Friday Links Can't Do That, Dave

• Overheard in New York's most recent history-themed entry.


• This is more likely one for the "awesome" file than the "funny" file, but check it out anyway: in-depth video interviews with eight of the nine sitting Supreme Court justices. And where the hell were you, Souter? Hmm?


• The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum talks about some of the interesting detritus found in old planes.


• The 10 most strangely prophetic sci-fi movies. (Popular Mechanics)
  
• Here's another one that's not straight from the "funny" file, but is bizarrely fascinating all the same: a New York Times op-ed on the history of failed or botched executions in the United States.


• Finally, I got a great email from staff at the Sandusky Library in Ohio today, letting me know they enjoyed my site and pointing me to their detail-rich, absorbing Sandusky history blog. It's really quite a fun place. Check it out sometime!

Is the Smithsonian smarter than a fifth-grader?

Over at the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum, one of their exhibits has been erroneously referring to the Precambrian period as an "era" rather than a "supereon." It took 27 years for someone to notice, and that someone happened to be a fifth-grader.

If you listen to the piece, you learn that the Smithsonian acknowledged and corrected the gaffe (yay!), but sent their thanks to the wrong city and misspelled the kid's name (boo.).

There's a dance band on the Titanic playing "Nearer My God to Thee"

Today marks the 96th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. My new favorite blog, The Bowery Boys, commemorates the occasion by telling about some of the ship's more famous New York-native passengers. Previously unknown to me: John Jacob Astor was traveling with his 18-year-old wife, with whom he'd fled to Europe a few months prior in an attempt to avoid scandal.

Also, enjoy the 1997 film, reenacted in 30 seconds by bunnies.

The Other OTHER White Meat

History is Funny took a little unplanned vacation when the ol' day job intervened. Sorry about that. Hopefully we'll resume operations as usual soon.

In the meantime, today at work I learned more than anybody strictly needs to know about the pardoning of the Presidential turkey. Though the White House suggests this practice began with Truman, the Truman Library refutes this. Nobody seems to be sure where this tradition came from, though the photo gallery suggests it might have originated with JFK or Nixon.

Anyway, enjoy this image, from the Ford Library via the White House, of Gerald Ford introducing a live turkey to the frozen, dismembered corpse of one of its brethren. The turkey appears suitably horrified.

He made Westerns...and also this.

Today, on BoingBoing, there was a link to a fantastic little piece of forgotten history: Vietnam! Vietnam!, a pro-war documentary produced by the U.S. government and directed, at least nominally, by legendary Western filmmaker John Ford. The blogger who's presenting the film calls it "quite terrible," but the story of the film itself is fascinating.

You can view the entire film, plus read the original treatment, at the above link.

Friday Links really should have been on Mount Rushmore

As expected, the HBO miniseries John Adams is doing swimmingly - it's HBO's best miniseries debut in four years.

With that in mind, here's an all-Adams Friday Links.

• An interview with David Morse, who's playing George Washington. (TV Guide, via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
  
• A review that includes interviews with lots of cast and crew. (AP via Newsday)
  
• TIME's review.
  
• And here's a more light-hearted review, from Sarah Riley of the Appleton Post-Crescent in Wisconsin.
  
• For those of you who want to know more about John Adams in general, whether it's because you don't have HBO, you're distracted by Paul Giamatti's facial expressions, or you're just plain intrigued, here's a public-domain biography on Google Books. And of course we have to remember the ladies, so here are Abigail's letters.
  
• And Wikiquotes has some great Adams sound bytes if you're into that sort of thing.

For those of you who don't have HBO, never fear - it'll be out on DVD in June. Add it to your Netflix now!

I'm OK, you're OK, Martin's OK

It seems like nearly everybody I know watched the opener to the John Adams miniseries last night. I did not, but it is on my DVR and I'll post thoughts as soon as I get caught up.

One thing that strikes me - with all this attention paid to the miniseries, and the way the public has recently devoured various history books by McCullough, Ellis, and the like, geeking out about American history is cool again. This makes me happy - and it inclines me to put some more elbow grease into this blog, in hopes that I can sustain the history love just that much longer.

So if you have story ideas, suggestions, or if you'd like to guest blog, drop me a line or even just comment here.

For now, let's talk about Martin Van Buren.

You know, Martin Van Buren. Eighth president. Crazy-ass whiskers. First president born in the actual United States.

Okay, you probably don't know that much about him. I didn't myself until recently. Thanks to Cecil Adams, and a number of sources at work, I now know more than I ever thought I would about this man. In the process, I discovered what's probably Van Buren's greatest contribution to American life - namely, he likely originated a very important piece of American slang.

Van Buren was of Dutch extraction and was born and raised in the Dutch-American enclave of Kinderhook, New York, earning him the nickname "Old Kinderhook" when he began campaigning for President in 1836. Eventually, his Democratic supporters in New York State took that name for their political club, and abbreviated it "OK." "OK" had previously been used as a jokey editorial abbreviation meaning "oll korrect," but it was its double meaning in politics that caused the expression to really take root.

Although his attempts to build an independent treasury are often underemphasized when talking about his political contribution, Old Kinderhook was generally regarded as less than OK by his contemporaries, and historians have been no kinder. He was unseated fairly handily by Whig candidate William Henry Harrison in 1840, though he remained politically active for the rest of his life, primarily devoting himself to the abolitionist cause. He attempted to run again for president in 1844 but the Democrats declined to back him, so he formed his own party, the Free-Soil party, and tried again in 1848. You have to admire the guy's tenacity.

The Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia has an excellent gateway page to all the Van Buren trivia you could ever want.

Should you ever feel like visiting Kinderhook, stop by the Martin Van Buren National Historical Site. If the Metro-North ran that far up, you can bet I'd be doing exactly that ASAP. As it is, I think it'll have to wait until I can join forces with fellow geeks who are also car owners.