🍑 Impeachment, Denials, and Interns: Bill Clinton’s Greatest Hits

Welcome back History Nerds,

We hope you are wrapping up your shopping and getting to enjoy the holiday season! We asked for stories and boy did you guys deliver!

One of readers sent us this story - “Major General John Sedgwick's last words at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House in 1864 were, "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance," right before a sharpshooter proved him wrong by hitting him in the head.”

We have been experiencing some amazing growth recently and it means the world to us to have 1,000s of fellow history nerds discovering new historic stories every week! Thank you so much! But now it’s time for a history lesson.

Did You Know? On December 8, 1980 John Lennon was murdered by Mark Chapman who he actually met twice on the day he died. Lennon’s palm reader also predicted his death.

During Your History Lesson You’ll Learn About:

• The Birth of Dominos Pizza

• Apple’s IPO: The Garage Grind

• Bill Clinton’s Scandalous Impeachment

• The Great Escape of the Berlin Zoo Animals

A Slice of Success: The Surprising Comeback Story of Domino’s Pizza

Domino’s Pizza was fresh out of the oven on December 9, 1960, when brothers Tom and James Monaghan bought a small pizzeria named DomiNick’s in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Within the first year James quickly swapped his share for a used Volkswagen Beetle, leaving Tom to steer the business solo. By 1965, Tom rebranded to Domino’s, envisioning a pizza empire with a three-dot logo symbolizing its first locations. 

Domino’s took off by focusing on one thing: delivering pizza fast. Their “30 minutes or less” guarantee turned ordering food into a race against the clock. It was a simple formula—hot pizza at lightning speed. But the strategy worked, and Domino’s quickly became a favorite, proving that getting a fresh pizza to someone’s door before they even got hangry was a recipe for success.

The company’s innovations have been nothing short of genius. Take the Pizza Tracker, for instance. Finally, a way to obsessively stalk your pizza’s journey from oven to doorstep in real time. Let’s not forget the delivery cars with built-in ovens. These ideas weren’t just gimmicks; they helped cement Domino’s as a leader in convenience and customer satisfaction. 

But even pizza royalty faces rough patches. By 2008, Domino’s hit a low point when customers declared their pizza tasted like “cardboard” and the sauce tasted like ketchup. Sales plummeted, and frozen pizza started stealing their thunder. But instead of crumbling like a poorly made crust, Domino’s did something unexpected: they leaned into the criticism. They revamped their entire recipe and launched a brutally honest ad campaign admitting their mistakes. It was an unheard of move, but it worked. Domino’s turned a PR nightmare into one of the greatest comebacks in fast-food history.

Apple's Big Bite into Wall Street

Leading up to December 12, 1980, the public sentiment around Apple's IPO was a mix of excitement and skepticism. Here was a company, barely five years old, with a quirky name and even quirkier founders, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who had started in a garage. The anticipation was high, not just because of Apple's innovative products like the Apple II, but also due to the company's bold vision for personal computing. However, not everyone was convinced; Massachusetts even deemed the IPO too risky for investors, showcasing the divide between early adopters and cautious skeptics.

On the day of the initial public offering, there was palpable excitement. Apple offered 4.6 million shares at $22 each, and they sold out almost immediately. It was the largest tech IPO of its time, creating instant millionaires, including Jobs, who ended the day with a cool $217 million. The stock price itself soared 32% to close at $29, reflecting the public's enthusiasm and faith in Apple's future.

Apple's stock faced its fair share of ups and downs, with significant drops during the 1990s when the company struggled, but those who held onto their shares were in for a ride. If you had invested $1,000 in Apple at its IPO in 1980, you would have been able to buy around 45 shares. With five stock splits since then, that $1,000 investment would have grown to 10,080 shares. This would be worth nearly $2,000,000, not including dividends, which would add even more to the total return.

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Impeachment, Denials, and Interns: Bill Clinton’s Greatest Hits

On December 11, 1998, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee recommended three articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton. The charges? Perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying about... well, that thing with Monica Lewinsky. They’d add a fourth article the next day, for turning the oval office into the oral office…Just kidding but the fourth article did actually happen 😆.

Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky, a White House intern, was the soap opera that launched a thousand headlines. The media had a field day, and the public couldn’t get enough. To make matters more complicated, Clinton denied everything—repeatedly. “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” he famously declared, only for everyone to find out that, yes, he did. Clinton was in the hot seat, dodging legal consequences, but somehow, he managed to keep his cool. He famously didn’t resign, and when the dust settled, he emerged with his approval ratings as high as ever.

Fast forward a couple of decades, and Clinton’s scandal feels like ancient history—especially when you compare it to modern political controversies. Clinton got impeached but stayed in office, proving that in politics, sometimes the most you can get is a slap on the wrist. And while the Lewinsky affair will forever be part of his legacy, Clinton did manage to steer the economy into a relatively prosperous period, a point that helps keep his legacy from being entirely overshadowed by, well, the intern.

The Great Escape of the Berlin Zoo Animals

On December 8, 1943, while the rest of the world was busy with World War II, the animals at the Berlin Zoo decided they'd had enough of their cages. Thanks to an Allied bombing raid, the zoo's fences and enclosures were blown away, turning the war-torn city into an impromptu safari.

Rumors quickly spread of elephants roaming aimlessly, stampeding through the streets, while others spread the fear of escaped predators like lions, panthers, and even jaguars. While in reality, it was just a few monkeys climbing on the ruins of buildings, and other smaller animals like birds that managed to escape.

All jokes aside, the sad reality of the escape is that it wasn’t an escape at all. The animals that made it out were running for their lives. Sometimes it's more fun reading about the rumors than the reality, but now that we know the reality, can we all pour one out for the animals lost during the war?

What’s Your Random Historical Fact?

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