Obscure American history trivia

I was just out working on a story with the guy who farms right next door to the Tyler plantation in Va. He told me about going over there all the time when he was a kid.

My favorite addendum to the “living grandchild” tidbit is that Tyler had another grandson who was wounded while planting the Confederate flag on the rock wall at the center of the Union line during Pickett’s Charge.

So, a guy living today had a first cousin wounded in Pickett’s Charge.

 

Getting back to Van Buren, here's one that may be too easy for this crowd: what popular American expression is associated with him?

 

Somehow I don't think it's "Tippecanoe, and Tyler too", but I'm happy to use it at any and every opportunity.

 

You're correct, it's not that.

 

OK

 

That's it. It was a fad in the late 1830s to use abbreviations much as we do on the internet, such as LOL, LMFAO, etc. The twist back then was that the abbrevs would be for misspelled words. "OK" began as an abbreviation for "Oll Korrect" in a Boston magazine, and it became popular among the hipsters of the day.

Van Buren, whose nickname was "Old Kinderhook" (for his hometown of Kinderhook, NY), picked up OK as a campaign slogan in his failed 1840 run for re-election. He lost, but he helped spread the popularity of "OK" in the process.

 

"Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke"

No, that's probably not it.

 

That sounds more like a Trump slogan.

In fact, I noticed a new Trumpist sign in front of a dirtball neighbor's house recently: "Fuck Biden" "And fuck you too for voting for him." The sign is graphically very similar to the Trump flags and stuff. Has anyone else seen any of these new signs?

 

It's been answered, but there's a lesser known one that will keep you out of trouble in certain areas of New York.

 

Shoot, on the Front Range, that can be done in five hours.

 

Notre Dame is a member of the ACC... just sayin'

 

This obscure (at the time) Union Lt. helped win the battle of Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, by leading the 140th NY up the back side of Little Round Top, where they immediately stopped the charge of Texans and and Alabamans by plugging a breech in the line caused by the collapse of the 16th Michigan.

By the end of the 19th century this soldier was known throughout the world and the impact of his work is still impactful today. Who was that soldier?