Portal:West Virginia/Did you know
From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
If you wish to make a suggestion for an article to be rotated in the Did you know? section of this portal, please leave a note on the portal talk page, as a DYK subpage must have at least three interesting facts on it to qualify for transclusion within the portal.
DYKs in rotation
Portal:West Virginia/Did you know/1
- ... that Julia Bonds was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for leading the fight against the practice of mountaintop removal mining in the Appalachian mountain range?
- ... that after recovering from polio as a 12-year old, Leo Byrd went on to win a gold medal with the United States men's basketball team at the 1959 Pan American Games?
- ... hat a telescope, high school, bridge, and locks and dam are among the places named for United States Senator Robert Byrd in the U.S. state of West Virginia?
- ... that John Callaway created the award-winning news program Chicago Tonight and was awarded 10 honorary doctorates, despite being a college dropout who hitchhiked to Chicago with 71 cents in his pocket?
- ... that Oregonian newspaper co-founder William Chapman served in the first session of the Oregon Territorial Legislature and was Iowa Territory's first delegate to the U.S. Congress?
- ... that Alaska Territorial Governor Walter Eli Clark (pictured) was interested in rose cultivation and was President of the American Rose Society?
- ... that Clayton, West Virginia, was named after a balloonist from Cincinnati who landed in the community after a record-setting 300-mile (480 km) flight in 1835?
- ... that upon reading Marshall S. Cornwell's poem "Success," American writer and poet James Whitcomb Riley wrote Cornwell "your gift seems genuine and far above that indicated in verse"?
- ... that historian Philip D. Curtin challenged widely-used estimates that 20 million African slaves had crossed the Atlantic, estimating that 9.5 million had arrived in the Americas through 1870?
- ... that Baseball Hall of Fame member Mel Ott was struck out in his first at-bat of his Major League Baseball career by pitcher Wayland Dean?
.jpg)
- ... that American soprano, Anna Fitziu, was the singing instructor for Shirley Verrett?
- ... that the Wheeling Suspension Bridge is still open to traffic, despite U.S. Route 40 being diverted to the nearby Fort Henry Bridge after it was completed in 1956?
- ... that all U.S. Presidents from Dwight D. Eisenhower through Ronald Reagan ordered glassware from Fostoria Glass Company of Moundsville, West Virginia?
- ... that Capt. John Jackson Dickison (pictured) led the Confederate forces which captured the USS Columbine, in the only known incident in US history where a cavalry unit sank an enemy gunboat?
- ... that Erik Fankhouser is the first West Virginia native to become a professional bodybuilder?
Portal:West Virginia/Did you know/5
- ... that West Virginia's Ice Mountain contains ice vents that allow subarctic plant species to survive?
- ... that Indian Mound Cemetery, originally created by the Hopewell culture, was defended in battle by Confederate soldiers and is the last resting place of an owner of the Washington Redskins?
- ... that in June 1991, a gasoline tanker attempting to exit from Interstate 68 at Cumberland, Maryland, overturned and set eight houses on fire, causing US$250,000 in damages?
- ... that both Interstate 81 and U.S. Route 11 in West Virginia roughly follow the Warrior Path, an old Indian trail through the Eastern Panhandle region?
- ... that Hanging Rocks (pictured) at Wappocomo, West Virginia on the South Branch Potomac River was the site of both a battle between Delaware and Catawba Native American tribes and an American Civil War skirmish?
- ... that Grafton (pictured) and West Virginia National Cemeteries are the only two national cemeteries in West Virginia, and both are located in the small city of Grafton?
- ... that the U.S. Supreme Court reheard James v. Dravo Contracting Co. in 1937 after Associate Justice Willis Van Devanter's retirement altered the judicial balance of the court?
- ... that Katie Sierra was accused of treason and suspended from high school in October 2001 for attempting to start an anarchist club?
- ... that the Kay Moor coal mine near Fayetteville, West Virginia, was first worked with mule-drawn railcars?
- ... that the Michigan football coach complained his "defense was in the law library" after law student Oscar Lambert was declared ineligible?
