Mental Floss has a new podcast with iHeartRadio called History Vs., about how your favorite historical figures faced off against their greatest foes. Our first season is all about President Theodore Roosevelt. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts here, and for more TR content, visit the History Vs. site.
It’s early on a spring day in 1866, and Theodore Roosevelt, age 7, is heading down Broadway in New York City to pick up strawberries from the market when he sees something that rocks. his. world.
It’s a dead seal laid out on a slab of wood, and as soon as he lays eyes on it, Little Teedie is never the same.
He needs to know everything about the seal. He asks where it was killed and is told, “the harbor.” He returns to the market, and the seal, day after day, lurking, getting a closer look whenever he can.
He wants to measure the girth of the animal but he doesn’t have a tape measure, so he must make do with a “pocket foot-rule,” which he later recalls is “a difficult…
