1. William Goebel (1856-1900) remains the only sitting US state governor to die due to an assassination. That convoluted wording is necessary due to unusual circumstances: He was sworn in after being shot but before (obviously) his passing.
It all began with the disputed Kentucky gubernatorial election of 1899. Republican William S. Taylor won the popular vote, but the Democrat-controlled Kentucky General Assembly claimed fraud. Democratic candidate Goebel was struck by an unknown gunman's bullets while entering the statehouse on January 30, 1900; meanwhile, the legislature overturned the electoral result, making Goebel the victor.
A conspiracy was assumed to be behind Goebel's death. Taylor fled to Indiana; of those who were prosecuted, Caleb Powers was found guilty of being the mastermind ... until he wasn't. Following a mess of appeals and retrials, Gov. Augustus E. Willson pardoned Powers, Taylor, and several others suspected of complicity. The identity of the assassin remains unestablished.
(Oh, and two territorial governors have been killed in office: the New Mexico Territory's Charles Bent in 1847, during the Taos Revolt, and the Dakota Territory's Edwin Stanton McCook in 1873.)
2. The Pershing Map was created by the US Army at the behest of Thomas Harris MacDonald, head of the Bureau of Public Roads (predecessor to the Federal Highway Administration), and presented by General of the Armies John J. Pershing in 1922. It laid the groundwork for the Interstate Highway System.
3. The parable of the broken window, explicated by Frédéric Bastiat in his essay "That Which Is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen" (1850), begins by setting out the notion that destruction is good for the economy because it necessitates repair and rebuilding and thus stimulates industry.
Bastiat then counter-argues that the resources spent on repairing and rebuilding could instead have been spent on other things. In this way he introduces the concept that would later be termed opportunity cost.
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