Contrary To Popular Belief More Than 250 False Facts Revealed

George Washington was the ninth president of the United States. The United States was established on July 4, 1776. George Wash-ington was inaugurated president thirteen years later, on April 30, 1789. During the intervening years, the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia drew up the Articles of Confederation (the first American constitution). In 1781, Maryland representative John Hanson was elected the first president of the Congress of the Confederation. His official title was "president of the United States in Congress Assembled." After Hanson, seven other men served as president: Elias Boudinot, Thomas Mifflin, Richard Henry Lee, John Hancock, Nathaniel Gorham, Arthur St. Clair, and Cyrus Griffin. In 1787, Congress held a constitutional convention. The delegates wrote the current constitution, ratified by the states in 1788. The following year, the ratifying states elected Washington our nation's ninth president (but the first president under the new constitution). The song "As Time Goes By" was not written for the movie Casablanca. "As Time Goes By" (music by Herman Hupfeld, lyrics by Irving Kahal) was originally sung in the 1931 Broadway stage showEverybody's Welcome, and Rudy Vallee recorded the song later that year.Casablancapremiered eleven years later in 1942. The popularity of the movie prompted RCA to rerelease the Rudy Vallee recording. The Black Hills of South Dakota are not hills. Hills rise less than 1,000 feet from the surrounding area, while mountains rise above that height. The Black Hills rise from 2,000 to 4,000 feet above the surrounding area. Several peaks exceed 6,000 feet, and the highest "hill," Harney Peak, reaches 7,242 feet, higher than any peak in the Appalachian or Ozark mountains. The Sioux Indians named the mountains Paha Sapa ("hills of black") because from the plains, the pine trees covering the mountains appear black (and because the Sioux had no idea geologists strictly distinguished between hills and mountains). The Earl of Sandwich did not invent the sandwich. History's first recorded sandwich is the Hillel sandwich, invented by Rabbi Hillel between 70 B.C.E. and 10 C.E. The sandwich, eaten during Passover seders, consists of charosets (a combination of fruits, nuts, and honey) and bitter herbs between two pieces of matzah (Hebrew for "unleavened bread"). As early as the Middle Ages, Arabs have eaten meat stuffed inside a pocket of pita bread, and medieval European peasants ate bread and cheese lunches in the fields. John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718-1792), did eat sliced meats and cheeses between two pieces of bread to keep one hand free while playing cards at the gambling table, giving the sandwich its name, but not its origin. The tuxedo did not originate in England. In the summer of 1886, Pierre Lorillard IV, living in Tuxedo Park, a small hamlet in Westchester County, New York, did not want to wear formal black tie and tails to the annual Autumn Ball at his country club. He commissioned a tailor to make several semiformal tailless black jackets--in the style of the scarlet riding jackets popular with British fox hunters. Black tie and tails originated in England in the early 1800s. Lorillard may have been inspired by Edward VII, who during a visit to India as Prince of Wales had ordered the tails cut off his coat to keep cool in the heat. Ultimately, Lorillard did not wear the new dinner jacket to the ball, but his son, Griswold, and some of Griswold's friends, did--starting a trend. The jacket became known as the tuxedo, after the town, which was named after Algonquin Indian chief P'tauk-Seet (the P is silent), meaning "wolf." Congress did not sign the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. On July 4, 1776, theGreen, Joey is the author of 'Contrary To Popular Belief More Than 250 False Facts Revealed', published 2005 under ISBN 9780767919920 and ISBN 0767919920.