I've been blogging at Gen. McClellan's pace

My blogging has been much impeded lately due to my busy schedule of tutoring (which is more lucrative than comedy, and not unrelated). Here are some fun U.S. and European facts I have recently encountered:

• Lincoln once referred to Union Gen. George McClellan's half-assed thrust into Confederate territory as "a case of the slows."
  
  
• Carrie A. Nation, the six-foot tall temperance reformer who smashed up saloons with a hatchet, was a total fame-whore. She paid the fines from her numerous arrests with lecture fees and the money she made selling souvenir hatchets. She even trademarked her name! (She was born "Carrie," married a man named "Nation," and added the "A." for effect).
  
  
• Henry VIII's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, was perhaps the most intelligent of them all (and of six wives, one of only two survivors). Henry had agreed to marry her upon seeing Holbein's rather flattering portrait; when she arrived in England, Henry found her so unattractive (Holbein had neglected to paint her pockmarks) he called her a "Flanders Mare." He married her regardless, but when she didn't produce an heir, she was smart enough not to hinder his scheme for an annulment. She testified that her marriage had never been consummated, and that Henry had simply come into her room every night and kissed her on the forehead. Following the annulment, she received the title of "The King's Sister" and was given a castle. (She also kept her head).