Baltimore/Washington International (BWI) Thurgood Marshall Airport is the first and only United States airport to have a dedicated trail for hiking and biking. the BWI Trail is a 13.3-mile (21.4 km) trail that completely encircles BWI Airport. Designed for area commuters, the first 4.4-mile (7.1 km) section of the trail opened in July 1994 and the main loop was eventually completed in 1999.
Thurgood Marshall made a name for himself as chief counsel for the NAACP, challenging segregation and racism across the country. He was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy, and to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967.
LBJ nominated two men to the Supreme Court, and both nominations were confirmed by the Senate. Prior to the Thurgood Marshall nomination, Johnson nominated Abe Fortas to the highest court in 1965. Fortas was confirmed, but later, when Chief Justice Earl Warren announced his retirement, Johnson attempted to nominate Fortas to the Chief Justice post. But a filibuster by Sen. Robert Griffin essentially killed the nomination, and Johnson was not able to make another Chief Justice nomination before his presidency ended.
Unlike most of the recent Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, Earl Warren, who served as Chief Justice from 1953 until 1969, was never a judge.
Warren had been the district attorney of Alameda County, California, and the Attorney General of California, but was primarily a politician – he served as chair of the Republican Party of California for 10 years, was Governor of California from 1943 to 1953, ran for President three times (1944, 1948, and 1952), and was Thomas Dewey’s vice-presidential running mate in the 1948 presidential election.
Former NFL defensive tackle Alan Page (born 1945) of the Minnesota Vikings’ “Purple People Eaters” defensive front line in the 1970s attended the University of Minnesota Law School while still playing for the Vikings. He had played for the Vikings from 1967 to 1978, the same year that he earned his Juris Doctor, and then also for the Chicago Bears from 1978-1981. He served as an associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court from 1993 until he reached the court’s mandatory retirement age of 70 in 2015. Page was the first defensive player to win the NFL MVP Award and only Lawrence Taylor has done it since.
Byron White served on the US Supreme Court after a short career with the Pittsburgh Steelers. At $15,000 a year, Whizzer White was the highest-paid player in the NFL in the late 30s. A decade later, anotheer player named Whizzer White was a quarterback with the Chicago Bears, famously ran 46 yards the wrong way, then fumbled when tackles. Different Whizzer White.
Wilford “Whizzer” White was the name of that wrong-way runner. After playing in the NFL he had a grandson named Max Hall who ended up playing in the NFL also.
Byron “Whizzer” White became a Supreme Court judge after his NFL days. When he retired from the Supreme Court his successor was RBG, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman nominated and confirmed as a Supreme Court justice. Ronald Reagan nominated her in July of 1981, fulfilling a campaign promise that he would indeed appoint the first woman to the highest court. O’Connor served from 1981 until her retirement in 2006. Currently at age 90, she is the oldest of the three living former justices. (Anthony Kennedy and David Souter are the other two.)
Newsweek reported in November 2000 that Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who was widely thought to be getting ready to retire, was unhappy at an Election Night party when she saw on the news that Al Gore had apparently been elected President. Rumor had it that she wanted a Republican to appoint her successor, and so, when she joined the majority in Bush v. Gore, there were some raised eyebrows.
On November 7, 2000 Hillary Clinton was elected to the US Senate to become the first US First Lady to win public office while still being the First Lady.
When New Zealand mountaineers Edmund and Peter Hillary summited Everest in 1990, they were the first father/son duo to achieve the feat.
Last week, after several years of surveying work and negotiations, the goverments of Nepal and China announced a revision to the official height of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest mountain. The new official height is 8,848.86 meters, or 29,031.69 feet above sea level, which is more that 2 feet higher than the previous consensus on its height.
Overall, the mountain is slowly rising due to plate tectonics forcing it upward, but a 2015 earthquake may also have caused it to become slightly shorter.
The national flag of Nepal is the world’s only non-quadrilateral flag that acts as both the state flag and civil flag of a sovereign country. The flag is a simplified combination of two single pennons, known as a double-pennon.
The sovereign is a gold coin of the United Kingdom that has a nominal value of one pound sterling. Struck since 1817, it was originally a circulating coin that was accepted in Britain and elsewhere in the world. Although the sovereign is no longer in circulation, it is still legal tender in the United Kingdom.
The UK, the US and Canada are three of the few countries which have never disavowed their currency or banknotes, even if they are no longer in circulation. This is one of the factors which has contributed to the stability and international recognition of their currency.
The reverse (back side) of the U.S. $1 banknote shows both sides of the Great Seal of the United States. The Great Seal features three Latin phrases:
- E Pluribus Unum (“Out of many, one”)
- Annuit Cœptis ("[Providence] has favored our undertakings")
- Novus Ordo Seclorum (“New order of the ages”)
The first phrase, which appears on the seal’s obverse, was suggested by Pierre Eugene du Simitiere, a an artist and patriot; the other two phrases, which appear on the seal’s reverse, were both suggested by Charles Thomson, a one-time Latin teacher and patriot.
Abram Petrovich Gannibal was abducted from Cameroon as a child in the early 1700s; at the Russian Imperial court, he was noticed by Peter the Great and became a general and nobleman. His descendants include Alexander Pushkin, author of the masterwork Eugene Onegin.
Wikipedia has an entire page on people known as “the Great,” including the Russian tsar Peter. Pope John Paul II, who died in 2005, is by far the most recent person on the list.
John Paul was a racing driver who won a world championship in 1980. He then served a 15-year prison sentence for a variety of crimes including drug trafficking and shooting a Federal witness. In 2001 he disappeared on his boat while being sought for questioning by officials regarding the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend.
That John Paul (b. 1939), John Paul, Sr., won the 24 Hours of Daytona in a Porsche 935 JLP-3 (image, 1981 Porsche 935 - JLP-3 IMSA Racing Car | Classic Driver Market) driving together with his son, John Paul, Jr., (born 1960). Senior has also won the other US classic endurance race, the 12 Hours of Sebring in Sebring FL. Senior has last been seen in Thailand and in Key West FL, and since the late 1990s / early 2000s he has disappeared from view.