SEPTEMBER 4 — 1803 Happy Birthday First Lady Sarah Polk; 1998 Google is born in a garage; 1982 Valley Girl released; 2014 Great Dane eats 43 socks
SEPTEMBER 4
1803 – Happy birthday former first lady Sarah Polk.
Sarah Whitesett Childress Polk was born in Tennessee to a bigwig plantation owner and bussnessman Joel Childress and Mother Elizabeth Whitsett. Sarah and her sister enjoyed a relatively great education in subject matters that shall we say, went beyond housekeeping. In fact Papa Joel made sure her education was so top notch they rode 500 miles outside of Tennessee so she could attend the Moravian Female Academy in Salem North Carolina where she would study English grammar, Greek and Roman literature, Bible study, and other advanced teachings that most ladies didn’t learn in those days.
The history of how Sarah and James Knox Polk met is a little fuzzy, but we do know that Papa Joel entertained many politicians in Tennessee, including Old Hickory Andrew Jackson. Polk was a budding politician when the Tennessee legislature was meeting in Murfreesboro, which was Sarah’s town, and legend has it that Old Hickory Jackson suggested that Young Hickory Polk to ask Sarah on a date. Something like that. Anyway, James and Sarah fell in love and entered matrimony on January 1, 1824 at her mother’s home. In 1825 Polk was elected Congressmen, and Mrs. P was a big help thanks to that great education she got when she was younger. She was a pro at helping James by answering messages, managing his calendar and helping to tweak his speeches where needed.
Sarah Childless remained childless throughout her life, much like her dad’s friend Andrew Jackson’s wife Rachel. As you can imagine having no kids freed up her schedule to help her husband become governor of Tennessee in 1839. James was an absolute workhorse, and defeated Henry Clay to become President in 1844.
But First Lady Sarah was very much unlike her predecessor Julia Tyler, who was about as subtle as a herd of elephants. Where Julia was vivacious and flamboyant, Sarah was busy helping her husband and stayed true to her Presbyterian beliefs, which mean no booze in the White House, no gambling and definitely no dancing. Her parties were about as boring as this story I’m telling.
Polk, who only served one term in as president, was very ambitious. He resolved a border dispute with Great Britain about the 49th parallel in the Oregon country, he secured most of the American southwest after a sweeping war against Mexico, reduced tariff rates, and reestablished the Independent Treasury System. Sarah never shared her opinion with anyone except for her husband, and they agreed on most policies, except for his opposition to a centralized banking system in the U.S.
After his term expired, the couple moved back to Tennessee, where James K Polk would die only several months later. Many believe it was due to exhaustion. Mrs. James K. Polk, as she referred herself, became practically a hermit in their house that she rarely left except to go to church. She was 45 when her husband died, and she would live up to 88 years old. She remained neutral during the civil War, entertaining both Union and Confederate leaders. She also adopted and raised a great niece, whom she kept close company.
She also died in the Polk Place, August 14 1891, and is currently buried next to her husband in Washington DC. Happy birthday Sarah!
1998 google is born in a garage.
In the mid-90s, Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at Stanford U where they worked on a search engine that used links to determine the relevance of individual pages on the Internet. The project used an algorithm they developed called PageRank, was initially called BackRub, but thankfully was changed to Google. Google, which is actually spelled “Googol”, is the number 1 followed by a hundred zeros. Larry and Sergie’s mission with Google was to “organize the world’s information and to make it universally accessible and useful.”
At first Larry and Sergie were opposed to advertisement pop-ups on their search engines, but once Google started indexing over 60 million pages that changed advertising ballgame. Investors in Silicon Valley began noticing the potential of this search engine. In August 1998, Sun MicroSystems financed $100,000, and this helped the boys move operations to their friend Susan Wojcicki’s garage in Menlo Park. Susan’s CEEO of YouTube, these days, but back then she would technically be Google Employee #16.
From that very garage on this day in 1998, Google Inc. was registered. Users all throughout the Internet like Google’s simple design and efficiency, and would eventually overpower its Goliath competitors from MSN to Yahoo to AOL. In 2004 Google would be publicly trading, and the company has of course continued to grow from there.
1886 – Geronimo surrenders.
…Goyathlay, or One Who Yawns, an Apache, was born in present day New Mexico in 1829. The Mexican soldiers called him Geronimo. He was the last fighting force of the American Natives who fought the hardest and lasted the longest. In 1858 he came home from a trading expedition and came home to find that Spanish settlers killed his wife, mother and three children. Vowing to forever get revenge on white man, he dedicated his life to kill as many as possible. He managed to escape capture time and time again, leading folks to believe Geronimo was superhuman.
But after time, eluding the white man became pointless. He was tired of fighting and running and realized more and more as time went on he was fighting a losing battle. He surrendered on September 4, 1886 ending the last of the Indian wars in the southwest. His tribe was sent to Florida, then Alabama, finally at a reservation near Fort Sill in the Oklahoma territory. He converted to Christianity and actually got to participate in President Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural parade in 1905.
Geronimo died February 17, 1909.
1848 – Happy BD Lewis H. Latimer. He was an African American helped to invent toilets for railroad cars, the electric lamp, process of manufacturing carbons, apparatus for cooling and disinfecting, a locking rack for hats, coats and umbrellas, and a lamp fixture. He worked closely with Alexander Graham Bell, and was inducted into the national inventor’s hall of fame for his work on electric filament manufacturing techniques.
1801 – Happy BD Cullen Whipple, Rhodes Island. Who patented the first practice the pointed screw machine. See before screw had blunt ends and couldn’t make a starter hole.
1888 – George Eastman patents first full-film camera and registers “Kodak”
1982 – Valley Girl takes over the world. This song written by Frank Zappa and his daughter Moon Unit (Unit’s h er middle name) was supposed to be a parody. Instead, it became an international sensation as 1980 phrases like fer sure, ohmigod, grody to the max and gag me with a spoon became the standard Val-speak, or valley speak.
It embraced everything culturally regarding the San Fernando Valley. Moon Unit was not allowed to disturb her father while he was working in the studio, so she wrote a note to him asking if they could work professionally since he ignored her all the time. As the story goes according to Zappa biographer Kelly Fisher, he woke her up in the middle of the night, took her into the studio, and got to work. They promoted the song on KROQ in LA and it was an instant hit. It was Frank’s first and only top 40 hit.
1945 – From New York City, chess master, psychologist, university professor and author on many books on chess and psychology Reuben Fine wins four simultaneous rapid chess games blindfolded. Meanwhile I don’t even know the difference between chess and Chinese checkers, but if anyone’s up for a game of Yahtzee I’m up for that.
2014 — Great Dane eats 43 socks.
Yup, this three year old giant pooch from Portland Oregon didn’t get the memo that socks would be worn, not eaten. His owners rushed him to the emergency room when he started wrenching and vomiting, and the doctors found sizeable foreign objects in an X=ray of his belly. After two hours of surgery and pulling out sock after sock after sock, the pup was fine and was discharged the next day.
The hospital entered him in a contest called “They ate what?” which is sponsored by veterinary clinics throughout the country. He only took third place, behind a frog that ate a bunch of ornamental rocks in his cage and a pointer dog that swallowed a barbeque skewer.
Woof!