Jeffersonian trivia

Little known facts:

  1. Former American President Thomas Jefferson was an avid amateur palaeontologist.
  2. In an attempt to mock him, his political opponents gave him the nickname “Mr. Mammoth” during the 1808 election.
  3. He is credited with the discovery of an enormous ground sloth, larger than an elephant, that inhabited North America during the late Pleistocene.
  4. The creature now bears his name: Megalonyx jeffersonii.

These and many other entertaining facts come from the marvellous recent book The World Without Us, which has leapt to the top of my reading pile. I will post a full review when I finish it.

Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here.

2 thoughts on “Jeffersonian trivia”

  1. President James Garfield invented a geometric proof of the Pythagorean Theorem.

  2. Pingback: Avocado trivia

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