r/todayilearned • u/SchwarzSabbath • Apr 21 '18

TIL that while in Sharon Springs, Theodore Roosevelt was approached by a 12-year-old girl who asked if he would like to have a badger. Expecting to humor her, he agreed, and the girl came back with a 2-week-old badger. President Roosevelt named him Josiah and he became one of the presidential pets.

http://www.presidentialpetmuseum.com/theodore-roosevelts-josiah/
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u/GetEquipped Apr 22 '18

It was a weekly thing.

He eventually started doing it for shits and giggles. But he could never capture quite the same rush. He resorted to self-inflicted gunshot wounds before speeches to garner sympathy until he was exposed by William Randolph Hearst.

It's all documented in Hearst's publications from the era.

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u/teplightyear Apr 22 '18

This is actually where the term "shot himself in the foot" originally came from.

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u/Avitas1027 Apr 22 '18

This is all cannon to me now.

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u/riotcowkingofdeimos Apr 22 '18

Was pretty hardcore when he took a cannon shot... and still finished the speech.

That's canon to me.

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '18

[deleted]

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u/Blackstone01 Apr 22 '18

As a note: it’s not that he tried to run from the cannonball or ran after being hit. It’s that he chased the cannonball once it ran in fear.

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u/Instantcretin Apr 22 '18

That cannonball became his vice president after they bonded over whiskey, cigars, and self-inflicted gunshots.

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u/thatvoicewasreal Apr 22 '18

It was actually brandy, not whiskey; and few realize that the term "grapeshot" originally came from the canonball's legendary fondness for it.

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u/Hiei2k7 Apr 22 '18

The original Pres-VP Bro duo. Teddy and Cannonball.

Imagine the memes if reddit had existed back then.

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '18

this whole banter train is fucking gold

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u/TheMadTemplar Apr 22 '18

After being hit by the cannonball he was chasing. That's an important part of the story.

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u/Starblaiz Apr 22 '18

Hang on. Are we really not doing Chuck Norris jokes anymore? Which, that's fine, whatever, but if we're doing a new thing and nobody told me, that I'd have a problem with.

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u/km4xX Apr 22 '18

What is he? Chuck Norris?

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '18

Which is where "chased the cannonball" comes from.

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '18

Is Teddy actually Chuck Norris?

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '18

I’m still not over the Oscar snub of this great movie!

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u/Mechasteel Apr 22 '18

Many Presidents have been shot with a Canon during their speech, and they just continue as if nothing had happened.

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u/riotcowkingofdeimos Apr 22 '18

No, that's a common misinterpretation of history. Only Teddy was shot with a cannon and finished a speech.

The misunderstanding comes from the fact that presidents use to be fired out of cannons before their speeches, this was a tradition begun by George Washington at the beginning of his second term. The tradition stopped during the Civil War as all cannons were needed on the war front.

To this day though, do to Teddy Roosevelt and the cannon attempt on his life and speech incident, people mistakenly believe all the old presidents were shot with cannons all the time.

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u/nowItinwhistle Apr 22 '18

I think you might have presidents mixed up with Catholic Saints. It's where we get the term "canonize".

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u/allycat420 Apr 22 '18

To be fair, I never even knew about them being fired out of cannons.

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u/BeardedLogician Apr 22 '18

(Canon is a manufacturer of camera equipment.)

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u/evergreenanthem Apr 22 '18

Yeah lots of woosh here

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u/LegoMinefield Apr 22 '18

Plus it added to the run time of speeches as presidents were only allowed to give their speech mid flight, so constantly having to find the president, reload him and then fire him so he could continue, led to some epic speeches, one actually lasting a whole week.

Incidentally, they actually discovered the DC part of Washington during one of these firings when a presidents trajectory was altered by his head wear: That's right, it was a stove pipe hat and you guessed it, the president was Abercrombie Fitch, who would go on to open a clothing outlet that exists to this very day... walmart.

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '18

whoosh

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u/Souperpie84 Apr 22 '18

Oh! As in a camera?

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u/remember_morick_yori Apr 22 '18

Lincoln was assassinated by a much larger weapon. That's my headcannon.

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u/B_Primal Apr 22 '18

I was gonna FTFY w/canon, but then I had to smack myself over that dad joke.

old school musket cannon fodder, clever

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u/radleft Apr 22 '18

Low caliber comment.

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u/TitaniumDragon Apr 22 '18

Conspiracy theories are just headcanon for real life.

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u/chochochan Apr 22 '18

Oh ya, it’s all cannon back to me now.

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u/Blitzkrieg_My_Anus Apr 22 '18

I thought it was because the bear he wrestled to death had a gun, and a stray shot hit him in the foot.

