January 22, 1879

Posted on January 22, 2019 by Joel Byers

On January 22, 1879, James Shields was elected as the US Senator from Missouri. He previously served as a Senator from Illinois (1849-1855), as well as Minnesota (1858-1859). He is the only person to ever serve as a US Senator for three different states. Another item of interest is that Mr. Shields was not a native American, but instead was born and educated in Ireland. He emigrated to the US in 1826 at the age of 20 and became a naturalized US citizen in 1840. Mr. Shields also almost fought a duel with Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1842, which is a story for a separate Twisted-History entry. Suffice to say, it did not happen and both men actually became friends afterwards.

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About Joel Byers

Born in North Georgia and educated at some very fine public institutions. Real education started after graduating from college and then getting married and raising two boys. Has the ability to see the funny and absurd in most things and will always remark on it, even if it means getting the stink-eye from his victims.
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One Response to January 22, 1879

  1. Dr. Fredrick Gruenberger, PhD, MD, CPA, ASCAP says:
    January 22, 2019 at 5:50 am

    Dear Twisted-Historian,

    I am writing to you regarding a matter of some urgency.

    For some time now, I have been engaged in research to attempt to prove the humorous merit of Twisted-History. While most people can agree that it is subjectively funny, my objective was to show that it was provably, objectively funny. Thanks to my crack team of interns and some very generous patrons, I was able to conclude my research and to prove quantifiably that not only is Twisted-History funny, but that it typically has a cringe factor well below the safety limit for most cutting edge humor. Needless to say, I was thrilled by the results, and there very well may be a Nobel Prize in my future, but that’s not the reason for this letter.

    Unfortunately, during my research, I discovered what I believe to be a serious problem with Twisted-History. The rather lengthy hiatus, during which no new Twisted-History was produced, seems to have resulted in some Lolspheric instability, which has thrown the entire web site slightly off-balance. It’s not bad, at the moment (less than 200 nanogiggles per chuckle), but unless it’s corrected, it will almost certainly increase, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

    I’ve run the numbers several times, and the only solution I can come up with is for you to increase the humor level of your Twisted-History posts by about 37.4%. If you can achieve that level, and maintain it for at least 5 months, I believe it will correct the imbalance, at which point you will be able to drop back down to pre-crisis levels.

    Please understand, I wouldn’t even suggest such a monumental undertaking, if I didn’t feel that it was absolutely necessary, but if the instability continues to increase (and I have every reason to believe that it will), we could eventually find ourselves in a Gigli 2 situation, and I don’t think anyone wants that.

    Yours Sincerely,
    Dr. Fredrick Gruenberger, PhD, MD, CPA, ASCAP

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