Richard Henry Leigh
This celebrity goo was created by Scott Hardie.
publication date: Wednesday, July 8, 2026 (part of July 2026)
category: 
Military
clue: He wasn't a statesman from Virginia. He was an admiral who preferred the classroom to the war room, though I heard some submarine crews were not fond of him.
explanation: Several times, Leigh was pulled away from his job teaching mathematics at the U.S. Naval Academy to serve in a war. His work in World War I involved tests of listening devices that proved for the first time that submarines could be detected acoustically, which changed the course of warfare. He eventually reached the rank of admiral. more…
intended difficulty: hard
solved by: Russ Wilhelm
trivia: This goo was inspired by founding father Richard Henry Lee.
You're Not My Real Founding Fathers!: America loves its Founding Fathers, and the nation's 250th anniversary makes for a fine opportunity to celebrate them. But wait—who are these imitators? These are actors, and musicians, and authors, and athletes! Their John Hancocks are very similar, but these aren't the real Founding Fathers! Starting apropos on Father's Day, here are a whopping fifty goos to challenge your knowledge of patriotic trivia. Can you identify these fifty fake signatories to a Declaration of Independence that never was? With luck, you\ll hold these goos to be self-evident.Similar Goos
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John Witherspoon
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Frances Dana Barker Gage
She wasn't a lawyer from Massachusetts. She was a universal suffragist and abolitionist who refused to sit on her fanny in the face of injustice, until an accident forced it. Go »
George Washington Carver
He wasn't a military commander from Virginia. He was an agricultural scientist and inventor, the arc of whose life—being born into slavery, witnessing race crimes, overcoming educational discrimination, joining the faculty of an esteemed school, devoting his career to teaching poor Southerners who spurned him how they could grow new crops like peanuts in soil that was depleted by cotton, and surviving until the eve of the post-war boom—inspires hope that America will spend its second 250 years fully embodying the principles that it established in its first. Go »
