Every British prime minister writes “letters of last resort” to the captains of Royal Navy ballistic missile submarines, providing final orders in the event of a thermonuclear war. The letters are destroyed, unread, when a new prime minister comes into office. Although Her Majesty the Queen is legally commander-in-chief of British armed forces, the prime minister would, in the event of hostilities breaking out on short notice such as a surprise attack by a foreign foe, have de facto war-making powers.
The word theromonuclear was first used around 1938 in reference to a process that occurs in stars. The first tests of a hydrogen bomb in the 1950s spawned the more common use of thermonuclear. The word combines the Greek thermos, “hot” and nuclear, “of the nucleus of a cell.”
After an extensive and sometimes acrimonious debate in the national security establishment, President Harry S. Truman, Democrat of Missouri, in Jan. 1950 authorized the development of the “Super,” which became known as the hydrogen or H-bomb. Thermonuclear weapons began joining the U.S. arsenal during the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Republican of New York, Truman’s successor.
There are five US Presidents that had never been elected to public office before becoming president: Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Donald Trump.
There is only one US President who never held any public office before becoming President: Donald Trump.
If by “public office” you include military service at any rank, I think that’s right.
Zachary Taylor, U.S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower all served as generals in the U.S. Army. Herbert Hoover was never in the armed forces, but provided particularly vital service as head of the U.S. Food Administration, saving millions of lives and averting or ameliorating famines in Europe during and after World War I.
He was also Secretary of Commerce.
The City of Commerce, California has a population of about 13,000 people.
The Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif has about 1/6th that number of employees.
The state of Nevada legalized gambling in 1931 and has 334 casinos, which is more than any other state. 172 of them are located in Clark County, out of which 104 are found in the city limits of Las Vegas.
Nevada remained the only state with legalized gambling until 1978, when the first casino opened in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Today, there are 44 states that offer some form of casino gambling.
Nevada is also the only state in the Union to permit licensed, legal brothels. However, when the legislation to permit this was enacted in the 1970s, it was carefully written so that it would still not be allowed in counties with more than 700,000 residents, language which was specifically targeting Clark County (which has a population 2.2 million and includes Las Vegas).
In addition, the remaining counties or individual municipalities can choose to not allow them or to subject them to additional restrictions – which means that legalized prostitution is still prohibited in an additional five counties, most of which contain or are located near the other major gambling centers of Nevada such as Reno and the Lake Tahoe area, as well as the independent city of Carson City (the state capitol).
-“BB”-
The 1891 song “The Man That Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo” was reputedly inspired by the life of Charles Wells, a con man and gambler who won some £40,000 at the Monte Carlo casino, using the profits from earlier frauds. The song was used in the film Lawrence of Arabia, with Lawrence singing it as he rides across the desert.
During World War II, the US post office helped Americans stay connected to their loved ones fighting abroad (without transporting tons of letters via airmail) with Victory Mail or V-Mail, based on a technique originally developed by Eastman Kodak to process bank records. Written on special lightweight stationery that folded into its own envelope, letters from the United States were opened and microfilmed.
The rolls of film were shipped to military stations abroad, where they were developed, after which printed copies of the letters were delivered to soldiers. For soldiers’ letters home, the process was reversed. In 1944, a fact sheet from the Office of War Information claimed that V-Mail had saved some 4,964,286 cargo pounds since it launched in mid-1942.
The Victory Highway was an auto trail across the US between New York City and San Francisco, roughly equivalent to the present US Route 40. It was created by the Victory Highway Association, which was organized in 1921 to locate and mark a transcontinental highway to be dedicated to American forces who died in World War I. A series of Victory Eagle sculptures were planned to mark the route, although only six were completed.
Quite right, and did well in the job. In fact, I think it was he who inspired William Safire to write that every Cabinet should have at least one potential future President in it.
In play:
Fundraising appeals from the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, La., in the founding of which historian Stephen Ambrose played a major role, use replicas of Victory or V-Mail to reach the American public.
The National World War I Museum and Memorial is a war memorial and museum located in Kansas City, Missouri. Opened to the public as the Liberty Memorial museum in 1926, it was designated in 2004 by the United States Congress as the United States official museum dedicated to World War I.
The Siamese government sent a military contingent to fight on the Western Front during World War I. It was eventually awarded the French Croix de guerre but did not, unfortunately, include trained combat elephants.
The University of Washington has 58 sycamore trees lining Memorial Way. They honor the UW alumni, students and faculty that died in World War I - 57 men and 1 woman
In play: the National World War II Museum is in New Orleans and was formerly known as The National D-Day Museum. It was founded in 2000, and in 2003 it was designated by the U.S. Congress as America’s official National WWII Museum. It is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution.
I’ve been to the WWI Museum in KCMO and it is excellent.
I need to go to the WWII Museum in NOLA!
Definitely a good thing to do while in NOLA. The museum used to focus on D-Day alone, as you note (the Higgins boats were built in Nawlins), but has since been greatly expanded to cover the whole war. Depending on your level of interest, you could easily spend an entire day there.