- ... that Elizabeth J. Feinler (pictured), better known as "Jake", ran the Network Information Center of the Internet until 1989?
- ... that Lowell, West Virginia, was first settled in 1770, making it the oldest community in Summers County?
- ... that when St. Louis city officials blocked the expansion of the company that would become known as Burroughs Corporation, Alvan Macauley packed the entire factory into boxcars and sent it overnight to Detroit?
- ... that Thomas John McDonnell consecrated Marist College's altar with the relics of two martyrs?
- ... that natural gas in the Marcellus Formation could increase United States energy reserves by one trillion U.S. dollars?
- ... that the 1910 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Maryland v. West Virginia established the current boundary between the states of Maryland and West Virginia based on a stone set in a river in 1746?
- ... that Wheeling Creek (pictured) in West Virginia flows into the Ohio River a short distance downstream of a different Wheeling Creek in Ohio, on the opposite bank?
- ... that, after his rookie season in Major League Baseball, Sam Moffet and his brother extracted over US$200,000 worth of gold and silver from a mine in Butte, Montana?
- ... that renowned magazine illustrator David Hunter Strother recounted a treacherous journey on the Moorefield and North Branch Turnpike in his recollections of the American Civil War in Harper's Magazine?
- ... that the Oak Hill Railroad Depot is the only surviving Virginian Railway depot in West Virginia?
- ... that Dick Padden led the Chicago White Sox to an American League championship as a player-manager in 1900, one season before the American League became a major league?
- ... that Harry Powers said that watching his victims die was more fun than a brothel?
- ... that, in 1960, Volkmar Wentzel photographed Capt. Joseph Kittinger making a record-setting 102,800-foot (31,300 m) skydive (pictured)?
- ... that after Kenneth R. Shadrick became the first U.S. foot soldier reported killed in the Korean War, his father traced the tragedy back to a stolen football uniform?
- ... that Weston State Hospital in West Virginia was designed in accordance with the Kirkbride Plan for mental illness treatment?
- ... that both Interstate 81 and U.S. Route 11 in West Virginia roughly follow the Warrior Path, an old Indian trail through the Eastern Panhandle region?
- ... that the U.S. Supreme Court delayed taking up the case of Virginia v. West Virginia for three years because it was deadlocked over whether it had jurisdiction over the issue?
- ... that Captain Richard Ashby, the brother of Confederate General Turner Ashby, was mortally wounded in battle and died in the ballroom at Washington Bottom Farm?
- ... that over 13,000 square feet (1,200 m2) of German-made tile lines the interior of the Wheeling Tunnel?
- ... that former Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives Daniel Webster (pictured) served in the Florida legislature for 28 years, making him the longest-serving legislator in Florida history?
- ... that the World War Memorial, built in 1928 in Kimball, West Virginia, was the first memorial to African-American veterans of World War I in the United States?
- ... that the Memorial Tunnel along the West Virginia Turnpike was the first tunnel in the U.S. to have closed-circuit television monitoring?
- ... that Hercules Renda was described as a "midget from the hills of West Virginia" who "ran, squirmed and tackled" his way into the hearts of Michigan football fans in the 1930s?
- ... that Charleston architect Walter F. Martens modeled the West Virginia Governor's Mansion (pictured) after the White House so it could accommodate up to 2,000 guests at one time?
- ... that it has been suggested that John Thornton Augustine Washington would have succeeded his great uncle George Washington as "king" if the United States had been a monarchy?
- ... that the woodcuts of modernist printmaker Blanche Lazzell (pictured) were influenced by ukiyo-e?
- ... that the 2001 GMAC Bowl set a record as the highest-scoring bowl game in college football history even before it went into overtime?
- ... that Howard Hille Johnson's campaign for a state school for the blind in West Virginia led to the establishment of the West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and Blind on March 3, 1870?
- ... that according to Thomas Jefferson, U.S. House Representative Alexander White reluctantly supported the Funding Act of 1790 bill "with a revulsion of stomach almost convulsive"?
