I can't quite remember reading that part, but that is indeed fascinating. :)
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Cuteness overload.
As far as I know Jefferson owned slaves and considered them to be inferior to white people... But he was also rumored to have a black concubine.
I guess I like Franklin the best, for being a science hero.
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Jefferson's attitude towards slavery was interesting. Like a lot of educated Southerners, he viewed it as an evil, but a necessary evil. The general hope of the South at that time was that slavery would die away within the next generation or two.
That attitude changed over the next fifty to sixty years. By the time of the American Civil War, the South's general attitude was that slavery was a positive good, and that it would be there to stay.
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.Until Ulysses S. Grant and his Union Army buddies showed up. ;P
I smell magic in the air. Or maybe barbecue.
I kinda love Alexander Hamilton, though a lot of that is because of the musical.
edited 20th Nov '16 3:08:03 PM by Rosvo1
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Franklin was a Cool Old Guy, but he was also a Dirty Old Man. As envoy to France during the war, he dallied with numerous French ladies young enough to be his granddaughters. (Of course, I'm judging him by modern American standards...)
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Causing freakouts over sourcing since 2018
Historian finds German decree banishing Trump's grandfather
A historian has discovered a royal decree issued to Donald Trump’s grandfather ordering him to leave Germany and never come back.
Friedrich Trump, a German, was issued with the document in February 1905, and ordered to leave the kingdom of Bavaria within eight weeks as punishment for having failed to do mandatory military service and failing to give authorities notice of his departure to the US when he first emigrated in 1885.
Kallstadt, Germany: on the trail of 'the Donald' in the Trump ancestral home Read more Roland Paul, a historian from Rhineland-Palatinate who found the document in local archives, told the tabloid Bild: “Friedrich Trump emigrated from Germany to the USA in 1885. However, he failed to de-register from his homeland and had not carried out his military service, which is why the authorities rejected his attempt at repatriation.”
The decree orders the “American citizen and pensioner Friedrich Trump” to leave the area “at the very latest on 1 May ... or else expect to be deported”. Bild called the archive find an “unspectacular piece of paper”, that had nevertheless “changed world history”.
Trump was born in Kallstadt, now in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, in 1869. He emigrated to the US aged 16 initially to escape poverty, attracted by the gold rush.
He quickly turned his attention to catering for the masses of other gold hunters in Alaska, later allegedly running a brothel for them, and there made his fortune. He habitually sent the gold nuggets with which his customers regularly paid for their food to his sisters who had already emigrated to New York and had started trading in property.
Returning on a visit to Kallstadt in 1901, Trump fell in love with Elisabeth Christ, whom he married a year later, returning with her to the US. But when she became homesick and wanted to return to Germany, the authorities blocked his attempts to settle there.
In an effort to overturn the royal decree dated 27 February 1905, Trump wrote an obsequious letter appealing to Prince Regent Luitpold, addressing him as “the much-loved, noble, wise and righteous sovereign and sublime ruler”.
But the prince rejected the appeal and the Trumps left Germany for New York with their daughter on the Hapag steamship Pennsylvania on 1 July 1905. Elisabeth was three months pregnant with Donald Trump’s father, Fred.
Residents of Kallstadt, a small wine-growing town of about 1,200 people in south-west Germany, joke that the blame for Trump becoming US president-elect lies with the German authorities who threw his grandfather out. They have so far shown little enthusiasm for claiming the businessman turned politician as their own.
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Jefferson became more pro slavery, and just more bitter and dickish in general, as he aged, putting him on the opposite trajectory of George Washington, who started out uncritical of the institution and ended up freeing his slaves upon his death. Mind you none of them were exactly paragons when it came to the "peculiar institution".
This literally explains everything. From gold loving right down to draft dogging, to even (allegedly) exploiting women's bodies, Fred Trump perfectly foreshadows his grandson.
edited 22nd Nov '16 2:42:24 PM by JackOLantern1337
I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.I recently remembered another fascinating thing about Thomas Jefferson. He was, as far as I know, the only President who was also a paleontologist. How cool is that? :)
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The sins of the grandfather are passed down to the son. Is it fair to say that Germany has ruined the world more than anyone else at this point?
edited 22nd Nov '16 4:16:56 PM by Bat178
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Oh do be fair, their trying more than anyone to preserve it right now. Germany's whole foreign policy is basically the atoner.
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WWIII turns out to be Germany singlehandedly saving the world from fascism. How's that for a plot twist? 
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You know it's really depressing that that is looking awfully likely these days.
I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.That'll make my younger brother happy. >.>
I smell magic in the air. Or maybe barbecue.
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Germany: Leader of the Free World.
"You can't change the world without getting your hands dirty."
But those were dependent of Germany attacking first.
Poor Germany. Forever blamed for Austria's mistakes.
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Kallstadt joins Linz on the list of towns that have to deal with Nazi pilgrimages.
Charlie Stross's cheerful, optimistic predictions for 2017, part one of three.
re: post 6709
Wasn't the Trump family name originally Drumpf, or something?
Tonight's episode of Expedition Unknown is covering the Roanoke Colony.
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So, I'd forgotten about this, but it seems an appropriate time to share again. US Thanksgiving Day was actually instituted by Abraham Lincoln.
More specifically, Thanksgiving had been an informal holiday, and a lot of states had it sometime in the fall. After the great victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg in July 1863, however, Lincoln declared a nationwide Thanksgiving at the end of that November, and that would go on to become our current holiday.
So, when you enjoy your day(s) off tomorrow, honor the spirit of old Abe Lincoln. Punch a white supremacist. Burn down Georgia. Fix bayonets and charge that guy with the Confederate flag who insists on Lost Cause-ing it up.
edit: I've been reproached by Lincoln's spirit and told that that is no way to behave "with malice toward none, with charity for all", the spoilsport.
Fine, fine. Don't do any of those things. In a spirit of charity, though, do approach the guy flying the Stars and Bars, point out that he's flying the outdated version, and offer to replace it with the final version of the Confederate flag.
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Not really a rumor. It's as close to fact as you can get. Sally's kids looked like Jefferson and using a DNA test it was confirmed that they were his descendants.
Sally Hemmings wasn't black though. She was 3/4 white and 1/4 black. She was even fair skinned although still a slave. She was also the half sister of Jefferson's wife who died before his relationship with Sally.
Sally's kids with Jefferson even entered the white community after Jefferson had them freed when he died as they hardly had any African blood. Yes, Jefferson kept his kids as slaves.
"You can't change the world without getting your hands dirty."
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That still would have made her black by the standards of the time, one drop rule and all that.
I've always found Thomas Jefferson and his legacy the most fascinating, as he is basically worshiped by modern American conservatives despite clearly harboring positions which would be considered unabashedly liberal today (e.g openly advocating for interracial marriage to improve race relations).