Nothing says freedom like Uncle Sam. But what do you know about Uncle Sam? Was he a real person?It was a widely held belief that the original Uncle Sam was one Sam Wilson, a meat packer in Troy, New York, who supplied rations to the U.S. military during the War of 1812. The letters "U.S." were stamped on all the army-bound food Wilson supplied. Asked one time what the letters stood for (the abbreviation U.S. supposedly was unfamiliar at the time), one of Sam's workers joked that it stood for "Uncle Sam," meaning the jovial Wilson himself. The joke was quickly picked up by Wilson's other employees. Many of these men later served in the army during the war, and the story spread from there.
According to Wikipedia, the 87th United States Congress adopted the following resolution on September 15, 1961: "Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives that the Congress salutes Uncle Sam Wilson of Troy, New York, as the progenitor of America's National symbol of Uncle Sam."
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