One of my favorite blogs to read is Letters of Note, a blog that gathers and publishes the most interesting original correspondence documents ever produced by famous people. Handwritten notes, scribbles on napkins, postcards, faxes.

Primary sources are primary sources, but I have always loved seeing the original handwritten/typed document. I'm no handwriting analyst, but I think everyone can at least get somewhat of a sense of how the author is feeling at that particular moment. When there are revisions or scribbles on the document, even better—readers can see the author's ideas develop.

The best part of these correspondence documents, however, are that they are intended for only one reader. A handwritten letter from Jimi Hendrix to his girlfriend is as hilarious as you would imagine.

Of all the Beatles-related books I have read, my favorite would probably be George Harrison's "I Me Mine," in large part because it included his handwritten lyrics on napkins and random letterheads. I'm not sure if they were recreated to look original – I'm choosing to believe they weren't – but it helped put me at the scene of the crime.

So in tribute, sort of, I tracked down a nice original document from Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Below is the first draft – including scribbles – of FDR's "Infamy" speech after the bombings at Pearl Harbor.

If you get the chance to visit Key West, Florida, it quickly becomes clear why Ernest Hemingway was one of its most famous residents. First of all, Key West is damn bizarre. It is technically closer to Cuba than mainland Florida, so it often feels as if the city is its own island republic rather than part of the United States.

Black History Month has passed, but it's never too late to recognize an interesting character in African-American history.

When Henry "Box" Brown fled Virginia slavery in March 1849, he and his accomplices devised a escape plan that would later make them nationally famous. Once you learn this story, you'll understand why Brown was cocky enough to change his middle name to "Box".

Brown, who weighed over 200 pounds, had himself sealed in a box that was roughly 3 feel long, 2 1/2 feet deep, and 2 feet wide. The box was to look like it was transporting dry goods, and was shipped to Philadelphia next-day express. Receiving the package in Philadelphia – thankfully, he was home when it arrived – was James McKim, a white minister who believed in slavery abolition.

We Americans are all a bit concerned about our dependence on foreign oil. In most cities, we are dependent on this commodity for living, working, or just getting around.

But think we have it bad? For Americans in the Victorian age, life was already hard--with the unjust labor laws, lack of bathrooms, and incurable diseases. To make matters worse, a disease in 1872 killed nearly a quarter of the country's horses.

The great epizootics of the nineteenth century emphasize how vital horses and mules were to everyday life. The animal counterparts to epidemics that afflict people, the epizootic of the 1872 claimed almost a quarter of the nation's horses (over 4 million) and brought the country to a virtual standstill for three months before the winter killed the mosquitoes that transmitted its virus. By that time the financial losses suffered helped bring on the Panic of 1873. In many cities, teams of men pulled carts and wagons as homes went without fuel deliveries, fires blazed unfought, and garbage remained uncollected.

There were 246 million cars in the United States at the end of 2009, and this was after "Cash for Clunkers," mind you. I try to imagine what this country would be like if 61.5 million of them had died.

A DNA test has proven that a 46-year-old Austrian farmer is a direct descendent to Adolf Hitler. In Austria's remote Waldviertel region, there are now believed to be some 39 additional Hitler relatives, with the news of the DNA results.

Unsurprisingly, the farmer told reporters he wished he had never taken the test, and hated knowing he had the blood of the world's "greatest criminal" flowing through his veins. Can't exactly blame the guy.

For years, historians believed Adolf Hitler had no living relatives. Since he never married or had kids, and any Hitler would have changed their name after Germany's surrender in World War II, it was believed the bloodline had ended in the 20th century.

That was until a few years ago, when David Gardner, author of "The Last of the Hitlers," tracked down the family of the late William Stuart-Houston. Born William Patrick Hitler, he was the son of Adolf's half-brother Alois and a British woman.

Like his famous uncle, his life would take quite a few twists and turns.

What I love most about American idiomatic phrases – other than repeating them, of course – is to learn their respective origins. We all use idiomatic phrases, or metaphors, to explain this reality by relating it to an alternate one. Even if we say them, however, and understand their correct usage, it still surprising to learn where those phrases originated from and what they originally meant.