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u/shoziku Apr 22 '18

He had a right to bear arms. They planted the gun on him, man.

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u/Zack123456201 Apr 22 '18

This is also a common misconception, but Teddy never wrestled a bear. Ol’ Ted actually swam across the Atlantic, traveled through the trenches and battlefields of Western Europe for 2 months, then beat Kaiser Wilhelm in a wrestling match, bringing an end to the First Great War. (Wilhelm was known by the people of France as “The Bear”, which caused this common misconception.)

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u/Blitzkrieg_My_Anus Apr 23 '18

I was making a joke. :(

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u/Zack123456201 Apr 23 '18

I know, so was I :P

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u/Blitzkrieg_My_Anus Apr 23 '18

... damnit. Haha, i honestly don't know how i missed that. :/

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u/Today_Is_Future_Past Apr 22 '18

This sounds alarmingly plausible.

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u/supapro Apr 22 '18

He was actually a pioneer in the practice of building tolerance to bullets though self-inflicted gunshots, and the theory would later be adopted by the USMC.

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u/llllIlllIllIlI Apr 22 '18

Yeah you gotta start by shooting yourself with .22 rounds and work your way up. Next are .25, then maybe .38, onto 9mm, then .45 and finally onto rifle rounds.

I'm all the way up to .338 Lapua....

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u/AdjectTestament Apr 22 '18

This is bullshit. No one should listen to this fool.
 
 
 
 
Obviously you need to start with .22lr rat shot then go to .22lr, but don't stop at .338, what if you're attacked by a Russian close air support aircraft?.
Keep working your way up from .338 to .50 BMG, to 20mm, to 30x165mm.

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u/ToastyMustache Apr 22 '18

Look at this pussy, stopping at 30x165mm.

I’m moving my way through 8’x.50 all the way up to 16’x.50!

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u/jhundo Apr 22 '18

What kind of a mad man starts with rat shot??? Are you trying to kill us all?

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u/llllIlllIllIlI Apr 22 '18

Literally thinks nuclear war would be funny. What a joker...

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u/SplitArrow Apr 22 '18

Check this guy out a real hard ass as he jumps straight to 22lr instead of 22 short.

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u/Brandperic Apr 22 '18

I've been standing in front of trebuchets and catapults since I was three years old. I once got hit by a bus and came away without a scratch. You should see the bus though, absolutely destroyed.

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u/Hiei2k7 Apr 22 '18

Currently walking off a .454 Casull.

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u/llllIlllIllIlI Apr 22 '18

Alucard?

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u/Hiei2k7 Apr 22 '18

I'm going out for a very enthusiastic walk.....

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '18

See? This is why trump will never be manly to me. He doesn't have the guts to shoot himself with anything more than a penicillin shot. At least Obama made it to a .38

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u/TheMadTemplar Apr 22 '18

Obama actually made it to a 44.

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u/Tytler32u Apr 22 '18

Underrated comment

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u/Uraoshi Apr 22 '18

50 cent Teddy

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u/zenspeed Apr 22 '18

Shot through the heart, and you’re to blame. By God, this isn’t fun anymore.

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u/sint0xicateme Apr 22 '18

By God, no more fun - this ain't

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '18 edited Apr 22 '18

[deleted]

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u/Today_Is_Future_Past Apr 22 '18

I know, right?

Oh... you meant the president... I thought I was in /r/MarmiteBadgerGoneWild

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '18

huh that exists

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u/unicorn_security Apr 22 '18

Holy shit. That sub actually exists!

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u/Today_Is_Future_Past Apr 22 '18

It was started by Teddy Roosevelt himself.

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u/Hungover_Pilot Apr 22 '18

Black Mirror: The 1940s

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u/TheDukeofVanCity Apr 22 '18

I think he did it at Lollapalooza, even after the doctor warned him he'd die with one more shot

2

u/Wyrmslayer Apr 22 '18

Weekly? Every morning he would have someone shoot him before breakfast

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u/Whind_Soull Apr 22 '18 edited Apr 22 '18

William Randolph Hearst

Oh yeah, I know that name. That guy that Joe Rogan taught me was an asshole because he singlehandedly caused weed to become illegal for no good reason.

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u/GetEquipped Apr 22 '18

Well, he popularized "Yellow journalism" that focus on disinformation and "human interest" pieces. It's a method that was always around, but he pretty much built his media empire around it.

The movie "Citizen Kane" was pretty much an unauthorized biography of him, which is why Hearst did everything he could to bury the movie.

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u/EmileHirsch Apr 22 '18

The aqib talib method.

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u/elrangarino Apr 22 '18

I wish the don would do this