Hey all! I just got back from Seneca, so we’re grinding once more! I decided to postpone my post yesterday and instead post a fun 4th of July special. I’ll keep it short – (I have fireworks to play with.) I’m just going to do a list of awesome American historical figures. (A lot of them underrated.)
1.) “Wild” Bill Donovan was one of the coolest people ever. He was a “soldier, lawyer, intelligence officer, and diplomat1” He fought in both world wars, earning multiple service medals including the Purple Heart. He was the head of the OSS (essentially the proto CIA) and was also a foreign diplomat. He protected minorities of all kinds and was one of the first people in the government to really hire women. I only listed about 1/1000 of his awesome attributes, so I suggest checking him out!
2.) Daniel Inouye was the coolest person ever. Not one of the- just the. I can’t describe it better than Wikipedia, so I’ll let it do the talking:
“On April 21, 1945, Inouye was grievously wounded while leading an assault on the heavily defended Colle Musatello ridge near San Terenzo, Italy. The ridge served as a strongpoint of the German fortifications known as the Gothic Line, the last and most unyielding line of German defensive works in Italy. During a flanking maneuver against German machine gun nests, Inouye was shot in the stomach from 40 yards away. Ignoring his wound, he proceeded with the attack and together with the unit, destroyed the first two machine gun nests. As his squad distracted the third machine gunner, the injured Inouye crawled toward the final bunker and came within 10 yards. As he prepared to toss a grenade within, a German soldier fired out a 30 mm Schiessbecher antipersonnel rifle grenade at Inouye, striking him in the right elbow. Although it failed to detonate, the blunt force of the grenade amputated most of his right arm at the elbow. The nature of the injury caused his arm muscles to involuntarily squeeze the grenade tightly via a reflex arc, preventing his arm from going limp and dropping a live grenade at his feet. This left him crippled, in terrible pain, under fire with minimal cover and staring at a live grenade “clenched in a fist that suddenly didn’t belong to me anymore.”[29]
Inouye’s platoon moved to his aid, but he shouted for them to keep back out of fear his severed fist would involuntarily relax and drop the grenade. As the German inside the bunker began reloading his rifle with regular full metal jacket ammunition to finish off Inouye, Inouye pried the live hand grenade from his useless right hand with his left, and tossed it into the bunker, killing the German. Stumbling to his feet, Inouye continued forward, killing at least one more German before suffering his fifth and final wound of the day in his left leg. Inouye fell unconscious, and awoke to see the worried men of his platoon hovering over him. His only comment before being carried away was to gruffly order them back to their positions, saying “Nobody called off the war!”[30] By the end of the day, the ridge had fallen to American control, without the loss of any soldiers in Inouye’s platoon.[31] The remainder of Inouye’s mutilated right arm was later amputated at a field hospital without proper anesthesia, as he had been given too much morphine at an aid station and it was feared any more would lower his blood pressure enough to kill him.[32] The war in Europe ended on May 8, less than three weeks later.”
And that is after having been shot the day before.
So ya.
3.) Scott Joplin was a songwriter and pianist. He basically invented ragtime and wrote some of (in my view) the best music of the 19th and 20th centuries. Also, I’ve never told anyone this, but I consistently mix in ragtime with the rest of my playlist.
4.) George Washington was the 1st president of the U.S. Ok, before you say generic there is actually a lot of interesting stuff about him that most people don’t know. First of all, he actually FOUGHT for the British in the French-Indian war, ending just 13 years before he revolted from the man he was named after. (King George) Also, he was shunned because he did not go to church; so people thought he was atheist.* In fact, he did what the bible actually says and prayed privately rather than at church. Also, he was super tall (over 6 foot, almost 2 meters if you’re not ‘murican) and strong. He once walked up to a bunch of young guys trying to throw a javelin and threw it way farther than them, proclaiming “when you beat my pitch, young gentlemen, I’ll try again.”
So ya. Short and sweet. Happy July 4th, and to all people living internationally, happy today!
*Life Hack: Don’t be atheist in 1776
Much Ado About Something 