1. Teddy Roosevelt, the Bar Brawler
Theodore Roosevelt described his encounter with an armed bully in a Montana bar: “As soon as he saw me he hailed me as ‘Four Eyes,’ in reference to my spectacles, and said, ‘Four Eyes is going to treat.’ I joined in the laugh and got behind the stove and sat down, thinking to escape notice. He followed me, however, and though I tried to pass it off as a jest this merely made him more offensive, and he stood leaning over me, a gun in each hand, using very foul language… In response to his reiterated command that I should set up the drinks, I said, ‘Well, if I’ve got to, I’ve got to,’ and rose, looking past him.
As I rose, I struck quick and hard with my right just to one side of the point of his jaw, hitting with my left as I straightened out, and then again with my right. He fired the guns, but I do not know whether this was merely a convulsive action of his hands, or whether he was trying to shoot at me. When he went down he struck the corner of the bar with his head… if he had moved I was about to drop on my knees; but he was senseless. I took away his guns, and the other people in the room, who were now loud in their denunciation of him, hustled him out and put him in the shed“. The next day, the humiliated loudmouth left town on a freight train.
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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading
Auto Blog – LBJ’s Amphibious Car Caught Friends and Dignitaries by Surprise
Brodie, Fawn McKay – Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (1974)
Business Insider, July 8th, 2014 – Ancient US Presidential Scandal Revealed
Cheat Sheet – Shocking Scandals of Former US Presidents
Cracked – 5 Nutty Moments From the Lives (and Deaths) of America’s First Leaders
Dallek, Robert – Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President (2004)
Dickinson College – Benjamin Rush, Race, Slavery, and Abolitionism
Dugatkin, Lee Alan – Mr. Jefferson and the Giant Moose: Natural History in Early America (2009)
Encyclopedia Britannica – Gouverneur Morris
Encyclopedia Britannica – John Jay, United States Statesman and Chief Justice
Gawker – LBJ Was Obsessed With His Dick
Gizmodo – Which President Greenlit a Trip to the Center of the Earth?
Grunge – US Presidents Who Were Really Weird People
Guardian, The, January 22nd, 2018 – Why Lyndon Johnson, a Truly Awful Man, is My Political Hero
Heavy – Jennifer Fitzgerald: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know
History Collection – 10 Conspiracies Which are Far From Conspiracy Theories
Kaplan, Fred – John Quincy Adams: American Visionary (2014)
Listverse – 10 Stories That Show the Weird Side of Thomas Jefferson
Los Angeles Times, August 13th, 2005 – When Justices Won’t Go
National Park Service – Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Vehicles
National Public Radio – Thomas Jefferson Needs a Dead Moose Right Now to Defend America
New York Times, August 12th, 2015 – DNA is Said to Solve Mystery of Warren Harding’s Love Life
Rumpus, The, February 21st, 2011 – On This Presidents’ Day: A Brief History of Presidential S*x
Sandburg, Carl – Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years (1929)
Sandburg, Carl – Abraham Lincoln: The War Years (1939)
Smithsonian Magazine, June 17th, 2014 – The Gory New York City Riot That Shaped American Medicine
Time Magazine, July 7th, 2003 – Why He Was a Babe Magnet
Times, The, September 19th, 2004 – Mistress of Influence: Bush’s ‘Other Wife’