The Most Prolific Puritan ......

    

      Even for a Puritan, Cotton Mather showed extraordinary industriousness. The youngest student ever admitted to Harvard College, he published more than 450 books and pamphlets during his life. The works included histories, biographies, essays, sermons, and fables and concerned theology, philosophy, science, and medicine. Critics have praised the works generously,
     Cotton Mather's father, Increase, also wrote many books, but did not come close to his son's record. Increase wrote just 130 books, though he contributed to more than sixty-five others. Samuel Mather, Cotton's son was even less productive. He wrote a mere twenty volumes.

So Now You Know.....

The Scarlet Letter .......

    

 In 1695 the Puritans in Salem, Massachusetts, passed the law against adultery that suggested to Nathaniel Hawthorne the story of The Scarlet Letter. The Law provided that people convicted of adultery would have to wear the letter "A" on a conspicuous part of their clothes for the remainder of their lives. The law also made adulterers liable to a severe whipping of forty lashes and required them to sit in humiliation on the gallows with chains about tyheir necks for at least one hour. Harsh as these penalties were, however, they were much milder than the punishments common in New England just a few years before. In the middle of the seventeenth century the penalty for adultery in Massachusetts was death.
     In just one year during the third quarter of the seventeenth century, when the population of Boston was only 4,000, there were forty-eight instances of bastardy and fifty of fornication.

So Now You Know.....

Benjamin Franklin Didn't Discover Electricity? What a Shock!

     Here's the quickest way to disprove that Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity - it already had a name. Electricity comes from the Greek word elektron, which means "amber" (The Greeks discovered they could generate static electricity by rubbing amber with fur.) What Franklin was trying to prove in his 1752 experiment was the electrical mature of lightening - that lightening was, in fact, electricity. It is true that Franklin flew a kite with a key tied to the string - but the kite was not struck by lightening. If it had been, Franklin might have become a has-Ben. The spark that leapt from the key to Francklin's knuckle was caused by the flow of electrons that exists at all times between the ground and the sky, but during a thunderstorm, the electrons are more active. Had Benjamin Franklin, the inventor of Bifocal Glasses, actually been struck by lightening, he would have made a real spectacle of himself.


So Now You Know .....

The Myth of Magellan .........

After learning about Christopher Columbus sailing the ocean blue in 1492, we were taught that Ferdinand Magellan sailed around the world in a single trip (or circumnavigated  the globe, if you will). Well he didn't. Magellan, a Portuguese captain in the service of Spain, set out on August 10,1519, from Seville with five ships and a crew of 250 men. Things didn't go so well for old Magellan, though. His Three year journey was plagued with terrible weather, maps that weren't up to date, starvation, and violent mutiny. The truth of the matter is only one of Magellan's ships, the Victoria, arrived back in Seville, with only eighteen of its fifty crew-members alive. One other person who didn't make it was Ferdinand Magellan himself. When his ship landed on Mactan Island in the Philippines, he was met with a less than friendly reception party. Magellan died, face down on the beach, looking like a pincushion from the numerous spears sticking out of his body.


So Now You Know .....

Witches on LSD .........

The "Witches" of Salem, Massachusetts, who in 1692 swore they had seen "the devil at work," may have been simply a group ofn young girls hallucinating from contaminated bread. Researchers have recently postulated that the "witches" were suffering from ergotism, a toxic condition produced by eating grain tainted with the parasitic fungus ergot, genus Claviceps. Ergot is a hallucinogen related to lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD. Nineteen men and women were found guilty and hanged as a result of the trial, while one man was pressed to death between two stones.

So Now You Know ...........

Early American Justice ..... So Now You Know!

    

 In 1691 boat trader John Clark was found dead. His stolen supplies were uncovered in the home of Thomas Lutherland, an indentured servant from New Jersey. Lutherland was immediately arrested on a charge of murder.
     At the trial Clarks body was brought forward, To prove Lutherland's guilt or innocence, the court ordered the defendant to touch the corpse. The verdict would be based on the superstition widley believe in the New World that a dead body would bleed if touched by its murderer. Lutherland placed his hand on his postmortem accuser, but the cold body remained the same.
     Unfortunately for Lutherland, the court was not entirely bound by the confines of the superstition. The defendant was found guilty anyway and executed on February 23,1691.

So Now You Know

Why Is Paul Revere Revered?

"The Landlord's Tale; Paul Revere's Ride" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (not "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere," as most people call it) is one of the best known poems in American historical literature. But it's a poem - it isn't actual history. Paul Revere didn't make the historical ride into Concord, Massacusetts, to warn the citizens ' the British are coming!" He did, however ride into Lexington on April 17,1775, warning 'the regulars are coming!" (The British army was referred to as the "regular troops.") On April 18, Paul Revere, a cobbler named William Dawes, and a doctor named Samuel Prescott were heading toward Concord to warn citizens about British troop movements. Unfortunately, the three were spotted by a British patrol and Revere was captured and detained. Dawes headed back toward Lexington, but Prescott continued on into Concord and was able to warn the citizens. Revere was released by the British the next day and had to return to Lexington on foot - they'd kept his horse. So actually, it was a doctor named Samuel Prescott who made the immortal ride into Concord, Not Revere. I suppose Longfellow chose Revere because it's easier to rhyme than Prescott.

So now you know!