Biblical or Modern?

Real Deal History (T or F) #5

Washington Irving

In this new series you will learn more about historical figures than many textbooks care to acknowledge. Last we have Washington Irving, the American writer. These five statements below are either true or false. Before you let your fingers run to Google, try answering these questions by yourself. Answers will be posted in a few days  Have fun and prepare to have your eyes opened.

1. Irving was the first person to refer to New York as "Gotham City".

2. In the story, Rip Van Winkle, Rip goes to sleep for twenty years.

3. Washington Irving gave us the phrase, "The almighty dollar".

4. Irving was born in London but became an American citizen twenty one years later.

5. Irving's 1828 book, A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, created the myth that medieval people thought the world was flat, whereas Columbus believed it was round.

Number 4 is the only false statement.

Bonus facts: In 1842, after an endorsement from Secretary of State Daniel Webster, President John Tyler appointed Irving as Minister to Spain.

The city of Irving, Texas, gives credit to Washington Irving for the town's name.

The town of Knickerbocker, Texas, was founded by two of Irving's nephews who named the town in honor of their uncle's literary pseudonym.

Real Deal History (T or F) #4

John Pierpont Morgan

In this new series you will learn more about historical figures than many textbooks care to acknowledge. Next in line is J.P. Morgan. These five statements below are either true or false. Before you let your fingers run to Google, try answering these questions by yourself. Answers will be posted in a few days  Have fun and prepare to have your eyes opened.

1. J. P. Morgan owned the Titanic.

2. J. P. Morgan had a purple nose.

3. Morgan's uncle, wrote "Jingle Bells" in 1857.

4. John Pierpont Morgan died in 1913, while visiting Thomas Edison in Menlo Park, New Jersey.

5. Morgan, who attended the Titanic's christening in 1911, was booked on the ill-fated April 1912 voyage but had to cancel.   

All true except for number 4

...and as far as a bonus...with J.P. Morgan, you get no bonus.

Real Deal History (T or F) #3

Henry Ford

In this new series you will learn more about historical figures than many textbooks care to acknowledge. Third in line is Henry Ford. These five statements below are either true or false. Before you let your fingers run to Google, try answering these questions by yourself. Answers will be posted in a few days  Have fun and prepare to have your eyes opened.

1. Henry Ford was the first industrial giant to give his workers both Saturday and Sunday off, in hope that it would encourage more leisure use of automobiles, and thus popularizing the idea of the "weekend".

2. Ford was awarded Hitler's Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle. 

3. Henry Ford made his suppliers of parts deliver the items in very specific wood crates. Ford Company would then disassemble the crates and use the wood in their autos.

4. Ford did not invent the automobile.

5. Henry Ford died in 1947 from injuries sustained in an automobile accident.

Only the fifth "fact" is false.

Henry Ford died in 1947 of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 83.

Bonus Ford fact: Henry Ford is the only American mentioned in Hitler's Mein Kampf.

Real Deal History (T or F) #2

Samuel Clemens alias Mark Twain

In this new series you will learn more about historical figures than many textbooks care to acknowledge. Second in line is Samuel Clemens, otherwise known as Mark Twain. These five statements below are either true or false. Before you let your fingers run to Google, try answering these questions by yourself. Answers will be posted in a few days  Have fun and prepare to have your eyes opened.

1. Mark Twain's book Tom Sawyer (1876) was the first novel ever to be written on a typewriter.

2. There are no direct heirs to Samuel Clemens surviving today..

3. Mark Twain was said to have been working on a ghost story right before his death. No one ever found it for he ordered all his manuscripts burned when he died.

4. Twain gave Anne Sullivan the label "miracle worker" for her work with Helen Keller.

5. Clemens once slapped Thomas Edison with a white glove when Edison made a remark about Nikola Tesla, Clemens close friend.

The only false statement above is number 5.

Bonus fact: Twain also used the pen names "Josh" as in just joshing and "John Snook" as in to snooker, and "Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass". Samuel Clemens used "Mark Twain" because in his clever wit, he was indicating shallow writing. With a flair for folksy humor that made Twain famous, he also added that "you could train a cat to do what I did. You could train a garden slug to do what I did, but the cat would be quicker."

Real Deal History (T or F) #1

Guglielmo Giovanni Marconi at desk

In this new series (and the next five days) you will learn more about historical figures than many textbooks care to acknowledge. First up , is Marconi. These five statements below are either true or false. Before you let your fingers run to Google, try answering these questions by yourself. Answers will be posted in a few days  Have fun and prepare to have your eyes opened.

1. Marconi was the inventor of the radio.

2. Part of his name (which I left out under the above photo) is "Maria".

3. At his wedding, Marconi's best man, was Fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini.

4. The Starship song "We Built This City" mentions Marconi. 

5. Marconi was a member of the Fascist Grand Council.

In the quiz above, every statement is true - except the first.

 

As early as 1892, Nikola Tesla created a basic design for radio. On November 8, 1898 he patented a radio controlled robot-boat.  Tesla used this boat which was controlled by radio waves  in the Electrical Exhibition in 1898, Madison Square Garden.

Tesla's robot-boat was constructed with an antenna, which transmitted the radio waves coming from the command post where Tesla was standing.  Those radio waves were received by a radio sensitive device called coherer, which transmitted the radio waves into mechanical movements of the propellers on the boat. 

Tesla changed the boat's direction, with manually operated controls on the command post.  Since this was the first application of radio waves, it made front page news, in America, at that time.

Most of us, think of Guglielmo Marconi as the father of radio, and Tesla is unknown for his work in radio. Marconi claimed all the first patents for radio, something originally developed by Tesla. Nikola Tesla tried to prove that he was the creator of radio but it wasn't until 1943, where Marconi's patents were deemed invalid by the U.S. Supreme Court and due credit given to Nikola Tesla - thus restoring Tesla (who had died a few months earlier) as the inventor of the radio.

True or False?

1. The Ten Commandments were written on two stone tablets using the front and back of each.
2. John Calvin was called "JC" by his close friends.
3. The Canary Islands were named for a breed of large dogs.
4. Cornelius Van Til invented the plug-in night light.
5. Jimmy Carter is the first president to have been born in a hospital.
6. D. James Kennedy used to sell goldfish door to door.
7. Thomas Jefferson invented the swivel chair.
8. C.H. Spurgeon crossed the Atlantic once to preach at the D.L. Moody college.
9. "Whosoever will may come", is not a verse found in the Bible.
10. The words, "You're pushing the envelope", appear in the ESV edition of the book of Jonah.

Answers: odd are true. even are all false. (for question 1 see Exodus 32:15)