Have you ever eaten a sandwich? You probably have. I'm a fan of sandwiches myself...though I can't help wondering - who on earth was it who decided that the best thing to accompany some meat would be a slice or two of bread? I guess it works though (as do fish, cheese, salad etc) so s/he was clearly onto a winner.
The discovery of the glory of the sandwich is attributed to (it may not surprise you to learn) the Earl of Sandwich (number four), John Montagu, who was born on this day in 1718. In honour of this, Americans have named today National Sandwich Day, which I initially thought was a great idea, but then I realized that most people eat sandwiches several times a week, if not every day and it would be much more exciting to have a National Ice Cream Day because seriously, if there's ever a food you need more of in your life, it's ice cream.
But back to Mr. Sandwich. He did not, sadly, invent the sandwich, but was often ordered a slice meat enclosed by bread to be brought to him when he was working, bringing it to the attention of others, who soon began to order "the same as Sandwich!" and so a new meal was born.
The Earl is also the same person after whom Hawaii is named (Hawaii was originally called the Sandwich Islands, when they were discovered in 1778 by Captain Cook); the South Sandwich Islands which are a British territory off the South American coast and Montagu Island in Alaska.
Now, you would imagine that, as he has so many famous places and foodstuffs named after him, John Montagu, Fourth Earl of Sandwich was a pretty impressive guy, and indeed, here is a picture showing him being very impressive and majestic and...things:
The discovery of the glory of the sandwich is attributed to (it may not surprise you to learn) the Earl of Sandwich (number four), John Montagu, who was born on this day in 1718. In honour of this, Americans have named today National Sandwich Day, which I initially thought was a great idea, but then I realized that most people eat sandwiches several times a week, if not every day and it would be much more exciting to have a National Ice Cream Day because seriously, if there's ever a food you need more of in your life, it's ice cream.
But back to Mr. Sandwich. He did not, sadly, invent the sandwich, but was often ordered a slice meat enclosed by bread to be brought to him when he was working, bringing it to the attention of others, who soon began to order "the same as Sandwich!" and so a new meal was born.
The Earl is also the same person after whom Hawaii is named (Hawaii was originally called the Sandwich Islands, when they were discovered in 1778 by Captain Cook); the South Sandwich Islands which are a British territory off the South American coast and Montagu Island in Alaska.
Now, you would imagine that, as he has so many famous places and foodstuffs named after him, John Montagu, Fourth Earl of Sandwich was a pretty impressive guy, and indeed, here is a picture showing him being very impressive and majestic and...things:
Anyway, despite that impressive and majestic overcoat and waistcoat combination he has going on, Mr. Montagu doesn't appear to have been very impressive at all. Well, he might have been. But he probably wasn't. But then again, he could have been. It's another of those occasions where no one really knows what's going on, because the sources we have aren't exactly reliable and unbiased and we therefore draw horribly invalid conclusions from them.
Basically, after attending Eton then one of the Cambridge Colleges, an educational background exactly the fricking same completely different from today's leaders of our country, Montagu was invited to join the government in several fairly high up positions. He did two terms as First Lord of the Admiralty (and as this was at around the same time that Britain's navy was at it's peak, this was a pretty important position), then was Northern Secretary, then went back and did a third spell as First Lord of the Admiralty. He also did, in between this, several very brief spells as Postmaster General and Secretary of State.
If you look at most reports of his times in these various offices, though, you'll find that most historians have come to the conclusion that he was a bit incompetent and rubbish and generally not very good at his job. For example, his third spell in the Admiralty office was during the American War of Independence, and his generally faffing and incompetence when dealing with naval matters is generally said to have contributed greatly to the British losing that war.
Except (there's always an except...), most of the evidence for his rubbishness comes from...his main political enemies at the time. Who may just have had an agenda for painting him as a fool and kicking him out of office. Maybe. That's not do say he didn't do some foolish things, but really, basing all your evidence as to his personality on what people who didn't like him had to say? Yeah, probably not going to lead you to the most balanced conclusions.
In the interests of fairness, I should probably point out that I'm slightly biased in favour of the guy, because he was so into music - he often put on performances of 'Ancient Music' (by his definition, any music that was more than two decades old) and was a massive fan of Handel. His second wife was a famous opera singer at the time, and managed to squeeze out nine of his children before being stabbed to death by a jealous suitor in the foyer of the Royal Opera House. (This seems to happen a lot in opera - Carmen anyone? Maybe people were more passionate back then... I can't really imagine stabbing someone because I loved them, it'd likely be far too messy, more than anything.)
And yet, I can't really feel too sorry for him, because no one really knows him as 'the rubbish Lord of the Admiralty' they know him as 'the guy who invented sandwiches'. Even though, technically, he was neither. History's odd, sometimes...
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