Obscure Supreme Court Footnotes
This 1938 case’s famous Footnote 4 quietly suggested stricter scrutiny for laws affecting minority rights.
What is United States v. Carolene Products Co.?
This Bronze Age language was deciphered in the 1950s and turned out to be an early form of Greek.
What is Linear B?
This theory proposed heat as a fluid, helping advance thermodynamics despite being incorrect.
What is caloric theory?
This breakaway African state existed from 1967 to 1970 during the Nigerian Civil War.
What is Biafra?
BWV 565 is better known by this dramatic organ work’s nickname.
What is Toccata and Fugue in D minor?
Justice Scalia used a footnote in this 2008 Second Amendment case to list “presumptively lawful” gun regulations.
What is District of Columbia v. Heller?
This Indo-European language of Anatolia is the earliest written example of the family.
What is Hittite?
Before oxygen was understood, this imaginary substance was thought to escape during combustion.
What is phlogiston?
Formed after World War I, this Central European republic lasted barely one year.
What is the First Czechoslovak Republic? (accept: German-Austria)
Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 is cataloged under this Köchel number.
What is K. 550?
A footnote in this 1973 decision explicitly declined to resolve when human life begins.
What is Roe v. Wade?
The Epic of Gilgamesh was written in this Semitic language using cuneiform.
What is Akkadian?
This 19th-century model correctly described light behavior but failed to explain the photoelectric effect.
What is the wave theory of light?
This Soviet-backed state existed from 1939 to 1940 during the Winter War.
What is the Finnish Democratic Republic?
Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” is officially Piano Sonata No. 14, Opus this number.
What is Op. 27, No. 2?
Justice Kennedy clarified the scope of the Commerce Clause in a footnote of this 1995 federalism case.
What is United States v. Lopez?
This undeciphered script from Crete predates Linear B and still baffles linguists.
What is Linear A?
Lord Kelvin supported this flawed theory that estimated Earth’s age far too young.
What is the cooling Earth theory?
This post-World War I German socialist state existed for less than a month in 1919.
What is the Bavarian Soviet Republic?
Haydn’s Symphony No. 94 (“Surprise”) is listed under this Hoboken number.
What is Hob. I:94?
This 1803 case contains a footnote often cited as the first articulation of judicial review’s limits.
What is Marbury v. Madison?
This liturgical language strongly influenced modern Slavic languages and used the Glagolitic script.
What is Old Church Slavonic?
This abandoned concept proposed a medium through which light waves traveled.
What is the luminiferous aether?
This unrecognized Balkan state declared independence in 1918 and vanished within weeks.
What is the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs?
Schubert’s final symphony, the “Great” C major, carries this Deutsch catalog number.
What is D. 944?