8. The Teddy Bear
In November 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt decided to head out on a hunting trip. The president headed over to Mississippi to go bear-hunting but something would soon happen that would show the president’s merciful side. On the trip, a bear had been clubbed and tied to a tree and was awaiting the lethal shot from President Roosevelt. However, the president refused to kill the bear in what he considered to be an unsportsmanlike way. A Washington Post cartoonist Clifford Berryman sketched up cartoon of the moment that led one man to become inspired to create a stuffed bear! Brooklyn candy-shop owner Morris Michtom saw the cartoon and had his wife stitch up some stuffed bears and Roosevelt gave his permission to call them “Teddy’s bears.”