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This month's fact comes to us from Daniel Z. Kreisman of Woodstock, Illinois. Thanks and congratulations Dan!

In 1863 Robert Todd Lincoln, the eldest son of Abraham Lincoln, was pulled to safety on a crowded railway platform in Baltimore. As the train began to pull away, Robert appeared to lose his balance when a hand from the crowd reached out and kept him from falling beneath the wheels of the train and certain death. Young Robert's savior was none other than famed actor Edwin Booth, the brother of John Wilkes Booth who would very shortly assassinate Robert's father, the President of the United States.

This group of facts on our founding fathers is from Jim Maruska of Phoenix, Arizona.

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.
Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army, another had two sons captured.
Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War. They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?
Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, Nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKean was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Continental Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward. He eventually became Governor of Pennsylvania.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. His home was destroyed, but Nelson went on to become Governor of Virginia.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart.
Livingston suffered a similar fate and Robert Morris was financially ruined at the time of his death.

Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more.

Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged: "For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

In 1897 the federal government of the U.S. recalled $26 million dollars worth of one hundred-dollar bills when a counterfeit bill appeared that was so accurate it almost couldn't be distinguished from the real thing. This was the only time in history that fake money was so well designed that legitimate currency had to be withdrawn.

Catherine the Great, one of Russia's most famous rulers wasn't Russian. She was German, and her real name was Sophia, not Catherine.

Although the Pony Express was one of the most famous stories of American History, it lasted only nineteen months, from April 1860 to October 1861. It was a complete financial failure.

The biggest Pyramid in the world is not in Egypt. It's actually about sixty miles southeast of Mexico City, Mexico. It covers more than forty acres and the largest Egyptian Pyramid, The Great Pyramid at Giza, covers about 13 acres.

We usually think of Montreal, Canada as a cold weather city, and Paris, France as a much warmer city than Montreal, but the fact is that Montreal is south of Paris.

King George I of England could not speak English. He was born and raised in Germany and never learned to speak English even though he was King from 1714 to 1727. He left the running of the country to his ministers thereby creating the first government cabinet.

Napoleon, the famous French general, was not born in France. He was born on the Meditteranean island of Corsica of Italian parents.

There are about 5,000 different languages spoken on Earth.

The Inca tribe in Peru created the decimal system hundreds of years before it was introduced in Europe.

Ancient Egyptian religion divided the human body into 36 parts and each part came under the protection of a god or goddess.

Among the first known "dentists" of the world were the Etruscans. In 700 BC they carved false teeth from the teeth of various mammals and produced partial bridgework good enough to eat with.

Enough exciting pieces of evidence exist to show that map making actually began in the Stone Age.

Cleopatra was more noted for her cunning than her looks, which were plain at best. Legend has it that she actually arranged for herself to meet Julius Caesar by being rolled up inside an oriental rug that she had presented to him as a gift.

Caligula, the demented Roman Emperor from A.D. 37-41, appointed his favorite horse as consul and co-regent of Rome.

In 1875 the Director of the United States Patent Office sent in his resignation, and advised the administration that his department be eliminated, because he was convinced there was nothing left to invent.

The first contact lens was actually conceived by Leonardo Da Vinci in the 15th century.

In Venice in the 16th and 17th centuries prostitutes believed that the higher the heel on their shoe the more men would pay for their services. Consequently a law was passed banning the wearing of high heels because they began to trip in the dark and fall into the canals and die.

In ancient Egypt women had more legal rights than those in some countries today. Even when a couple divorced it was understood that the woman was entitled to up to one-half of the estate.

When the Mayflower, which took the pilgrims to America, had eventually outlived her usefulness she was dismantled and then reconstructed as a barn.

A personal "first aid kit" was found in King Tut's tomb, which included a finger sling and bandages.

Ophthalmic surgery was one of the most advanced areas of medicine in the ancient world. Detailed descriptions of delicate cataract surgery with sophisticated needle syringes is contained in the medical writings of Celsus (A.D. 14-37)

If Benjamin Franklin had had his way, the Eagle would not be the symbol of the United States. In 1789 he proposed that it be replaced by the turkey.

The Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt, constructed around 2500 B.C., was the tallest building in the world until the Eiffel Tower was erected in 1889.

Egyptian medical writings contain prescriptions for female contraceptives made from crocodile dung. I guess you could see how this worked!

Between A.D. 1400 and 1520 the Inca emperors of South America built more than 15,000 miles of roads from sea level to high into the Andes Mountains.

The first odometer? Writing in the 1st century B.C., the Roman architect Vitruvius introduced the "hodometer" as a device which enables a carriage on the road to know how many miles of a journey it accomplished. Though he recorded detailed designs and descriptions of his invention it was impractical and never built. Centuries later, even Leonardo Da Vinci attempted to reconstruct this device from these plans without success.

One of the preposterous cures for the Black Plague in the 14th century was to place a pig next to the dying person.

Three of the first five U.S. Presidents all died on July 4th. They were John Adams, the second President; Thomas Jefferson, the third President, who died the same day as Adams; and James Monroe, the fifth President, who died five years later in 1831.

The famous battle of Bunker Hill in the American Revolutionary War was not fought on Bunker Hill but actually on nearby Breed's Hill instead.

The world's worst earthquake occured in 1556 in China killing approximately 830,000 people.

In the 3rd to 2nd century B.C, Eratosthenes measured the radius of the earth without the use of precision instruments and came within one-percent of the actual value determined by today's space craft technology.

At the turn of the 20th century 300,000 cat mummies were shipped to Liverpool, England to be converted into fertilizer.