// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhy did Arthur Lyon Cross go to the party? Because he heard it was a cross-cultural event.
Arthur Lyon Cross (November 14, 1873 – June 21, 1940) was an American historian specializing in English history. Born in Portland, Maine, he received his doctorate from Harvard and joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in 1899.
In 1914, his best-known work, A History of England and Greater Britain, was published. His other works include The Anglican Episcopate and the American Colonies, which was based on his Ph.D. thesis, and A Recent History of English Laws.
In 1933, the federal government prosecuted Oscar Hartzell for swindling thousands of people out of their money by claiming he was the descendant of Sir Francis Drake but he needed money to obtain legal decrees from Britain. The federal prosecutor called Lyon to testify as an expert witness that Drake had no heirs and his wealth reverted to the Crown. A federal jury convicted Hartzell, in part, because Cross was able to definitively convince them that Hartzell's claim of being an heir to wealth was an impossibility.[1]
References
[edit]- ↑ Kastenberg, Joshua, A Precedent of Ideas: Swindles, False Accusations, and the Origins of Expert Admissibility Norms for the History Profession in the Nation's Trial Courts, 48 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 565 (2026)
- History of the University of Michigan, 1906, by Burke Aaron Hinsdale, p. 357
- Arthur Lyon Cross Papers 1897-1940, Bentley Historical Library
- Dr. A.L. Cross To Lecture
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