America's national Thanksgiving was won by the author of 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'. Sarah Josepha Hale campaigned for 17 years, and in 1863 her letter persuaded Lincoln.
More amazing facts
- 1825 1825: the first public steam railway opened in England, and in St Petersburg the Decembrists marched onto Senate Square.
- 1825 · 1864 Legend says Alexander I did not die in 1825 but faked his death and lived nearly 40 more years in Siberia as the hermit Feodor Kuzmich.
- 1831 The artist of The Great Wave went by at least thirty names in his lifetime, more than any other major Japanese artist of his day. 'Hokusai' is just the best known.
- 1834 Darwin ate a new species before realising it was one. On the Beagle voyage his companions shot a rhea and had it for dinner; only then did he see it was the elusive lesser rhea, later named Darwin's rhea.
- 1834 · 1840 · 1844 Russians once rioted over potatoes.
- 1834 Ketchup was once sold as medicine.