New York Trivia & Tidbits - Page 16

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

Seneca Falls (pop. 7,400) is known as the birthplace of the women’s rights movement. Among its former residents is Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), organizer of the first women’s rights convention—held in Seneca Falls in 1846—and an early feminist leader.

first appeared: 7/15/2001

Gerrit Smith Miller (1845-1937), a native of Cazenovia (pop. 3,000), invented the modern game of American football, adapting it from a form of rugby in 1860-62.

first appeared: 7/8/2001

Frederick Remington (1861-1909), sculptor and painter of the American West, was born in Canton (pop. 6,400), where his father was editor of the local newspaper.

first appeared: 7/1/2001

Newburgh (pop. 26,500) was the site of George Washington’s headquarters for more than a year during the Revolutionary War. Washington’s Headquarters State Historic Site in Newburgh was the first publicly owned historic site in America.

first appeared: 6/24/2001

Landscape artist Rockwell Kent (1882–1971) was born in Tarrytown (pop. 11,400). Kent’s paintings are notable for their stark, powerful style. Among his major works are Winter (Metropolitan Museum), Down to the Sea (Brooklyn Museum), and Toilers of the Sea (Art Institute of Chicago).

first appeared: 6/17/2001

New York State has 1,300 museums and galleries, 64 performing arts centers, and 230 theaters offering dramatic productions.

first appeared: 6/10/2001

Near the shore of Cayuga Lake in central New York, the state’s highest waterfall, Taughannock, drops 215 feet. It is some 50 feet higher than the falls at Niagara.

first appeared: 6/3/2001

Rising in Pennsylvania and emptying into Lake Ontario, seven miles north of Rochester, the Genesee is one of the few rivers in the country that flows south to north.

first appeared: 5/27/2001

Star of stage and screen, Ethel Merman (1908-1984) was born in Astoria (a part of Queens) as Ethel Agnes Zimmerman. Singing for four decades, well into her 70s, her many stage credits include Anything Goes (1934), Annie Get Your Gun (1946), Gypsy (1959), and Hello Dolly (1966), but she’s best known for her vigorous rendition of God Bless America.

first appeared: 5/20/2001

In 1843, congressman Zadock Pratt commissioned a stonecutter to carve an image of his son, a horse, and a brawny arm holding a sledgehammer on a cliff overhanging the Pratt’s 350-acre farm in Prattsville (pop. 780). The task took 28 years.

first appeared: 5/13/2001

The world’s largest light bulb—75,000 watts—was hand-blown at the Corning Glass Works in Corning (pop. 11,356) in 1954 to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Thomas Edison’s invention of the incandescent lamp.

first appeared: 5/6/2001

Beginning in 1829, one of the first railroads in America, the Mohawk & Hudson, ran 11 miles between Albany and Schenectady. In the 1840s, the railroad joined six others to become the New York Central.

first appeared: 4/29/2001

Chewing gum reached the United States in the late 1800s when Gen. Santa Ana was exiled to New York after the Mexican Revolution, bringing chicle (gum) with him. Chicle derives from the sapodilla tree, which grows in Mexico’s Yucatan desert.

first appeared: 4/22/2001

Henry Burden of Troy patented the first machine for manufacturing horseshoes on Nov. 23, 1835. Burden later oversaw the production of most of the horseshoes used by the Union cavalry during the Civil War.

first appeared: 4/15/2001

The zip code 12345 is assigned to the General Electric plant in Schenectady.

first appeared: 4/8/2001

After California, New York is the second-largest wine-producing state in the nation. Some of the country’s best Rieslings are made in the upstate Finger Lakes district.

first appeared: 4/1/2001

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) was born in West Hills (pop. 5,800). The publication of Leaves of Grass in 1855 would eventually make him famous and establish his reputation of one of America’s most important poets. At different times he was a printer, teacher, newspaper editor, and carpenter.

first appeared: 3/25/2001

George Pullman (1831-1897), born in Brocton, invented the Pullman sleeping car. One of the first Pullmans was attached to the funeral train carrying Abraham Lincoln’s body from Washington D.C. to Springfield, Ill.

first appeared: 3/18/2001

New York born poet Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) co-published the anti-slavery newspaper The Commonwealth with her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe. In 1861, she wrote the words to The Battle Hymn of the Republic, which became a popular song of the Union Army during the Civil War.

first appeared: 3/11/2001

In New York state, a law still on the books makes it illegal to shoot a rabbit from a moving trolley car. Presumably, the law is seldom enforced.

first appeared: 3/4/2001

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