Everclear is the brand name of an alcoholic spirit produced by the company Luxco. While it is available in four different levels of alcoholic content, it is certainly most well-known by its highest proof of 190, which is 95% alcohol. Some states have banned the sale of the 190-proof version, which led Luxco to produce a 189-proof variation.
Rather than consuming Everclear directly, the company says it should be diluted by mixing it with water, which will essentially create vodka.
100 years ago, the American-made Indian motorcycles were the the largest-selling cycles in the world. The brand still exists, a division of Polaris, and Indian motorcycles are now made at their plant in Spirit Lake, Iowa.
The modern snowmobile was originally developed in the 1950s by several employees at Hetteen Hoist and Derrick Company in northern Minnesota, with the intent of creating a vehicle which would make it easier to reach remote hunting spots in winter.
The company soon changed its name to Polaris Industries, adopting the brand name of their popular snowmobile. Polaris, which is still headquartered in Minnesota, continues to make snowmobiles, as well as ATVs, “neighborhood electric vehicles,” and Indian motorcycles.
“Hoist with his own petard” is a phrase from a speech in William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet that has become proverbial. The phrase’s meaning is literally that a bomb-maker is blown up (“hoist” off the ground) by his own bomb (a “petard” is a small explosive device), and indicates an ironic reversal, or poetic justice.
A motion for a “six month hoist” is a parliamentary motion to defer consideration on a bill. If it passes, the bill is essentially dead.
The Althing (Alþingi in Icelandic) is the national parliament of Iceland. Founded in 930, it is the world’s oldest legislative body. There are 63 seats in the chamber. The last election was in 2017, and the next election will be held on or before October 23rd of this year. 33 seats are held by the Coalition government, which currently consists of three parties. 30 seats are held by six opposition parties.
The Icelandic sagas are notable both for their age and the violence depicted therein.
The Stone Age is usually divided into three periods: Paleolithic (or Old Stone Age), Mesolithic (or Middle Stone Age), and Neolithic (or New Stone Age). This era is marked by the use of tools by our early human ancestors and the eventual transformation from a culture of hunting and gathering to farming and food production
The Paleo diet is named for the Paleolithic era because it mimics what the Paleolithic man* ate during that time. The diet avoids processed food and typically includes vegetables, fruits, nuts, roots, and meat and excludes dairy products, grains, sugar, legumes, processed oils, salt, alcohol, and coffee.
In 1959, a coffee maker was an optional extra in Volkswagen cars.
The Volkswagen Beetle originally used “semaphores” for turn signal indicators – small flags on each side of the body, between the side windows, which would be raised to signal a turn. Semaphore signals (or “trafficators,” as they were known in England) were not uncommon on European cars in that era, but not typically seen on cars in the U.S.
Volkswagen replaced the semaphore signals on the Beetle with flashing light indicators in the taillight assembly for the U.S. market in 1955, though European Beetles kept the semaphores until 1960.
A Beetle semaphore:
The Semaphore alphabet, using two flags to symbolize letters, was invented by Frenchman Claude Chappe in the 1790s. Similar signals were occasionally used to communicate with airline pilots. The archetypical use is with people stranded on tropical desert islands.
When I was wee, a teacher gave us a puzzle. We had to think of the ten most useful common household items to have if stranded on a tropical desert island. Things like flashlights and fishing gear got high marks. Surprisingly, the puzzle authors claimed the single most useful item would be a mirror. The logic was that you ultimately needed to be rescued to survive, and reflected light was supposedly a great way to signal pilots. (I have no idea if this is actually true).
Red and green light traffic signals at intersections still go by the name “semaforo” in modern Spanish, The lighted traffic indicators were preceded by alternating stop and go bars at street corners.
“Stop” and “go” were the defaults for traffic signals until 1923, when Garrrett A. Morgan of Cleveland, Ohio realized that several collisions were the result of a car stopping for the signal and the car following not being able to react to the first car in time. He developed and was awarded a patent for a THREE-position traffic light with the usual stop and go, and a third “stop” light that halted traffic in all directions before vehicles were allowed to proceed on either of the intersection’s roads. This feature not only made it less dangerous for motorists to travel through intersections but also allowed pedestrians to cross safely.
His original prototype is now on display at the Smithsonian’s American History Museum.
-“BB”-
When the Parti québécois came to power in Quebec, “Stop” signs were gradually replaced with “Arrêt” signs, although the verbs “stopper” and “arrêter” have similar meanings.
Canada produces about 70% of the world’s pure maple syrup. Out of that 70% about 90% is from the province of Quebec. In 2010 the Province of Quebec produced roughly 7,989,000 gallons of maple syrup while Vermont, the leading producer in the United States, produced roughly 890,000 gallons.
In the Confederation pact of 1867, Quebec was guaranteed 65 seats in the House of Commons, the same number it had had in the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada. The ratio of Quebec’s population to 65 seats was used to determine the number of seats the other three provinces had in the first Parliament.
In Chisasibi, Quebec, Stop Signs are bilingual, in French and the Cree alphabet. Cree uses essentially the same alphabet as the Inuit languages.
I remember something similar from the Boy Scout Handbook c. 1975.
Morgan was featured in a recent question on Jeopardy!, as it happens.
In play:
J.R.R. Tolkien, a philologist and scholar of ancient languages before he was ever a novelist, devised Tengwar to serve as an alphabet for the Elves and others in his Middle-earth stories.
The alphabet used by the ancient Greeks, derived from an earlier alphabet that came from the Phoenicians, is believed to be the first to use letters that represent vowels. This was the precursor to both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets.