ARGUABLY THE GREATEST PRESIDENT

 

We know Abraham Lincoln saved the union of states, but at a great cost to his mental health and eventual physical demise. Lincoln suffered from clinical depression aggravated by the enormous cost of the war between the states. He was murdered shortly after victory, and never got to know how grateful most of us are to this day for keeping us “one nation, indivisible.”

 

We know about Lincoln’s childhood in a log cabin, and about the tragic loss of his beloved son Willie to typhoid fever while living in the White House. (The Lincolns lost another son twelve years earlier to tuberculosis.) These losses took their toll on Mary Todd Lincoln, and all in all made for very hard presidential years for Abe.

 

Here’s what I didn’t know until just before I blogged about it six years ago here. Abraham Lincoln was a bonified inventor. Almost on this date, May 22^nd in the year 1849, future U.S. president Abraham Lincoln was granted a patent for a boat-lifting device; he was the only U.S. president to have a patent. 

 

We’ve heard that a rising tide lifts all boats.  Now we know Lincoln did, both figuratively and in practice.

May 22nd in History

I stay away from politics on the Internet, because I have found that is makes good people behave and talk like bad people. Sometimes very bad people.

If you have followed any of my posts for any length of time, you know my fascination with “this day in history.” Lots of things happened on May 22^nd, this date in history. But the most interesting will bring out the venom of the politicos.

May 22^nd 1799, Napoleon declared Jerusalem for the Jews. Anyone who knows anything knows that it is central to the Jewish ancestral tradition in a way it is to no other tradition. But, whoa, don’t start me on that one.

May 22^nd 1942 The Steel Workers Organizing Committee disbands, and a new trade union, the United Steelworkers, is formed. Looky here; unions were both the best thing and what built the American middle class, or a cancer on our country— depending how your politics navigates your mind. Please don’t start.

May 22^nd 2015, Ireland declared Gay Marriage legal by popular vote. I like that this was done by popular vote and not by judicial decree, because legal marriage is a “communal acknowledgement” of status rather than a personal feeling. But, please, don’t start me on that one. (Well, I was the one who started— so woe on me.)

So here are some I hope we can celebrate together without bringing out the trolls and poisons that hatch in the mud:

760 14th recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet

1819 1st steam propelled vessel to cross Atlantic (Savannah leaves Ga)

1842 Farmers Lester Howe and Henry Wetsel discover Howe Caverns in New York State when they stumble upon a large gaping hole in the ground

^All on May 22^nd.

But I saved my favorite for last:

                 May 22^nd, 1849 Abraham Lincoln receives a patent (only US President to do so) for a device to lift a boat over shoals and obstructions..

Oh, I forgot. There are some who are still mad about Lincoln. I’ll celebrate anyway.