The Superdome in New Orleans, now known as the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, opened in 1975 as the Louisiana Superdome. It is the home stadium of the NFL’s New Orleans Saints, serves as the location for College Football’s Sugar Bowl and New Orleans Bowl, and is the venue where the annual rivalry game between Southern University and Grambling State University, which is known as the Bayou Bowl. It has hosted seven Super Bowls (the 8th is scheduled for 2025), the College Football Championship game, and the NCAA’s Final Four five times.
Louisiana was named for French King Louis XIV. The territory was named in his honor by French explorer La Salle, who claimed the territory to the west of the Mississippi River in the 1680s for France. The huge land tract—the Louisiana Purchase—would later form all or parts of 15 states and two Canadian provinces.
Louisiana is the only American state to have a supreme court with two different courthouses - as it happens, they are in New Orleans and Baton Rouge.
River Rouge is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The city is named after the River Rouge, which flows along the city’s northern border and into the Detroit River. The city includes the heavily industrialized Zug Island. The unpopulated Zug Island uses the Detroit 48209 ZIP Code, while the rest of River Rouge uses the 48218 ZIP Code.
… why would an unpopulated island have a zip code in the first place? Who or what are they delivering mail to?
In play:
The word ‘ZIP’ in ZIP code actually an acronym, standing for “Zoning Improvement Plan”.
Zip codes were introduced in July 1963 as a replacement for the postal code system then in place whereby certain large cities were broken in “postal zones” designated by a number following the city name — for example,
Name of recipient
Street address
Chicago 3, Illinois
By assigning literally every post office in the country its own ZIP code mail could be processed faster; postal sorters could read and enter the 5-digit code which would direct the mail to its destination faster than trying to read a hand-written address.
Since the inital roll-out of ZIP codes there has been one notable improvement with the introduction of “ZIP + 4” in 1983, which appends an additional four digits onto the end of the original zip code to even further fine-tune the delivery, in some cases to a single specific address, postal box, office, or apartment within a building.
-“BB”-
In 1983, an extended ZIP + 4 code was introduced; it included the five digits of the ZIP Code, followed by a hyphen and four digits that designated a more specific location.
The term ZIP Code was originally registered as a servicemark by the USPS, but its registration expired in 1997.
The YKK Group is a Japanese manufacturing group, and is the world’s largest producer of zippers. In addition to producing various fastening devices, YKK also makes architectural products and manufacturing equipment.
Nitpick: it’s “Zone Improvement Plan”: ZIP Code - Wikipedia
In play:
Tokyo is the de facto Japanese capital, but not actually by law. The Japanese capital has traditionally been wherever the Emperor resided.
Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E♭ major, Op. 73, was composed around 1809-1811 in Vienna, Austria. It was dedicated to Archduke Rudolf, Beethoven’s patron and pupil. Its first performance was on 13 January 1811 at the Palace of Prince Joseph Lobkowitz in Vienna, with Archduke Rudolf as the soloist.
The concerto was featured in the 1980 movie, The Competition, with Richard Dreyfuss and Amy Irving.
The concerto is commonly known as The Emperor Concerto. It was coined “Emperor” by Johann Baptist Cramer, the English publisher of the concerto, following the death of Beethoven.
Comment only: there are other classical pieces in E♭ major that I like. It’s become a favorite key.
Emperor Naruhito is the current leader of the Japanese monarchy. Born in 1960 to the crown prince and crown princess Akihito and Michiko, Naruhito is the grandson of then-emperor Hirohito. Hirohito passed away in 1989 and was succeeded by Akihito. Due to his declining health, Akihito abdicated the throne and Naruhito succeeded his father on May 1, 2019.
In 1184, an accident in Erfurt in the Duchy of Thuringia, caused the deaths of at least 60 people . A number of nobles from across the Holy Roman Empire were meeting in a room at the Church of St. Peter, when their combined weight caused the floor to collapse into the latrine beneath the cellar and led to dozens of nobles drowning in liquid excrement. King Henry VI was spared only because he sat in an alcove with a stone floor.
Holy shit.
Well played!
In play: Charlemagne was the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, ruling from 800 until his death in 814. The last emperor was Francis II of Austria, who ruled from 1792 until his abdication in 1806. However, Francis also ruled as Francis I, the first emperor of Austria. ruling in that capacity from 1804 until his death in 1835.
AT&T engineer Roy P. Weber from Bridgewater, New Jersey patented a ‘Data Base Communication Call Processing Method’ which was deployed by AT&T in 1982. The called number was an index into a database, allowing a ‘Toll-Free Call’ or ‘800 Call’ to be directed anywhere. This feature and other advances led to AT&T marketing analyst Dodge Cepeda to propose the introduction of providing 800 Toll-Free Service to small and medium-size business customers on a nationwide basis. Once this service was implemented, it became possible for the very smallest of business operations to have potential customers contact them free of charge at a time when long-distance calling was expensive. Until this time, 800 Service had only been available to major companies.
The Atari 800 was introduced in late 1979 and was user-friendly and popular. It’s 6502 microprocessor allowed people to play entertaining games such as Star Raiders, where one travelled the galaxy to fight Zylons - and earn a rank between Commander Class One and Garbage Scow Captain. One could hook up to four disk drives together. Or, if on a more modest budget, load games from tape. This process took a mere fifteen minutes if not interrupted by the dreaded “serial bus data frame checksum error”.
I bet they were pissed.
In play:
1979 was the second full year of Jimmy Carter’s Presidency. He is the most recent chief executive who did not name anyone to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is related to both the Carter Family of country music musicans (through his father’s relatives) as well as to Motown Records founder Berry Gordy (through his mother’s relatives).
Barack Obama once joked, “Some of my relatives look like Bernie Mac, and some of my relatives look like Margaret Thatcher.”
Although Margaret Thatcher was one of the most popular prime ministers in recent history, and the longest serving pm of the 20th century, she was pushed out of the premiership by a party revolt, as Tory MPs worried that she was driving them over a cliff with the poll tax.
On November 1, 1990, one of her strongest supporters, Sir Geoffrey Howe, resigned from Cabinet. On November 13, he gave a critical speech in the Commons, explaining the points of disagreement which led to his resignation. On November 14, another prominent Conservative, Michael Hesletine, challenged Thatcher for the party leadership. By November 22, she advised the Cabinet that she would resign.
It’s a case study in how quickly the Westminster system can dispose of a PM, even a popular one.
British composer Philip Heseltine (1894-1930) used the pseudonym Peter Warlock for his musical work, reflecting his iconoclasm and his interest in the occult. When living in small English villages, he scandalized the neighborhood with his wild, drunken orgies. He wrote his own satirical epitaph:
Here lies Warlock the composer
Who lived next door to Munn the grocer.
He died of drink and copulation,
A sad discredit to the nation.
In contrast, much of his music is conventional and melodic, inspired by Elizabethan tunes.