Noel C. Cilker

Hurricane Harvey has been dominating the most recent news cycle, and for good reason. It's the first major hurricane to make landfall in the United States since Wilma in 2005, and it's dropped the most water of any of the tropical storms measured in the U.S.: up to 50 inches in some places, eclipsing Tropical Storm Amelia from 1978. Aid workers rescue flooded-out residents in Texas following Hurricane Harvey.   GlobalGiving The stories of the damage Harvey has inflicted - both on lives and property - are heartbreaking. But where does Harvey stack up against other disastrous storms in American history? Hugo For some reason Hugo is always the first name I think about when the topic of hurricanes comes up. It's probably because I was a kid when I watched it on the news, and that early impression more than anything made it Bad Hurricane #1. Hugo formed over the eastern Atlantic in September, 1989 and hit South Carolina just above Charleston on September 21.

On a cold, wind-chilled morning in January of 1961, John F. Kennedy was standing at the podium of the U.S Capitol in Washington D.C. It was his inauguration. As thousands shivered and breath steamed from their noses while they watched, Kennedy uttered his famous lines : "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man." President John F. Kennedy speaking at his inauguration in 1961.   AP The lines received applause and cheers, and became one of the most famous presidential quotes in American History. If only Kennedy had written them. Instead, that distinction belongs to Kennedy's aide, Ted Sorensen. According to Robert Schlesinger's book White House Ghosts , Kennedy told Sorensen to solicit suggestions, keep it short and make it forward-looking. It seems strange that