things they don't teach in history class

Last night I was watching this history-channel type documentary on inventions and inventors, and I learned that Robert Fulton (the steamboat guy) was introduced to Robert Livingston (the man who financed the steamboat venture) by Joel and Ruth Barlow, an American couple in Paris who, as the narrator (Charles Ogden Stiers) describes it, "took Fulton to their bosom -- literally." A historian interviewed for the program confirmed that Fulton and the Barlows had a menage a trois (his term).

American development of the steamboat changed the course of history, and it would never have happened if Joel and Ruth and Bob hadn't been a threesome. So really, this country was built on polyamory. Heh. Take that, fundamentalists!