MAY 20 — 1768 Happy Birthday Dolley Madison; 1862 Homestead Act becomes law; 1927 Lindbergh takes off in Spirit of St. Louis
MAY 20
1768 – Happy birthday Dorthea Dandridge Todd, better known as Dolley Madison!
Possibly best known for saving the giant portrait of George Washington as the British sacked the White House and started burning it down during the War of 1812, she’s perhaps equally known for her skilled leadership.
It’s been said that short guys just don’t get the ladies, but James was quite the ladies’ man at a mere 5’4”. He made Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones look tall. Ok that was a stretch. Born May 20, I’m not going say what year because she’s a lady and it’s none of our businesses what year she was born, and heaven help us if we forget her birthday’s on May 20.
She’s from a Quaker settlement in North Carolina, and was moved with her family to Philadelphia. She met and married John Todd, with whom she had two boys, John and William. The Yellow Fever epidemic of 1790, which took out 20,000 people in the city, also took out John and baby William. Dolley was left a widow. When Jemmie James Madison saw Polly on a street in Philly, he had to meet her.
She towered over the Creator of the Constitution and the Beginner of the Bill of Rights and it was love at first sight. After just a few weeks of dating, Jemmie asked Dolly’s cousin to write her a note for him, “With sparking eyes, James thinks so much of you in the day that he lost his tongue. At night he dreams of you and starts his sleep calling on you to relieve his flame for he burns to such an excess that he will be shortly condemned,” Alright already you two. Get a room.
Check this out, if you google image pictures of James and Dolley Madison, you’ll see he is about as stone faced like he has never so much as cracked a smile in his life, and she looks like she’s about to burst out laughing.
I would never compare presidential first ladies because that’s just rude; every lady has their own unique form of beauty which cannot be compared. That said, where Martha Washington set the tone for entertaining foreign leaders and Abigail Adams expanded on that, being the first first lady to actually live in the newly constructed White House. Dolley had two rules when entertaining guests at the dinner table. First, no politics since it’s bad for the digestion.
Second, everyone at the table is involved in the conversation, because it’s good for politics. The wine was poured and for an hour after dinner, everyone sat and drank. When President Jemmie talked about his days at Montpelier, he was known to set his table guests daily into roars of laughter over his stories and whimsical ways, perhaps incessant ways, of telling them.
Dolley, on the other hand, Dolley opened the White House every night for guests. Dolley felt totally justified marrying a non-Quaker, since she didn’t have Quaker in her heart. One guest said James and Dolly would sometimes romp and tease each other like two children. Then again, once when Dolley received a pair of stocking that was way too small for her, she laughed and said “the hose will not even fit even my darling little husband.”
In 1817, after Jemmie the Great Legislator was done being president of the United States, he and Dolley returned to the plantation at Montpelier. And former first lady Mrs. Madison would entertain guests there. Friends, family, politicians and foreign delegates, up until James Madison died at age 85. Widowed once more, Dolley moved back to Washington and limited her dinner parties. Dolley Madison died at age 80 in 1849, there I just revealed her age. The next first lady wouldn’t be until Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams, already the second generation of American leadership.
This made Dolley the last link to the founding fathers. She knew each and every one of them, and was well respected and adored by all of them.
Happy birthday Dolley!
1768 – Happy birthday Dorthea Dandridge Todd, better known as Dolley Madison!
Possibly best known for saving the giant portrait of George Washington as the British sacked the White House and started burning it down during the War of 1812, she’s perhaps equally known for her skilled leadership. It’s been said that short guys just don’t get the ladies, but James was quite the ladies’ man at a mere 5’4”. He made Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones look tall. Ok that was a stretch. Born May 20, I’m not going say what year because she’s a lady and it’s none of our businesses what year she was born, and heaven help us if we forget her birthday’s on May 20. She’s from a Quaker settlement in North Carolina, and was moved with her family to Philadelphia. She met and married John Todd, with whom she had two boys, John and William. The Yellow Fever epidemic of 1790, which took out 20,000 people in the city, also took out John and baby William. Dolley was left a widow.
When Jemmie James Madison saw Polly on a street in Philly, he had to meet her. She towered over the Creator of the Constitution and the Beginner of the Bill of Rights and it was love at first sight. After just a few weeks of dating, Jemmie asked Dolly’s cousin to write her a note for him, “With sparking eyes, James thinks so much of you in the day that he lost his tongue. At night he dreams of you and starts his sleep calling on you to relieve his flame for he burns to such an excess that he will be shortly condemned,” Alright already you two. Get a room. Check this out, if you google image pictures of James and Dolley Madison, you’ll see he is about as stone faced like he has never so much as cracked a smile in his life, and she looks like she’s about to burst out laughing. I would never compare presidential first ladies because that’s just rude; every lady has their own unique form of beauty which cannot be compared. That said, where Martha Washington set the tone for entertaining foreign leaders and Abigail Adams expanded on that, being the first first lady to actually live in the newly constructed White House.
