T.R. says, College Football not Bully

New Year's Day has become synonymous with the college bowl season. Did you know the sport was almost outlawed before it every took off?

18 college players died in 1905. The game was simply too rough and the quintessential Rough Rider was going to fix it. Teddy Roosevelt saw a lot of potential in the game of football. It built comradery, team work, and was pretty fun to watch. It just needed to be more safe.

In 1905, T.R. invited representatives from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (yes, college football started in the Ivy League) to the White House to discuss setting up some new rules. As a result of this meeting, the American Football Rules Committee was formed the next year. This committee made the game more safe and enjoyable by instituting a few simple rules.

• the introduction of the forward pass
• first downs of 10 yards as opposed to 5
• outlawing mass formations and gang tackling

Later introductions such as pads, helmets, and facemasks didn't hurt either.

Pappy O'Daniel

Wilbert Lee O'Daniel is the only man to ever beat Lyndon Johnson in a general election.
Wow! He must have been a shrewd career politician.
Actually, he sold biscuits for a living.

O'Daniel was born in Ohio but grew up in Kansas. He moved to Fort Worth, TX in 1925 when he took a job at the Burrus Mills Flour Company. Eventually, he took over the radio advertising department for the company where he showed off his musical talents. For ten years, O'Daniel entertained the masses at 12:30 sharp singing the virtues of flour and the Bible. His catchphrase, "pass the biscuits, Pappy," earned him his famous nickname.

In 1938, Pappy ran for governor and won. In 1941, he ran against a young up and comer named Lyndon Johnson for Senate and won again. From there, things got tricky for Pappy. He was a rather ineffective Senator, opposed FDR pretty much every chance he got, didn't run for re-election in 1948, and lost two bids to regain the governorship of Texas. Still not a bad run for a radio personality.

Battle of the Crater

This is my favorite Civil War story. Picture this one in your head as you read.

The setting is just outside of Petersburg, VA in the Summer of 1864. For months, Union and Confederate forces have been stationed in trenches only 150 yards apart. Everyone was hungry and tired so some Pennsylvanians got creative. A few of the Keystone staters were coal miners by trade and decided they could dig a tunnel under the battlefield leading directly to the Confederate fort on the other side. It took four weeks but the soldiers managed to dig a 511 foot tunnel ending 20 feet below the Confederate fort. At the end of the tunnel was a huge room that they filled with 320 barrels of gunpowder.

In the middle of the night on July 30th, the fuse was lit. Nothing happened. Two brave soldiers ventured into the tunnel to see what happened. The fuse burned out. One relit the fuse and both ran out of the tunnel. In true Hollywood fashion, the bomb went off just as they exited the tunnel. Flames shot out of the cracks in the ground. A huge chunk of Earth was flung into the air. Confederate soldiers received quite the rude awakening. This was the of a lifetime opportunity for the Union army. Unfortunately, the enormity of the situation didn't only affect the Confederates. Many Union soldiers were so stunned by the explosion that they froze in place. It has even been said that the general in charge of the invasion got scared, hightailed it for a bunker, and began drinking rum as quickly as he could. The Confederates got their act together about the same time as the Union and delivered yet another Union loss on Virginia soil.

For more info, I suggest:
Steve Sheinkin's, Two Miserable Presidents

Bush or Bushnell, Inventor or Doctor

Let's get started with my favorite.

In 1740, a baby was born in what is today Old Saybrook, CT. David Bushnell was the first male born into what would be a pretty big farm family. David, however, was different from his brother and sisters. He was brilliant. After an agrarian and religious education, Bushnell enrolled at Yale College right about the time when America was thinking about breaking free from England. Good timing! While at Yale, Bushnell experimented with his favorite substance- gunpowder. In 1775, the not so young David (he enrolled in college only after the affairs of the family farm were in order) proved that gunpowder could detonate underwater and created a time bomb. Great ideas but how could they be put to practical use.

Why create a submarine, of course! One problem. Everyone else who attempted to create a submarine up until 1776 had failed miserably. But again, David was different. He was brilliant. Bushnell created a craft he called the Turtle (for obvious reasons). The craft was man-powered (by his brother, Ezra) and used various levers and pedals to move through the water. The powder keg was attached by a rope and a spike. The idea was to maneuver the submarine under a ship and attached the powder keg with the spike. Once the spike (keg attached) left the submarine, Bushnell's time bomb would start ticking.

Did it work? Not really. Two attempts were made in 1776 in New York Harbor, but unfortunately for David, he didn't take into account how hard the lining on the bottom of ships was. Another event led by Bushnell inspired the Battle of Kegs poem, but that's a story for another time.

After serving in the Army for the remainder of the war, David simply disappeared. A few years later, however, a certain Dr. David Bush appeared to Warrenton, GA. Dr. Bush was a kind older man who assumed not only the role of town physician but also served on various councils. Dr. Bush became all the more interesting when he died and the contents of his will revealed him as the inventor of the submarine; one David Bushnell.

For more info, I suggest:
I first heard this story in Webb Garrison's, Great Stories of the American Revolution.

Welcome

Welcome to "Stories of America." This blog will be a repository for what I consider the most amazing, thought provoking, strangest, and all around best stories from American history.

Let me introduce myself. I'm Ian. I am a social studies teacher and technology specialist from Pennsylvania. I currently blog at Ian's Blog but will probably be shutting down that venture in favor of this one. You can also see some of my work at History Tours. I'm a trained historian and a veteran teacher. I've often wondered if there was a way to pull together two things that I've grown to love over the course of my career; history and technology. Well, I hope I've found the answer. Enjoy!