Tag Archives: Civil War

AFFotD Presents: Dunking on Old Timey Pictures of Civil War Generals

Posted on September 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Lol this is the dumbest thing we’ve ever written that’ll randomly make very uninteresting people very mad.”

~Our Lawyers

Image of Civil War battle

The Civil War is, apparently, a very complex and complicated subject, which is weird because it kind of seems that the two sides were “America” and “a group of people who wanted to not be part of America and lost, and wanted slaves” but maybe that’s just our silly American tendency to root for winners.

Anyway, if you’re here to examine the nuance of the Civil War’s socioeconomic impact on this country, or even hear a semi-coherent history of the war, we have terrible news. This article isn’t that.

But if you are here to see us post pictures of a bunch of Union and Confederate Generals and just roast them mercilessly because every Civil War General looked like a fucking Muppet, well, you’re in luck. Because we are here to prove that…

Every Picture of Every Civil War General Is Low-Key Hilarious

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in 19th Century Factoids, Grant

Tagged ,

Boston Corbett: The (Insane) Killer Of John Wilkes Booth

Posted on March 17, 2015 | 2 comments

“I mean, yeah.”

Boston Corbett, when asked “like, are you crazy, or?”

boston corbett

So, let’s talk about history, shall we?  American history, naturally, because that’s the best kind, and all you “our church was made in 1103, and our beer has been brewed for a thousand years” European ninnys can hand us the beer, sure, but otherwise shut your damn mouths.  American history is great, largely because, and we can’t believe how this gets glossed over in our Social Studies books in elementary school, but it is deeply weird a lot of the time.  Like, we once had a president die because he drank a bunch of milk and ate too many cherries.  Died!  A real honest-to-God Commander-in-Chief died doing an impression of someone who plays Pac Man but keeps wanting to be able to eat the ghosts.

So the point is, American history is awesome, and entertaining, and deeply, deeply weird, and we at America Fun Fact of the Day embrace that, because it means that every day we can come across something we didn’t know that suddenly becomes our new favorite fact.

For example, Boston Corbett, the man who shot and killed Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, was a self-castrated soldier driven mad by mercury poison.  Let’s talk about that motherfucker, right?  Okay then!

Boston Corbett:  The (Insane) Killer Of John Wilkes Booth

corbett 2 Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in Fighters, Lincoln

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

The Fenian Brotherhood: Invading Canada, From America, For Ireland

Posted on January 6, 2015 | Leave a comment

“Ha ha, guys, what are you doing?  Come on, stop that.”

~American and Canadian Forces, 1866

fenian

For years, we’ve treated Canada like our polite, little brother to the North.  They’re friendly, they send over some comedians we like, and excluding the time they killed the Baldwin family in the South Park movie, they’ve been an adequate ally and neighbor.  We tend to forget that they’re technically still a Commonwealth of England, with the Queen on their currency and everything, but we don’t really care about that, since we’ve not really had a beef with England since they burned down our White House and we were forced to replace it with a much more kickass presidential residence.

Now, while Canada has never really done anything wrong by us, England does have its fair share of people pissed off at them.  Like, say, the Irish.  Oh yeah, the Irish have a very sticky history with England and, well, there’s no nuanced way to say this so we’ll just spit it out—a bunch of Irish Americans invaded Canada as a “fuck you” to England, which is just about the closest we as a nation has come to invading Canada since the early 1800s.  So that’s a thing, a thing that happened, in history.  Let’s talk about it.

That One Time the Fenian Brotherhood Kept Invading Canada From America

fenian 2 Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in 19th Century Factoids, England, Strange America, The Rest of Them

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Mummified Human Body Parts On Display Throughout The World

Posted on May 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

“You’re doing what with my what!?”

~American Civil War Soldier

You know when you’re mowing your lawn and you stumble across something gross or unpleasant?  It can be pretty shocking, right?  Like, “Oh just mowing the lawn and HOLY SHIT THERE’S A DEAD BAT!”  That totally happened to one of our staff members.  He didn’t run it over, but he was tempted.

Anyway, no matter what you’ve ever accidentally stumbled across, be it dog shit or a DVD of Carrot Top: Rocks Las Vegas, you have nothing on a lone American farmer who discovered a severed arm after the battle of Antietam.  How do we know this happened?  Because unlike most sane individuals, this farmer decided to dunk the arm in brine, and it’s still around to this very day, having just been donated to a Civil War Museum.

Wait, what?  Well, time for us to launch into our newest segment…

Hey America, That’s Gross.  Stop It!:  The Severed Civil War Arm On Display At A Museum 

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Strange America

Tagged , , ,

AFFotD Presents a Week of American Holidays (Part Three)

Posted on July 6, 2011 | Leave a comment

“Who even gives a shit about August 26th being Women’s Equality Day, huh?  What kind of bullshit is that?