Dolley had two rules when entertaining guests at the dinner table. First, no politics since it’s bad for the digestion. Second, everyone at the table is involved in the conversation, because it’s good for politics. The wine was poured and for an hour after dinner, everyone sat and drank. When President Jemmie talked about his days at Montpelier, he was known to set his table guests daily into roars of laughter over his stories and whimsical ways, perhaps incessant ways, of telling them. Dolley, on the other hand, Dolley opened the White House every night for guests. Dolley felt totally justified marrying a non-Quaker, since she didn’t have Quaker in her heart. One guest said James and Dolly would sometimes romp and tease each other like two children.
Then again, once when Dolley received a pair of stocking that was way too small for her, she laughed and said “the hose will not even fit even my darling little husband.” In 1817, after Jemmie the Great Legislator was done being president of the United States, he and Dolley returned to the plantation at Montpelier. And former first lady Mrs. Madison would entertain guests there. Friends, family, politicians and foreign delegates, up until James Madison died at age 85. Widowed once more, Dolley moved back to Washington and limited her dinner parties. Dolley Madison died at age 80 in 1849, there I just revealed her age. The next first lady wouldn’t be until Louisa Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams, already the second generation of American leadership. This made Dolley the last link to the founding fathers. She knew each and every one of them, and was well respected and adored by all of them.
Happy birthday Dolley!
1873 – Happy birthday Jeans.
…On May 20 1873, San Francisco businessman Levi Strauss and Reno, Nevada tailor Jacob Davis are given a patent to create work pants reinforced with metal rivets, marking the creation of one of the world’s most famous garments. Loeb Strauss immigrated to New York in 1829 from Buttenheim, Bavaria with his family, worked at his family’s dry goods business, and in 1853 headed west towards the Gold Rush.
Instead of finding gold, he found blue. He opened up his own dry goods business in San Francisco, and that’s how he met Jacob Davis from Reno, Nevada, one of Levi Strauss’s regular customers. The two men collaborated and got the patent together for these metal riveted pants.
They were originally designed for cowboys and miners, but just grew and grew in popularity. By the 1950s they were big with teenagers, especially those of the greaser subculture. Levi’s, Lee, and Wrangler Jeans come in a variety of fits, including skinny, tapered, slim, straight, boot cut, narrow bottom, low waist, anti-fit, and flare.
1862 – The Homestead Act becomes law.
…It accelerated the settlement of the western territory by granting adult heads of families 160 acres of surveyed public land for a minimal filing fee and five years of continuous residence on that land. This meant you had to build your own house and deal with the extremes of the wilderness.
Not as easy as it sounded, but nonetheless available. As long as you never bore arms against the United States, and agreed to improve the plot by building a dwelling and cultivating the land, it was yours after five years, free and clear, except for a small registration fee. Title could also be acquired after only a 6-month residency and trivial improvements, provided by the claimant paid the government $1.25 per acre.
After the Civil War, Union soldiers could deduct the time they had served from the residency requirements. This idea had been discussed many times, dating back to the Articles of Confederation before 1787. However, because of the ambiguity of the law, it invited corruption.
Land speculators cattlemen, miners, lumbermen, and railroads wound up taking the land. The first claim was filed by a civil war veteran and doctor named Daniel Freeman on January 1 1863, and the law was finally repealed in 1976, giving the last title to Kenneth Deardorff who claimed 80 acres in Alaska.
1927 – The Spirit of St. Louis takes off
… from New York to Paris. In 1919 Raymond Orteig, a French hotel owner in New York, put up $25,000 to the first aviator who would fly nonstop from Paris to New York or vice versa. Nobody even tried it.
So Orteig extended his offer for another five years, and by then advancements in plane technology had improved, making this possible. Lindbergh meanwhile wanted to give it a run and got financial backing from the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce. He found his plane through Ryan Airlines Corporations in San Diego with the idea of a single engine and single passenger for maximum fuel efficiency. He wanted as little weight as possible, and every ounce counted against his fuel supply.
On May 20 1927he took off from New York. His biggest challenge was staying awake; he had to hold his eyelids open with his fingers and hallucinated ghosts passing through the cockpit. Finally after 33 ½ hours, Lindbergh landed at Le Bourget field in Paris, becoming the first pilot to accomplish the solo nonstop transatlantic crossing.
Like a boss!
1991 – Happy Birthday Jordan Pruitt, from Atlanta George. She’s a pop singer who was on the popular reality signing competition The Voice.