Inspired by Lord Baden-Powell's Boys Scouts in Britain, Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts (called Girl Guides at that time) in the U.S. in Savannah, Georgia in 1912. The first troop was comprised of 18 girls; one of the girls was Low's niece, Daisy.

Margaret Higgins Sanger, the birth-control pioneer, was one of eleven children.

George Washington's face was badly scarred from smallpox.

During the Civil War, Robert E. Lee was offered command of the Union Army before he accepted his post with the Confederacy.

Inventor Thomas Edison married twice and had six children. He nicknamed his first two children, Marion and Thomas, Jr., "Dot" and "Dash" (after telegraphy).

During the wartime Oscar awards ceremony in 1943, the two servicemen who carried the American flag as Jeanette MacDonald sang the national anthem were Marine private Tyrone Power and Army private Alan Ladd.

Gerald Ford was one of the members of the Warren Commission appointed to study the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

During World War I, Woodrow Wilson's wife grazed sheep on the front lawn of the White House.

Dustin Hoffman, as Tootsie, wore a size 36C bra.

Steve Martin studied philosophy at California State University at Long Beach, and for a time, considered becoming a philosophy professor instead of an actor-comedian-writer

Stevie Wonder was 11 years old when he signed his first record contract with Motown.

Playwright George Bernard Shaw changed his name from George Bernard Gurly

Sunday school teachers Patty and Mildred Hill wrote a song in the 1890s that we still sing today. Happy Birthday to You was a rewrite of their earlier song, Good Morning to All.

Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was the first American to have plumbing installed in his house, in 1840.

Margaret Mitchell, who wrote Gone With the Wind, never wrote a book before that, and never wrote a book after that. Her original title for the book was Tomorrow Is Another Day; her publisher changed it to Gone With the Wind. The publisher also changed the heroine's name from Pansy O'Hara to Scarlett O'Hara

Susanna Salter was elected mayor of Argonia, Kansas in 1887, making her the first woman mayor in the United States.

Poet/writer Edgar Allan Poe was expelled from West Point the United States Military Academy, because he showed up for a parade in his birthday suit.

Marie and Pierre Curie refused to patent their process of making radium, declaring it belonged to the world – no one had the right to profit from it.

Irving Berlin could play in only one key, the key of F-sharp. As one of America's great songwriters, he taught himself to play the piano by practicing on a piano in a saloon where he worked as a singing waiter.

Ted Drake was the artist and illustrator who created Notre Dame's trademark leprechaun logo in 1964. Drake's best known works were Notre Dame's bearded leprechaun and the symbol of the Chicago Bulls. Drake earned a paltry $50 for the leprechaun logo, which was later copyrighted by the university. In 1993, Notre Dame's national alumni board paid a special tribute to the artist.

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