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Hey, history lovers.

I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod.

A show about the past, rediscovered.

In the 1950s, according to the master of all word uses, the Oxford English Dictionary, a new

word started to take hold in the English language.

Hangary.

It's a combination of the words hungry and angry, like so hungry that literally everything

in the world makes you angry.

That word hangary somewhat describes an incident that took place 100 years before the word for the emotion even emerged. It involves a

congressman named Philemon Herbert, a first-term Democrat from California, though he grew up in Alabama.

One day in 1856, Herbert decided to go to the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. for breakfast.

A. It was 11 a.m. Herbert was starving.

So he ordered and then left to buy a couple newspapers

while he waited. When he came back, he found that he'd only been served part of what

he had ordered. What was missing is lost to history, but anyway, he was told that because

he had ordered so late, the hotel office would

have to approve serving a complete breakfast. Too bad all day breakfasts weren't a thing yet in

1856. Herbert was a muscular and intimidating guy, and hunger seemed to push him over the edge.

He started screaming, swear words, and slurs at the Irish waiter who served him.

Herbert then turned his wrath towards another waiter, whose name was Thomas Keating.

...