Huh, given the whole Eighty Years War against the Hapsburgs thing, I was surprised to hear that the Dutch/Nederlander Republic had a monarchy.
Huh, had? They still have a monarchy.
Years ago, someone at work was looking at a long list of company names (including Koninklijke Philips and Koninklijke Ahold, for instance) and they concluded that there’s a company called Koninklijke that has a bunch of subsidiaries.
(“Koninklijke” = “Royal” in Dutch.)
Cognate to English “kingly”.
Recently I watched on television some matches at the Kungliga Tennishallen. Same cognate in Swedish. Germanic words somehow sound more authoritative.
More of a matriarchy. The last three rulers were women and the next one will be as well. Oh and they tend to abdicate when they get old.
Clearly took a wrong toin at Albukoik-ee.
The species name of the greater roadrunner is Geococcyx californianus. No, I’m not sure where I picked that up, and certainly can’t say why I picked it up.
I’m sure I heard somewhere it was Velocitus incalcublii or Tastyus supersonicus or something like that
Are you sure? I thought I saw in a documentary it was Speedius Birdus
Pure nitroglycerin can be stored and transported safely by simply freezing it, in its solid state it’s much less sensitive.
The first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise wasn’t located in Kentucky.
KFC was founded by Colonel Harland Sanders, an entrepreneur who began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky during the Great Depression. Sanders identified the potential of the restaurant franchising concept and the first “Kentucky Fried Chicken” franchise opened in Utah in 1952.
Neal Stephenson’s new book Termination Shock features both RDS and the Netherlands’ Royal House of Orange extensively.
Speaking of which, the House of Orange has a fascinating history:
Sitting on the Rhône river near Avignon in southern France, the small Principality of Orange (1163–1713) has had a disproportionate part to play in world affairs. In 1544 by historical accident it became ruled by the same man as was the northern French county of Nassau, and that line went on to establish the Dutch royal House of Orange-Nassau when the Netherlands successfully revolted from the Spanish Hapsburg dynasty in the Eighty Years’ War 1568–1648.
In 1685 the Catholic James II succeeded Charles II to the English throne and the mainly Protestant English feared he would attempt to mandate Catholicism in England again, and would also take Catholic France’s side against the League of Augsburg an anti-French, mainly Protestant coalition of the Holy Roman Empire, Sweden, Spain and several German states).
The then Dutch ruler William III of Orange had married Mary Stuart, who was his cousin and the daughter of James, Duke of York (who soon became the above- mentioned James II), and so was in the line of succession for the English throne if James was excluded for any reason, and as an added bonus was Protestant. To the English this made him an attractive alternative to his uncle and father-in-law James II, as they were sick of being ruled by Catholic monarchs and of the wars, external and civil, that this had caused. In 1688 prominent English Protestants invited William to invade England while France was busy elsewhere and he duly did so. There was no significant opposition and he was crowned King William III (and William II of Scotland) at Westminster Abbey on 11 April 1689.
Like all other English monarchs of the period he had to deal with the Irish Question; as a Protestant of good standing his answer naturally involved siding with his co-religionists there against the Irish Catholics under James II, whom he resoundingly defeated at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The grateful Irish Protestants proclaimed themselves to be Orangemen, as they still refer to themselves today.
William III died childless so the House of Orange’s tenure on the English throne began and ended with him – it passed to his wife’s sister [Queen] Anne – but the Dutch branch continues unbroken to the present day.
The finest quality tea brought to Europe by the Dutch East India company was bai hao “white tip”, referring to the white still-curled young leaves used to make it; on European tongues bai hao was corrupted to Pekoe. When presented to the Dutch royal family they granted it a royal warrant to be known as Orange after their royal house, and so it became Orange Pekoe tea.
When Dutch settlers colonised South Africa they named the Orange River after their royal house, and in 1837 when they founded the Orange Free State. Some of the fiercest fighting in the second Boer War (1899–1902) occurred there, as two armies loyal to descendants of the same royal house fought it out in a region named after that very same royal house.
None of these world-shaking events had anything more to do with the tiny Province of Orange, which was finally absorbed into France in 1713 and is part of the département of Vaucluse today.
Yep. I’ve eaten at the World’s First KFC (the sign says that on the side of the building). It was a Pete Harmon’s restaurant. For a long time all the KFC’s in Utah were labeled “Harmon’s”. I’ve eaten at more than one. It’s weird, because they also served things like carrots, which you can’t get at a regular KFC. (Just like the Gino’s restaurants run by Gino Marchetti along the East Coast. They served hamburgers and fries alongside the KFC)
By the time I got to Salt Lake City in the 1980s they had some non-Harmon’s KFC franchises. In fact, there was one half a block from my apartment.
Not to mention Orange Counties in several US states named after William of Orange – not the ones in CA , FL, and TX, which are named after the fruit, but the ones in NY, IN, NC, VT, and VA.
Savannah, Georgia is further south than Tijuana, Mexico.
Also, there’s a portion of Oregon that is in the Mountain time zone, and part of Florida’s panhandle is in the Central time zone. As such, there is only a one hour time difference between them.
I’m watching a video of geographical oddities.
San Francisco and Indianapolis are both the same distance from Delhi, India. About 7600 miles.
Atlanta, Georgia is further west than Columbus, Ohio.
(There is a thread for this sort of thing folks - Your geographical misconceptions)
Golden, Colorado isn’t named after “gold in them thar hills”. It’s named after a man named Golden. First name Thomas.
Who found gold in them thar hills
Which makes sense if you think about it. It was “Kentucky style fried chicken”. You wouldn’t have to say the Kentucky part in Kentucky, for the same reason that in China, Chinese food is just called food.
Mine weren’t really misconceptions. Just facts I stumbled across. I’d say they could fit either thread.