January 2007 Odd Wisconsin
Tonight, when Gov. Doyle presents the annual State of the State address, he probably won't open with the line, "Since your last annual session, nothing has transpired." But that's exactly how the 1853 State of the State address by Governor Leonard J. Farwell began. While things in Wisconsin have surely...
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Posted in Curiosities on January 29, 2007
In 1886, an aspiring young historian in New York wrote to Wisconsin Historical Society director Lyman Copeland Draper: “Although personally unknown to you, I take the liberty of writing to you… I am now engaged on a work in reference to the extension of our boundaries to the southward from...
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Posted in Curiosities on January 25, 2007
This week a new Congress debates an unpopular war begun by an incumbent President. Something of the same sort happened more than 150 years ago, when newly elected lawmakers came to Washington upset over President James K. Polk’s Mexican War. Among the leaders of the opposition was a freshman legislator...
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Posted in Curiosities on January 21, 2007
Tim Berners-Lee is generally credited with inventing the World Wide Web in 1990 when he created HTML, the programming language that enabled hyperlinks to connect one computer file with another (like the one on his name, above). Unlike most inventors, though, Berners-Lee didn't patent and license his software for profit:...
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Posted in Odd Lives on January 14, 2007
Gov. Tommy Thompson’s potential run for the White House prompted us to investigate the first Wisconsin resident floated as a presidential candidate. That turns out to have been Isaac P. Walker and, as is so often the case, his story has a strange twist. Walker (1813-1872) was the younger brother...
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Posted in Odd Lives on January 10, 2007
Much fuss was made in the media last week about the supposed commitment in the new Congress to a "pay-as-you-go" fiscal policy. The vast majority of House members pledged to expend only as much money as they have and to make deficit spending difficult. This merely brought them in line...
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Posted in Curiosities on January 7, 2007
Each Wednesday, an entirely different version of Odd Wisconsin runs on the front page of the Local section in the Wisconsin State Journal (like this online version, it is written by Society staff). Two weeks ago that column (given below) poked a bit of fun at Gov. Nelson Dewey (1813-1889),...
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Posted in Odd Lives on January 3, 2007
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