re: Weird Louisiana Trivia

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and when it ended and people left the opera house we had the first mugging

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All of those people were queried about the source of their shoes.

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Alaska refers to them as Burroughs

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is one of em named Joe?

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Being Catholic in Alabama was also considered an oddity.

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Not in Mobile.

Being Catholic in Alabama was also considered an oddity.

---Not along the coast.

Louisiana started off as a for profit penal colony.

Sadly, little has changed.

Did you know that Louisiana banana king Sam Zemurray was instrumental in the recognition of Israel by the United Nations?

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And when the initial vote to create the Jewish state failed at the United Nations in 1948 — but was close enough to allow for a re-vote within 72 hours — Zemurray went to work.

From his mansion in New Orleans (later donated to Tulane, and now the university president’s house), he called several Latin American leaders and got enough of them to switch their votes. “Knowing about the work of Zemurray,” Cohen writes in his book, “certain yes votes that might otherwise seem mysterious — Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ecuador, Panama — suddenly makes perfect sense. Behind them, behind the creation of the Jewish state, was the Gringo pushing his cart piled high with stinking bananas.”

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He was also behind civil wars in Central America

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He financed the coup of the Honduran government in 1910, and got the U.S. government to help overthrow the Guatemalan government in 1954 — both of which had disastrous consequences for each country. The Guatemalan coup alone resulted in three-decades-long civil war that resulted in 200,000 deaths.

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May not be weird but is certainly Louisiana history most do not know. It could be because Zemurray's feuds with Huey Long kept his name out of Louisiana history books.

I believe most buildings and schools at Tulane University named after Cohens are funded by Zemurray's fortune. I also think Zemurray's mansion is the home of the president of Tulane but I am not sure.

Some say the Exodus ship was a Zemurray banana boat.

Metairie is the largest unincorporated city in the country.

Lake Pontchartrain isn't really a lake; its an estuary. It is the largest estuary in the United States.

New Orleans City Park is twice as large as the famed Central Park in New York.

Because of the high water table in New Orleans, we have to bury most of our dead above ground. If we didn't, grandma may come back to visit you during a flood.

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I learned this in Louisiana History in 8th grade.

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Damn you're a slow learner

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What's that speck in Missouri and Nevada?

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St. Louis & Carson City. Also note Baltimore in MD.