hour in the winter may have lasted 44 minutes, but an hour in the summer may have lasted 75 minutes. Once civil hours were created, it didn't matter how long the sun was in the sky. There are a few places where relative hours are still used, such as some monasteries. Benjamin Franklin is known for saying "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." While serving as an American envoy to France, he wrote a satire saying that the French should tax shutters, ration candles, and be awoken at sunrise by church bells and cannons. He proposed that people woke up earlier to save on artificial light and thereby using the light from the morning. Europe at the time didn't exactly have a standardized time schedule, and there was no real need for an exact time. That is, until trains came along, and a standardized clock schedule had to be used. Some people have incorrectly stated that Benjamin Franklin was the originator of Daylight Saving Time because of his satirical writing mentioned above.

The actual origin of Daylight Saving Time wasn't even an American invention at all. George Vernon Hudson of New Zealand originated the idea. He was an insect collector and valued his daylight after he completed his shift job. He proposed a two-hour daylight-saving shift in a couple papers from 1895-98 to the Wellington Philosophical Society. Completely independent of Hudson, there was William Willett in England, who enjoyed golf in the evening and noticed how the people of London slept through a lot of sunlight in the summer. He originally came up with his plan in 1905 to advance the clock during the summer months. He published his plan, and a member of Parliament took up his plan and introduced a Daylight Saving Bill in the House of Commons in 1908. The bill didn't become law, and Willett continued to lobby for it until he died in 1915.

The first country to adopt a Daylight Saving Time was Germany in 1916 as a means of conserving coal during the war. Germany's allies adopted this practice as well. England and most of England's allies, as well as many European neutral countries, soon adopted the practice also. Russia and a few other countries adopted it in 1917, and the United States didn't join in the practice until 1918.


Blue: DST observed
Orange: DST no longer observed
Red: DST never observed


You may not be surprised to know that not all countries follow the Daylight Saving Time practice the way, and some don't follow it at all. Some countries do "permanent" Daylight Saving Time, which is where they don't move their clocks backward and forword. They use the summer clock hours all year long. Belarus, Russia, and Iceland are three of these countries. England went the permanent way from 1968-71. Another form of "permanent" Daylight Saving Time are countries that put their clocks according to the time zone to the east of their country (for example, it would be like if Missouri set its clocks to Eastern Standard Time Zone instead of following the Central Standard Time Zone, even though Missouri is geographically located in the Central). Some countries that follow this practice are Argentina, Georgia (the former Soviet republic), Kazakhstan, Senegal, Sudan, and Turkmenistan.

Even though the benefits and problems of Daylight Saving Time are always debatable, the fact remains that fewer and fewer countries are still practicing it. One day, the use of Daylight Saving Time may change in the United States, but for now, it is a tradition that comes and goes every year. The interesting thing is that it seems to be getting longer each year. Only the future will show us how the Daylight Saving Time story will go.

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Cloud 9

Have you ever been to "Cloud 9"? Do you even know where "Cloud 9" is? Just about everyone knows the phrase Cloud 9 referring to a state of happiness and euphoria. But where did it come from? There are actually several theories.

Most people would assume that the phrase came from the 1950's, when B-movie sci-fi was at its height and a general Cloud 9 feeling was sweeping through America since the war had ended. During that time, there was a radio show called the Johnny Dollar Radio Show which had the main character transported to a place called "Cloud 9" when he was knocked unconscious. But the actual phrase had been around since at least the 1930's, but it wasn't always 9. Sometimes it was Cloud 7 or 8, and as high as 39. The most common were 7 and 9. There isn't an exact reason other than 7 has always been looked at as a lucky number, and more recently, there are phrases which use 9 as a means to explain that something is as far as it can go (such as "dressed to the nines" and "the whole nine yeards").

Taking the notion of going as far as you can and mixing it with a cloud might lead us to another explanation. In the US Weather Bureau, a story said that they described the clouds in a numeral fashion, with Level One being the lowest clouds. Level Nine was the highest, which was the peaks of the cumulonimbus clouds. These clouds could reach a whopping 40,000 feet from the ground. To be on Level Nine is to be on top of the clouds.

But of course, there's more possible origins. One of the most interesting and convincing origins of this phrase actually comes from Buddhism. The Mahavastu (a written work of Buddhism) gives ten stages in a being's existence. The ninth stage is when a being reaches a point when all that he does is unselfish and done without any desire. When a being makes it to the tenth stage, he becomes a tathagata, which is "a cloud of dharma". I've seen it mentioned before that the ninth state itself is also referred to as "The Bright Cloud of Great Refuge". The reason this sounds convincing as the origin is because it sounds like someone heard this idea, then decided to simplify it, which made it a part of pop culture history. Martin Luther King Jr. even wrote a paper on this, called "The Chief Characteristics and Doctrines of Mahayana Buddhism".

But if that was the only historical evidence, it wouldn't make this such a mystery. There's another place that refers to a level of nine. Dante's Paradise has ten levels, which the tenth being where the Divine Presence is located, and also being the highest heaven. The ninth level is as high as you can get without actually making it to the tenth. Hence, another Cloud 9, since it's the ninth level of heaven, and in the clouds.

So, where did the phrase "Cloud 9" come from? Here's some theories. The popularity of the phrase gaining traction in the 1950's, and being traced to at least the 1930's can both be clues, but the true answer is most likely lost. It may have come from multiple sources at different times, but either way, it has ended up with just about the same meaning.

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Origin of the Leap Year

February 29 is a rare occurrence. Every fourth year, which would be divisible by four, becomes a leap year. But where did these rules come from?

Every major culture throughout history has had their own calendar: Chinese, Mayan, Egyptian, Jewish, etc. However, the ancient Roman calendar is the basis of the one we use today. The Romans had a calendar of 355 days with an extra month of 22-23 days every other year. Julius Caesar decided to simplify the calendar, so he put his astronomer Sosigenes in charge of it, and a 365 day calendar was created. However, it wasn't exact. The actual calculation came to 365.242 days (which is slightly less than the 365.25 that we usually think about). To make up for the 1/4 day, every four years, after the 28th of the month of Februarius, an extra day would be added to the calendar. The calendar long surpassed Julius Caesar, and in 1582 Pope Gregory XIII refined this rule further saying that the leap year would occur in years divisible by 4 as described above.

The part about a leap year that most people don't realize is that since the year is actually 365.242 (and not 365.25), there isn't an exact amount of time that is created for every 4th year, meaning that there is .008 of a day that is created that doesn't exist. So, there is another rule about leap years that most people don't know about. It deals with century years (such as 1800, 1900, 2000, etc.). Over a period of 400 years, there is an extra 3 days worth of time created because of this .008, so on certain century years, they may not be leap years. Only 1 out of every 4 century years (you might have guessed it, divisible by 400) are actually leap years. The year 2000 was a leap year because it is divisible by 400, but the years 1900, 1800, and 1700 were not. The year 2100 will not be a leap year. Most people don't know that rule because they don't live long enough to see century leap years (obviously).

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