Status Updates From It all Started with Columbus

"GLOSSARY OF TERMS.
Conservative: A man who saves his money (even before women and children)" (121). Ouch, but...

"Those who thought [Kennedy's] voice might change after he had been in office a while did not realize that the New England accent has been with us for more than three hundred years" (118).

"General MacArthur wanted to bomb the Chinese bases, but since all Chinese look alike, President Truman was afraid he might also hit an occasional baritone or tenor" (114). Oooof that did not age well (although I don't know if it would've even been normal at the time of publication for non white dudes)

"The Russians were afraid of Finland, a large and powerful nation that constantly threatened their security with warlike acts such as playing the music of Sibelius" (110). Duuhhhhh dun. Duhhhhh duh duh duhhhhhh duh duh (wahwahwahwahwahwah wah wah)

"[William Howard Taft's] great hunger (and wealth) led him to demand steaks for breakfast.[1]
[1]Thus becoming widely known as the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" (96). Is this...is this a shout-out to autocrat coffee syrup?

"Roosevelt was known as a man of unquenchable energy. He paid little attention to rank, money, and social position, perhaps because he had so much of all three" (94).

"As a boy, Roosevelt was weak and sickly, but he built himself up by boxing and taking exercises with dumbbells in a gymnasium. Gradually he became more and more robust, despite several years at Harvard" (93).

"Henry Ford was fond of saying, 'History is bunk.' Historians, in turn, called Henry Ford 'a damned old crankshaft'" (86).

"Vanderbilt's control of carts and cartels gave him a virtual monotony of transportation. One of his favorite expressions, which endeared him to everyone, was 'The public be damned'" (85).

"...crack shots[1]
[1]Able to shoot through narrow cracks and knotholes" (78). Hadn't thought about where this expression came from before but I am now

"Lincoln always read lying on his stomach in front of an open fireplace. Thus he developed an insatiable curiosity and a sacroiliac condition" (71).

"On one occasion, [John C. Frémont's] food supply ran so low that he was forced to eat his own horse, from which he first dismounted. Altogether he traveled six thousand miles, partly on horseback and partly on a full stomach" (59).

"Webster was famous for using long words that other people could not spell, and therefore is said to have held his audiences spellbound" (55).

"A famous statesman and orator at this time was Daniel Webster. When he was on the Dartmouth College debating team, he spoke against the best-known debaters of the country, including the Devil, who represented Harvard" (55).

"Lord Cornwallis, handing his sword to General Washington, is reported to have said, 'Good show, old boy.' This expression is untranslatable" (32).

"The English have always been a seafaring race, ever since they were Danes" (12).

"While in Holland, the Pilgrims suffered from pangs of sin[1]
[1] Some years later a man named Sigmund Fraud claimed they enjoyed it" (8)

"The redskins resented the whiteskins because they thought they had come to take the land away from them, and their fears were well grounded" (6).

"The chief Indian was named Hiawatha, and his squaw, whose name was Evangeline, did all the work. This was later to become an Old American Custom" (6).

"The chief Indian was named Hiawatha, and his squaw, whose name was Evangeline, did all the work. This was later to become an Old American Custom" (6). I guess this truly is my just deserts for reading multiple books published in the mid-20th century, but yeeeesh