The Better Chancery Practice Blog

What do all of these folks have in common?

As the Mayflower crossed the Atlantic in 1620, passenger John Howland was swept overboard during a storm. He managed to sieze a trailing halyard and was pulled back to safety. His descendants in the New World have included:

• Franklin Roosevelt
• George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Joseph Smith and Brigham Young
• Humphrey Bogart
• Richard M. Nixon*
• Benjamin Spock
• Sarah Palin
• Chevy Chase
• Christopher Lloyd
• Alec Baldwin

If Howland had lost his life in that storm, none of these people would have existed.

All but Nixon* from Futility Closet; Nixon from another site.