Orson Desaix Munn, along with his partner Alfred E. Beach, purchased the six-month old Scientific American in 1845 for less than $1000. Under their leadership, it became the first popular scientific journal in the United States, and it is now the oldest. It was published by Munn & Company until 1948, when it was purchased from them.
Noted American film director, writer and actor Orson Welles was related to President Abraham Lincoln’s and Andrew Johnson’s bluff, acerbic, bewigged Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles.
TV character actor Edgar Buchanan who played Uncle Joe on “Petticoat Junction” was born in Humansville, Missouri and had degree in dentistry.
Olympic gold medal swimmer Mark Spitz, Queen drummer Roger Taylor, and actress Sofia Vergara all studied to become dentists, though they all left off their studies to pursue the fields in which they became famous.
As of 2020, there were over 200,000 active dentists in the US. This is a ratio of about 61 dentists per 100,000 people. 17% of these dentists are under age 35, while 16% are age 65 or older.
Not in play #1: No love for the Atari 800? What about the Atari 200,000?
Not in play #2: if my dentist was Sofia Vergara, I’m thinking that my teeth would be cleaner. “You’re here again? I cleaned your teeth two months ago”. “But they’re feeling dirty”.
Dentists are important providers of health and poor teeth can lead to other problems. Canadian public insurance should include toothcare. But dentists, particularly in the US, have been criticized for excessive unnecessary procedures. Many cavities are caused by one type of bacteria and there has been research into immunizing against this to prevent cavities. Claims that dentistry companies are fighting this innovation are possibly overwrought. Fluoridation unquestionably reduces both size and frequency of childhood cavities. The Canadian cities of Windsor and Calgary were among those whose city councils voted, against decades of public health research, to remove fluoride from drinking water. Both cities recently restored fluoride after a few years when research showed cavities increased by jaw-dropping amounts.
J.P. Wiser’s Whisky is Canada’s oldest continuously produced Canadian whisky. The brand was established in 1857, and Hiram Walker & Sons Limited currently produces it at their Windsor, Ontario, distillery. It is the largest distillery capacity in North America with 39 fermenters, producing approximately 55 million liters of absolute alcohol and 60 - 70% of all Canadian whisky.
The Wireless Information System for Emergency Responders is a system to assist first responders in identification of hazardous materials during a response. The system was created by the United States National Library of Medicine.
The system goes by its acronym, WISER.
The Magi, who are also referred to as the “Three Wise Men” or the “Three Kings,” appear in the Gospel of Matthew, as foreigners from the East, who brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the baby Jesus.
The number of Magi is never given in Matthew’s Gospel, though most sects of Western Christianity traditionally hold that there were three of them (as there were three gifts), and many denominations name them as Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. In some sects of Eastern Christianity, it is held that there were a dozen Magi.
A dozen, of course, is a grouping of twelve. The dozen is believed to be one of the earliest primitive groupings, perhaps because there are approximately a dozen cycles of the Moon in a cycle of the Sun, or year.
The use of twelve as a base number is known as the duodecimal system.
There are a lot of nerves in the human body. Among the most important are the twelve pairs of cranial nerves that connect the brain to important structures. Before the invention of advanced imaging, the location of neurological lesions - things like tumours or strokes - could often be deduced by abnormalities in structures supplied by these dozen nerves, traditionally written as Roman numerals. For example, X, the tenth vagus nerve, “wanders” (Latin translation) from the brain to the heart and diaphragm.
They are responsible for the sense of smell, pupil and eye movements, eyesight, facial sensation, hearing, motor movements of the face and neck, the gag reflex, balance, parasympathetic innervation of the heart (reducing heart rate) and the diaphragm (controlling breathing), swallowing and taste… plus a few other things.
These nerves are tested in very specific ways, but are part of the reason a doctor might shine a light in your eyes or ask you to stick out your tongue. In the setting of a stroke, many more physical exam tests would be required.
Sir John A. Macdonald, 1st Prime Minister of Canada, died of a stroke in 1891, shortly after winning the federal general election of that year.
Patronyms, avronyms, matronyms, and teknonyms or paedonyms, are names meant to convey lineage based on one’s father, grandfather, mother (or grandmother or any female ancestor), or child, respectively. Around the world, matronymic surnames are far less common than patronymic surnames, of which MacDonald, Macdonald, and McDonald are example surnames of Scottish and Irish origin referring to an ancestor with the given name, Donald.
Per Wiki, “Donald” is a masculine given name derived from the Gaelic name Dòmhnall. This comes from the Proto-Celtic Dumno-ualos (“world-ruler” or “world-wielder”). Domhnall, an Irish King of Aileach and descendant of Niall Noígíallach. was also the origin of the modern surname Donnelly.
Donnelly College is a private Catholic college in Kansas City, Kansas. It was established in 1949 by the Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica and George Joseph Donnelly, Bishop of Kansas City, Kansas. The Benedictine Sisters provided the faculty for the college, which initially served as a two-year college.
Kansas City, Missouri, was incorporated as the Town of Kansas in 1850. Today, it is the largest city in Missouri, with a population of almost 500,000. It is the largest city in the KC Metro area, which includes the Missouri cities of Blue Springs and Lee’s Summit, and also includes the Kansas cities of Olathe, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas. Overland Park is the second most populous city in the state of Kansas, trailing only Wichita.
As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls is the name of a 1981 jazz fusion album, by guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Lyle Mays. The album was the #1 selling jazz album for 1981, according to Billboard magazine’s year-end chart.
The falls on the Wichita River, at Wichita Falls TX, were recreated in the latter half of the 1900s.
A current pic from wiki, on imgur:
.
.
The city of Wichita Falls TX was named after a 5’ high waterfall on the river that washed away in a flood in 1886. After almost 100 years the city built an artificial waterfalls beside the river, near a zig-zag bend in the river at Lucy Park. The recreated falls are 54’ high and recirculate at 3,500 gallons per minute. They are visible to southbound traffic on Interstate 44 (or, I-44 west). I-44 connects Wichita Falls with St. Louis MO. The I-44 terminuses are STLMO and WFTX.
Lucy Webb Hayes, wife of Rutherford B. Hayes, was dubbed “Lemonade Lucy” after her husband left office in 1881, but not during his Presidency (and it was he, not she, who banned alcohol from the White House). Mrs. Hayes was also quite progressive on race issues for her day: Lucy Webb Hayes - Wikipedia
While best known as one of the greatest British scientists of all time, Ernest Rutherford was actually born in New Zealand in 1871. His father, James Rutherford, moved there from Scotland when he was a child in the mid-19th Century to work on a farm. Rutherford’s mother, Martha Thompson, also moved to New Zealand from England when she was also still a child. She worked as a schoolteacher before marrying James Rutherford and helped raise their 12 children. Ernest was the fourth child and second son.