6. King Mongkut of Siam Tried To Gift Elephants To US President
King Mongkut of Siam once offered domesticated elephants to the United States as a gift with the intention of them using them for the purpose of transportation. That seems really reasonable, since they used elephants for those purposes in Siam all the time. The letter was sent to President James Buchanon before the start of the Civil War, but it didn’t arrive until after war had broken out. This caused then-president Lincoln to assume their use was for purposes of war, leading him to decline the king’s generous offer. This funny misunderstanding was later immortalized in the immensely popular musical The King and I. Who knows if America would be using elephants differently in history if it had gone through.
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