So it would appear it has been a while since you fine people have been graced with the stroke of my pen. So allow me to make up for it with a subject that everyone loves: American History! Wooo!
Sure, whilst the thought of reading about the USS Maine or the dastardly Barbary corsairs might not fill your loins with with kiloamplitudes of excitement like it does me, I’m sure everyone can agree that reading about the wild antics of awesome historical people never gets old. So I’ve decided to impart upon you all my five favourite figures in American History. In FIVE different parts so that the excitement factor stays high.
Thomas Jefferson
Oh man. Look at that coat. I imagine that Jefferson immediately went out and popped a cap in some Federalists for disrespecting him after this painting was produced.
The only person on my list who isn’t some sort of insane military general, rather, Jefferson was the sort of man who played by his own rules when it came to writing the single most important document in the formation of America.
John F. Kennedy was once quoted as saying ”I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” While this was almost certainly a subtle jab at some of the winners like Dr. Melvin Calvin (Seriously? They hand out Nobel Prizes for plants? Chlorophyll? More like BOREophyll) it also helped to illustrate just how intelligent TJ was. A polymath, Jefferson excelled in such things as architecture, paleontology, archeology(he’s sometimes called the “father of archaeology), horticulture, as well as having invented a few things here and there. Monticello, his abode, contained such things as the first swivel chair, and automatic doors.
His biggest interests were reading and wine, and when the first Library of Congress was burned by the fiendish book-hating British during the War of 1812, Jefferson, who was in debt for almost all of his life, offered to sell Congress his personal library of 6,487 books, almost double of what the Library originally held. So what did Jefferson do with the $23,950 Congress gave him for all his books? Well, like any self-respecting genius, he just bought even more books and even more wine. And after his wife Martha died, Jefferson had six more kids with Sally Hemmings, one of his slaves.
"The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead."--Thomas Jefferson, in response to a question about the likihood of a zombie invasion in America.
