The Wombat File Is Yours to Keep: The Friday Quiz: First Things

Holy cats. Has another week gone by? Yikes. Well, I don't guess I really can moan about how busy I am when some people have been posting and having babies in the same week (welcome, young William J. Ewins!).

Enought throat-clearing. Onward to the brain-bruisr of the hour:

He was born in 1861 to William R. and Edmonia Taylor Fall. Due to poor health as a child he headed west and settled, taking up the law. He served as the captain of an infantry troop in the Spanish-American war, later entered politics and became one of the first holders of national elective office from his state. He left that office in 1912 for an appointed position at the highest levels of government, where his responsibilities included the management of natural resources.

In 1929, Mr. Fall achieved a historic "first." What was it? Bonus point: by what name do we know the event that led to this "first"?

First correct answer posted to comments wins a rare package of marshmallow peeps rendered in the likeness of your favorite Bloomsbury group writers -- from Lytton Strachey to E.M. Forster, they're all here, just in time for Easter! No Googling or furtive picking at that dead skin on the back of your elbow. Stop it. Stop it. One guess per comment, but comment as often as you like.

Comments

That's a real head-scratcher.

First person to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.

Cause of the stock market crash.

Posted by: boxjam | March 30, 2007 09:57 AM

Mr Fall falling off the GG bridge is too ironic not to be true, but...

Creation of the first national park?

Posted by: james | March 30, 2007 10:07 AM

Neither, but boxjam is closer in spirit.

Posted by: BT | March 30, 2007 10:41 AM

I'll just go for the bonus point.

The Saint Valentine's Day massacre.

Posted by: boxjam | March 30, 2007 11:24 AM

Nope. No holiday involved.

Posted by: BT | March 30, 2007 11:29 AM

Just to check for wombatian nitpickiness:

First Confirmed Stock Market Crash Suicide.

Black Tuesday.

Posted by: hackly_fracture | March 30, 2007 12:18 PM

Nope. He didn't die.

Posted by: BT | March 30, 2007 01:47 PM

He sold his watch to buy his wife a comb, only to find out she cut and sold her hair to purchase him a watch fob.

Karma

Posted by: james | March 30, 2007 02:24 PM

I think you've got a story in that idea, James.

OK, some clues: what happened was a "first" in relation to the level of office he held at the time. (As in "the first X who Y").

Second, even if you haven't heard of him, you've likely heard of the phrase that constitutes the bonus point.

Posted by: BT | March 30, 2007 03:01 PM

First Secretary of the Interior to be imprisoned.

For "the big kerfluffle."

Posted by: boxjam | March 30, 2007 04:12 PM

I'm going to keep piggybacking off Boxjam:

1st Cabinent Member to be pardoned.

Tea Pot Dome Scandal. (which would have happened earlier in the decade; under this wild guess, I mean, scenario, Hoover would have pardoned Harding's bad boy)

Posted by: hackly_fracture | March 30, 2007 04:33 PM

Boxjam and Hackly piggyback together (which is sort of a "Sexyback" kinda situation, if you ask me) to knit together all parts of the answer. Albert Fall, who rose first to the Senate from New Mexico and then (thanks to his involvement with the notorious "Ohio Gang" who helped elevated Warren Harding to the Presidency) became Sec. of the Interior in the Harding administration.

It was his mishandling of what had been Naval oil reserves in Wyoming (Teapot Dome itself) and California that led to investigation, and his eventual conviction on bribery charges some years after the fact. He went to the hoosegow for one year, the first person in the U.S. ever to go to prison for crimes committed while in the cabinet.

The scandal, of course, took its popular/press monicker from the Teapot Dome oil field.

And now, I'm off...

Posted by: BT | March 30, 2007 05:23 PM

The Wombat File Is Yours to Keep

The Wombat File is a Delaying Tactic that May Save Your Life

The Friday Quiz: First Things

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