Missouri Trivia & Tidbits - Page 17

Looking for Missouri trivia? Try our list Missouri little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

Titantic survivor Margaret Tobin Brown was born in Hannibal in 1867. The home where she was born has been restored as a museum, with displays of family items and Titanic memorabilia.

first appeared: 1/21/2001

Stuart Symington, a U.S. senator for Missouri from 1953 to 1977, was America’s first Secretary of the Air Force, appointed in 1946 by President Harry S. Truman.

first appeared: 1/14/2001

Outlaws Jesse and Frank James grew up on a farm near Kearney (pop. 4,025) and pulled off the nation’s first daylight bank robbery in Liberty (pop. 24,270) in 1866.

first appeared: 1/7/2001

Gen. John J. Pershing was born Sept. 13, 1860, on a farm in Linn County. He was a local school teacher before entering the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and commanding American troops in World War I.

first appeared: 12/31/2000

Dr. Andrew Taylor Still opened the first school of osteopathy in a small frame building in Kirksville (pop. 17,107) in 1892. It is now called the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine.

first appeared: 12/24/2000

During the Civil War, the town of Nevada (pop. 8,228) was burned by Union troops following an ambush by Confederate guerillas called bushwackers. A museum there containing artifacts from the period was named for those guerillas.

first appeared: 12/17/2000

Joseph Pulitzer, whose will established the Pulitzer Prize, began in journalism as a reporter on a German daily newspaper, the Westliche Post, in St. Louis.

first appeared: 12/10/2000

In 1995, Gov. Mel Carnahan designated the mule as the official state animal. This infertile offspring of a female horse and a male donkey is durable, long-lived, sure-footed, has great stamina, and pound for pound is stronger than a horse.

first appeared: 12/3/2000

In 1894, Almanzo and Laura Ingalls Wilder, with their daughter Rose, moved to a farm near Mansfield (pop. 1,625) where Laura later penned the manuscripts for the beloved Little House books.

first appeared: 11/26/2000

When Mark Twain was born on Nov. 30, 1835, Halley's Comet was visible in the sky over Florida, Mo., Twain's birthplace. He predicted in 1909 that he would die when the comet returned. When Twain died on April 21, 1910, the comet was once again passing overhead.

first appeared: 11/19/2000

When Bagnell Dam was completed on the Osage River in 1931, it created what was at the time the world's largest man-made lake. Lake of the Ozarks in central Missouri covers 57,000 acres and holds 617 billion gallons of water.

first appeared: 11/12/2000

Congressman Willard Duncan Vandiver is credited with creating the state motto in 1899 when he said: “I’m from Missouri and you’ve got to show me.”

first appeared: 11/5/2000

Army Capt. Albert Berry is believed to be the first person to parachute successfully from an airplane. Berry jumped from a plane over St. Louis on March 1, 1912.

first appeared: 10/22/2000

The Missouri Meerschaum Co. in Washington (pop. 12,210) is the world’s oldest and largest manufacturer of corn cob pipes. Dutch immigrant Henry Tibbe founded the company in 1869 when he started turning the pipes on his woodworking lathe.

first appeared: 10/8/2000

The square dance was adopted as Missouri’s official American folk dance in 1995. Square dances are derived from folk and courtship dances brought to the United States by European immigrants. Lively music and callers are hallmarks of square dancing.

first appeared: 9/24/2000

Marceline was the boyhood home of Walt Disney—cartoonist, animator, and founder of the Disney empire. Born in Chicago in 1901, Disney and his family arrived in Marceline in 1906. In 1910, the family sold the farm and moved to Kansas City.

first appeared: 9/10/2000

In 1929, Charles Grigg of Price’s Branch invented a drink called Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda. Sales increased significantly a few years later when he renamed it 7 Up. It’s not certain how Grigg came up with the name.

first appeared: 8/27/2000

The fiddle became Missouri’s official musical instrument in 1987. Fur traders and settlers first brought the instrument to the state in the late 1700s. The fiddle is adaptable to many forms of music, requires little formal training, and is light and easy to carry. For generations, the local fiddle player was the sole source of entertainment in many communities.

first appeared: 8/13/2000

Two vendors thought fast during the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, and the results are iced tea and the waffle cone. Englishman Richard Blechynden’s tea concession wasn’t doing well, and since it was a sweltering day, he added ice. The waffle ice cream cone was invented when an ice cream vendor ran out of cups and asked a waffle vendor to help by rolling up waffles to hold the ice cream.

first appeared: 7/30/2000

On Feb. 7, 1812, New Madrid (pop. 3,275) was epicenter of the largest earthquake in the contiguous United States. The quake measured an estimated 7.9 on the Richter scale. Giant waves on the Mississippi River reportedly capsized boats and cast others high on the shore.

first appeared: 7/16/2000

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