~National Dog Day, which occurs on August 26th

As we saw in yesterday’s Fun Fact, Holidays are pretty cool.  Even the lame holidays are fine in our book, so long as we get a day off from them.  However, there are many holidays in America that you can get the day off in certain parts of the country, but not everywhere else, mainly because Alabama wants to act all douchey by giving a day off for “Confederacy Day.”

Yeah, that makes sense.  “Oh, we lost a war, let’s reward ourselves with a day off from school.”  That’d be like England taking a day off to celebrate losing the Revolutionary War, only the Brits would at least have the good sense to call it the, “Oh Blimey, We Bollocks Up the Wanker With This One” Day or whatever the fuck because everything that British people say sounds fucking ridiculous.

“Oh I hobgobbed the  wobbler in the lift with the wassbots, blah blah Fish and Chips.”  We’re pretty sure she just ordered a bomb strike on Grenada with that sentence.

With that in mind, AFFotD is here to continue our discussion of American Holidays, with a look at some of the more tenuous excuses to give people a day off from school around the nation.  This list, as always will be in order of least American to most American. Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in America's Holidays

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Civil War’s Most Glorious Mustaches

Posted on May 31, 2011 | 6 comments

“Prrrrfftt plabber prrrftt sorry my glorious mustache was in my mouth, you see.”

~Ambrose Burnside

Every great war leaves behind a cultural legacy.  The Vietnam War spurned on counter-culture and PTSD.  World War II developed and hardened the so-called “Greatest Generation.”  The Korean War led to M*A*S*H*.  The impact of these conflicts have been scorched into our memory, making irreplaceable connections in our minds.  So, while we were riffling through the Smithsonian website looking for blueprints (we heard they have the Fonzie’s jacket there, and we fucking want it) we stumbled across this little item regarding the Civil War.  Because, when you think of the Civil War, clearly the one thing you associate with it is slavery glorious facial hair.

We were going to do a fun fact on the importance of office safety, ever since we had to send [REDACTED] to the hospital when he started shouting, “GONZO JOURNALISM” and licking our supply of poison arrow frogs, but really, we figure this is more important.  So, let’s rate some facial hair, everyone.

Continue reading →

6 Comments

Posted in America's Greatest Fun Facts, Fighters

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

America’s Greatest Prison Breaks (Part 1)

Posted on May 17, 2011 | 1 comment

“Houdini!”

~Ricky Bobby

America has always had a fascination with escapes.  We make movies about escaping POW camps, our favorite game during Recess was Jail Break, and there was that one show on Fox that we only really watched for the first season, but apparently lasted for more seasons than Arrested Development.  There’s something American about sticking it to some sort of foreign land or domestic legal system(though we tend to have an easier time rooting for it when there’s a “Innocent person in jail” angle, but whatever).

Remember this?  No?  Nothing?

It is with the intrepid “this bird cannot be caged” American mindset, then, that we present you with…

AFFotD’s History of the Best American Prison Escapes


…Though Prison isn’t ALL bad…

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in AFFotD Special Features

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

America Fun Fact of the Day 4/10- April 10th in American History

Posted on April 10, 2011 | Leave a comment

“What’s that?  100th day of the year?  Sure you can use that as a reason to drink today.  You know what else you can use as a reason?  THIS IS AMERICA DAMMIT!”

~Johnny Roosevelt, Editor-in-Chief of AFFotD

Today is April 10th, which sources tell us, is the 100th day of the year.  So, if your 2011 has been great, or terrible, either way that’s a cause to drink.  And as as result, we’re going to do something very special at the America Fun Fact of the Day offices here today.  We are going to let a separate AFFotD staffer inform you of what happened on previous April 10ths in America.  Except most of them will be in various states of drunk.  Don’t worry, we’ll let you know who you’re hearing from, and how much they’ve had to drink, and hopefully they’ll have done their research well enough that they’re not just drunkenly pulling shit out of their asses.

But then again, we can’t make any promises.

So, without further ado, here is…

The American History of April 10th in America (As Remembered By Drunk Americans)

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Posted in Today in American History

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ulysses S. Grant Loves Whiskey, Hates Pants

Posted on February 3, 2011 | 5 comments

“I’m so drunk right now, I have no idea what’s going on.  Where are my pants?”

~President Ulysses S. Grant, Battle of Gettysburg

As a general rule, we here at America Fun Fact of the Day like our Civil War generals, and our nation’s leaders, like we like our coffee.  Just filled to the brim with booze.  And while many famous U.S. Presidents dabbled in their own well known vices (JFK’s foot fetish, FDR’s presidential throne made out of people, Bill Clinton’s ecstasy raves) few were able to employ their debauchery to so effectively serve the nation as Ulysses S. Grant.

Pictured:  Proof that no man can ever again be this manly.

Not pictured:  Pants

Also Pictured:  Cow lick

Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in Grant

Tagged , , , , , ,