A fun game for the history wonks.

I was reading a biography of Thomas Paine and looking up a reference to the bridge he designed (of which I was unaware until reading this book). My research lead me circuitously to the beautifully designed and user friendly Mount Vernon website. On the site they have a GREAT interactive map of the estate. I could spend hours just reading and looking at this kind of thing, HOWEVER, I found a mistake almost immediately. I scrolled over to the Threshing Barn and clicked to discover that Washington built this just to protect the wheat from the weather.

This is not true. As you may know, Washington DESIGNED/INVENTED this building to separate the wheat from the straw. The reason the building (the one on the site is a replica built to Washington's specifications) was so large was to accommodate running horses. Horses stomped the wheat from the straw better and faster than humans, but they defecated and urinated in the wheat, which was seen as a necessary evil. Washington's plan was to run the horses, because at a run they will not drop road apples in the wheat. The building was also designed with two floors, allowing the wheat to fall through the cracks to be collected in the bottom.

The game, if you are so nerdy, is to go to the site and find other errors. They have an easy to use email system so report your corrections and post the errors here. We can all learn new and interesting things and help this organization improve the knowledge base of the Mount Vernon website.

Or we can all click past this question in the ever important quest to 'earn' points by sharing and commenting on as many questions as possible.