Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from HouseStopWorks.com

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

So, happy holidays, whatever you celebrate.

It's no secret that holiday celebrations often involve drinking a bit of spiked eggnog.

I am drinking some eggnog right now but it is not spiked because I am at work.

However, I did go get some just to have tearing this podcast.

I am jealous. But there's no, also no big surprise in mentioning that when people drink they sometimes do really foolish things.

And when they drink a lot, the foolishness can reach epic proportions.

I'm sure many of our listeners have some moments where like, man, I acted like a jerk when I had had too much to drink.

Many of us have been there.

So, West Point, it will seem like I'm jumping but I'm not.

West Point for any listeners who may not know what it is, is the United States Military Academy.

And it is located in West Point, New York, which is why it is called West Point.

And its roots go right back to the founding of the United States.

As West Point was believed by George Washington to be the key strategic spot on the North American continent in the war for independence.

And so West Point began as a military post.

And then the military academy was established there in 1802 by President Thomas Jefferson.

It's the oldest continuously occupied military post in the United States, which I did not know prior to researching this.

Getting into West Point is extremely difficult.

And the academy has a long history of prestige and honor when you know someone or you hear about someone like a friend of the family who says,

oh my gosh, I got into West Point or my son got into West Point. Everybody tends to go, wow.

So it's a big deal. But we today are talking about Christmas at West Point in 1826 in an event that was exactly that was not exactly what you would call honorable.

...