The bright red flower called the poinsettia has become a traditional part of American Christmas celebrations. But the flower’s common name, which, while it sounds exotic, has nothing to do with the native name for the plant, is a reference to an American diplomat of whom a 1929 edition of the Baltimore Evening Sun wrote “His Career was as flamboyantly colorful as the poinsettia, and yet he is almost forgotten.”
USS-Holland, generally recognized as the first modern submarine to be adopted by a major Navy, was a forerunner of the technology that is still central to naval warfare today. But its designer, John Philip Holland, would be nearly forgotten.