Pope Benedict IX was the only person to have been pope on more than one occasion. He was first elected Pope at age 20, but his less-than-stellar activities resulted in a revolt and he was driven from Rome and a successor was elected. But a subsequent revolt led to Benedict IX being re-elected to the office, which he held until he abdicated in favor of his godfather, provided he be reimbursed for his expenses. And, later, Benedict IX returned to Rome and led a movement to depose the existing Pope and, once again, elect Benedict IX to the office. Alas, he was again deposed and died at age 43.
Telnet, by default, used TCP port 23.
Not in play: This fact is based on Pope Benedict IX’s papal (and non-papal) experience from first election to death is 23 years.
In Newbolt’s poem, Drake’s Drum, the spirit of Drake says that
“If the Dons sight Devon, I’ll quit the port o’Heaven,
An’ drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago.”
In February 1942, the Kriegsmarine executed operation Cerberus, better known as “the Channel Dash.” Several surface ships were in harbor at Brest, on the French Atlantic coast, including two Scharnhorst class battleships, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, and several escorts. They successfully dashed up the English Channel to German home ports past a British blockade, undetected until they were near the Dover strait. This was a major embarrassment to the Royal Navy and the RAF.
In 1941, the FCC designated 60 of the 105 AM radio station frequencies as “clear channel”, which meant that only one station was authorized on each frequency. This enabled those 60 stations to have a clear signal at night for coast to coast reception.
In 1934 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the US Communications Act into law. This act replaced the the FRC with the FCC (Federal Radio Commission, Federal Communications Commission).
In 1996 President Bill Clinton signed the US Telecommunications Act into law. It included the internet in broadcasting.
Bill Clinton’s first foray into politics was in 1974, when he was defeated in a bid for the US House of Representatives. In 1976, he was elected Attorney General of Arkansas, and in 1978 won the gubernatorial election at age 32. He was defeated in his bid for re-election in 1980, but ran again and was elected governor in 1982, a position he held for 10 years until being elected the 42nd president of the United States.
George Clinton served as Vice-President under two Presidents: Jefferson and Madison.
Funk pioneer George Clinton, along with his group Parliament-Funkadelic (a.k.a. P-Funk), was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.
In Ireland, divorce became legal in 1997. It happened on February 27th, just two weeks after Valentine’s Day.
The Great Divorce is an allegorical novel by C.S. Lewis, on the themes of Heaven, Hell, purgatory and the choice to leave Hell for Heaven.
Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, an English author who is best known for his fiction books for children. He was also a mathematician, inventor, and game designer; one of his games was an early version of Scrabble.
Lewis Carroll lived from 1832 to 1898. He was ordained a deacon in the Church of England in 1861. In 1897 he wrote,
“I believe that when you and I come to lie down for the last time, if only we can keep firm hold of the great truths Christ taught us—our own utter worthlessness and His infinite worth; and that He has brought us back to our one Father, and made us His brethren, and so brethren to one another—we shall have all we need to guide us through the shadows. Most assuredly I accept to the full the doctrines you refer to—that Christ died to save us, that we have no other way of salvation open to us but through His death, and that it is by faith in Him, and through no merit of ours, that we are reconciled to God; and most assuredly I can cordially say, “I owe all to Him who loved me, and died on the Cross of Calvary.””
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll) was never ordained as an Anglican priest, and had to request special permission to remain a deacon. Possibly this was because his stutter made it difficult for him to preach; many of his 10 siblings also stuttered. He recorded an occasion when he was invited to preach: “I got through it all with great success, till I came to read out the first verse where the two words ‘strife, strengthened’ coming together were too much for me, and I had to leave the verse unfinished.”
Thirteen US states have a Carroll County, inckuding Mississippi, whose Carroll County picture show was made famous by Bobby Gentry’s number-one hit “Ods to Billie Joe”. The “picture show” would have referred to a movie theater in Carrollton MS
The University of Mississippi, the main campus of which is located in the city of Oxford, is colloquially referred to as “Ole Miss.” The nickname was first established in 1897, when the university published a yearbook for the first time, and the school asked students to submit ideas from the students; the winning name, “Ole Miss,” was suggested by Elma Meek, and the name soon began to be used in reference to the entire university.
Years later, Meek indicated that she was inspired by the term “ol’ miss,” which referred to the “lady in the big house” at southern plantations. However, some believe that the term may have simply been a contraction of “old Mississippi.”
The five longest rivers or river systems in North America (according to wiki) are:
3,902 miles: Mississippi–Missouri–Jefferson–Beaverhead–Red Rock–Hell Roaring River system
2,637 miles: Mackenzie–Slave–Peace–Finlay River system
1,980 miles: Yukon River
1,900 miles: Saint Lawrence–Niagara–Detroit–Saint Clair–Saint Marys–Saint Louis–North (Great Lakes) River system
1,900 miles: Rio Grande River
Alexander Mackenzie was the first European to reach the Pacific coast, overland, through what is now British Columbia.
Before that, he explored the watershed of the Mackenzie from Great Slave Lake, hoping it would lead to the Pacific, but instead ended on the shores of the Arctic Ocean.
He named the river, the River of Disappointment, but cartographers subsequently named it the Mackenzie.
The largest lakes in the Northwest Territories are Great Bear Lake, and Great Slave Lake. They both are larger than the two smallest of the Great Lakes, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.
The best meal of Arctic Char in Canada is at Bullock’s Bistro, in Yellowknife, a little shack of a restaurant on the shores of Great Slave Lake.
Eating a plate of Bullock’s Arctic Char, at the big table looking out over Great Slave, as the sun goes down, is an experience not to miss.