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The More You Know: Tippecanoe and Tyler Who(‘s your daddy?)
A Tippy Canoe
Which brings me to today’s mind-bender. When President John Tyler was born in 1790, President Washington had nine years left to live. When Thomas Jefferson died, Tyler was almost 40 years old. Well, Mr. Tyler had a child who had a child, a grandchild if you will. When might this grandchild have passed on to the great beyond? When did this youngster, who could easily have bragged, “My grandfather was the 10th president of the United States and regularly chatted with the founding fathers,” skip the bonds of earthly existence? When indeed? 1890? 1920?
Answer: Never. Born in 1928, Harrison Ruffin Tyler is currently 94 years old, and resides in the enduring homeland of the Tyler clan – the state of Virginia. That’s right, just like Navy Joan Biden, Harrison can brag of a president grandfather. Interesting fact, only one president grandfather swears he was arrested trying to visit George Washington in a South African jail.
Published in General
A few years back when we had this discussion, I believe there were still two grandsons left.
Well, there is one left now. And they are not making any more.
Pedantic point: Unless someone changed the rules of arithmetic when I wasn’t looking, Tyler was 19 when Tommy J left office in 1809.
You are correct. I have corrected it to refer to TJ’s death in 1826.
My personal favorite of these is that it is more historically accurate to create an illustration of a T-Rex using an iphone than it is to create an illustration of a T Rex interacting with a Stegosaurus. [T-Rexes lived 65-ish million years ago, Stegosauruses 150 million…]
Although, the T Rex/iPhone interaction is hobbled by the lack of opposable thumbs in a way that does not plague the Stegosaurus rough housing.
That’s what Siri is for.
You are right, it has always seemed like a lot longer.
(I tried to send you a suggested edit PM on this but gave up after a bunch of frustrating experiences with Ricochet’s creatively designed and non-judgmentally tested user interface. So I am cleverly giving a hint of a suggested edit in the first line of this message that I hope only you can decrypt. ;-)
Cheers and Willkommen in Rikochet.
Yipes. You are right. 2000 years. Thanks.
No, Cleopatra predates us by about 2,000 years.
The main point remains correct — the time that passed between the Pyramids and Cleopatra is comparable to the time that passed between Cleopatra and us.
There is a “Phantom Time Hypothesis” claiming that about 300 years were inserted into our historical timeline, lengthening the period of the Roman Empire. I don’t find it convincing, though it is interesting. Even if true, Cleopatra would still be over 1,700 years before us.
I have never heard of this. Now I gotta check it out. Weird and interesting. Thank Jerry! I mean that!
My wife and I are the same age and frequently notice how history, and pop culture markers, sometimes have a surprise or two. We listen to a radio station that brags about their Eighties music (34-43 years old now) and note that in actual, say, 1982 I don’t recall that music radio was obsessed with hits from 1939-1948.
I remember the week that Star Wars opened in 1977. 46 years ago. That’s now nearly halfway back to the beginning of sound films.
Just after the turn of the century, I saw an article (probably in National Review) that pointed out that Ronald Reagan’s inauguration (1981) was now closer to JFK’s time than to ours. That doesn’t seem so surprising now, but 20 years ago it was.
Shhh! Other people can hear you!
And Joe Biden’s birth was closer to the end of the Civil War than it is to today.
Next June we’ll be as far from Reagan’s “These are the boys of Point Du Hoc” speech on the 40th anniversary of D-Day, as that speech was from D-Day itself.
One of my favorite debunkers:
I’ve always had my doubts about this. Fathering children at 63 and then 75? Yeah, it’s possible, but maybe they should have checked out the milkman (men)?
Al Pacino would like a word with you.
I’m not sure a Like was the proper response.
What. You don’t believe in science?
We need an Ew button for this post.
You know how hard a stegosaurus was to ride?
Kind of had to go side-saddle with the opposing plates.
Tony Randall too.
Don’t know if this was mentioned. De Niro became a father again at 79.
Sorry, I’d need to see a DNA test.
I’m missing the connection to Biden. What is that about?
I was born (1963) closer to WWI than we are now to WWII.
I met with a friend in Spain and she was showing me around. The place was this many centuries old, that place another centuries old.
One time she was showing me a building that was 500 years old, and I told her how amazing that was. “It is only five people ago,” was her response.