After mobster Phil Roselli’s death, journalists Jack Anderson and Les Whitten published an editorial stating that Roselli had told associates that individuals he had recruited to kill Castro had been turned by the Cuban leader to assassinate President John F. Kennedy. Bill Bonanno, the son of Cosa Nostra mafia boss Joseph Bonanno, claimed in his 1999 memoir, Bound by Honor: A Mafioso’s Story, that he had discussed the assassination of Kennedy with Roselli and implicated him as the primary hitman in a conspiracy instigated by the mob.According to Bonanno, Roselli fired at Kennedy from a storm drain on Elm Street.
John F. Kennedy was the second-oldest of nine children born to Joseph and Rose Kennedy. Jean Kennedy Smith, born in 1928 and the second-youngest, is the lone survivor of the family.
Two of the Kennedy children died in plane crashes and two were assassinated.
Dead Kennedys are a hardcore punk band, which formed in San Francisco in 1978.
The band gained national attention in 1986, when they (along with several other people) were criminially charged in California with distribution of harmful matter to minors. The case revolved around the band’s 1985 album, “Frankenchrist,” which included, as an insert, a print of an H.R. Giger painting, “Penis Landscape,” which depicted penises and vaginas, and the purchase of the album by a 17-year-old girl.
When the case went to trial, the defendents were Dead Kennedys vocalist Jello Biafra, and a manager from the band’s record label; the trial resulted in a hung jury.
Biafra’s declaration of independence from Nigeria in 1967 resulted in civil war between Biafra and Nigeria. By the time the war ended in 1970 with the surrender of Biafran forces, almost two million Biafran civilians, many of them young children, died from starvation caused by the total blockade of the region by the Nigerian and British governments. Humanitarian aid was provided by groups such as Caritas International, U.S. Catholic Relief Services and Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), which originated in response to the suffering.
The United States has the fourth largest Catholic population in the world, after Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines.
There are several accounts explaining the origin of the name of Starvation State Park in northeast Utah. One account describes a group of fur trappers stranded in harsh winter conditions who survived by stealing a local Native American cache of food, which resulted in their starvation. Another account tells the opposite story, with the Indians doing the stealing and the trappers starving.
Sorry buddy, you got ninja’d and you’re supposed to fix that.
(Bridging the last two entries…)
In 1776, two Catholic priests became the first known non-Native Americans to enter the land that became Utah. Francisco Atanazio Dominguez and Silvestre V. de Escalante left Santa Fe in search of an overland route to Monterey, and travelled through present-day Colorado, Utah, and Arizona before returning to Santa Fe. As part of their journey, they drew the first known maps of parts of Utah.
Monterey Jack is a style of American, semi-hard, white cheese made from cow’s milk.
The style was originally developed by Franciscan friars in the 18th Century, in what is now Monterey, California, as “Queso Blanco” (white cheese). In the 19th Century, California businessman David Jacks owned a dairy which made this style of cheese – it came to be known as “Jacks cheese,” and the name evolved into “Monterey Jack.”
Wine-growing was introduced to the Monterrei region in Galicia, Spain, by the Romans. The region’s production has continued throughout the centuries but was overshadowed by better-known names. In 2008, influential wine critic Robert Parker praised some of its wines, boosting the area’s popularity and creating new demand; several vineyards have expanded production.
Uruguay is the fourth-largest producer of wine in South America, behind Argentina, Chile, and Brazil.
Chuy is a city on the Uruguay/Brazil border where you can wander freely back and forth across the border, but you need papers to travel into the interior of either country. The main commercial street of the city is the international border.;
At 63,252 square miles in area, the smallest country in South America is Suriname.
At 69,898 square miles in area, the 2nd smallest country in South America is Uruguay.
Uruguay is named for the Uruguay River which means ‘river of the painted birds’ in the Guarani language. In Uruguay, cows outnumber people four to one. It is a nation of 12 million cattle but just three million people.
The country of Paraguay is named for the Paraguay River. The Paraguay River is the second longest river in South America, behind the Amazon.
Paraguay is one of two South American countries that are land-locked. The other is Bolivia.
Despite Uruguay’s small size (a total population of roughly 3.4 million people in 2018), the country has been extremely successful in international association football (soccer).
Uruguay’s national team has won two World Cups, in 1930 and 1950; it is, by far, the smallest country to have ever won the World Cup (with a population of only 1.75 million when they won in 1930). The team has won a total of twenty official international titles (including fifteen Copa América (South American championship) titles), which is the most of any national team.
Uruguay has a high standard of living and the 2017 Mercer’s report on quality of life rated Montevideo first in Latin America, a rank the city has consistently held since 2005.
The first country in the world that gave a laptop for free to each school child was… Uruguay.
Luis Lacalle Pou is being inaugurated today as the new president of Uruguay, His father was president 30 years ago. He likes to surf and shoot feral hogs.
Beginning in 1920, a team of farm boys who became known as the “hog boys”, consistently won motorcycle races. The group had a live hog as their mascot. Following a win, they would put the hog on their Harley and take a victory lap.
On August 15, 2006, Harley-Davidson Inc. had its NYSE ticker symbol changed from HDI to HOG.
In 1901, William Harley and his friends, brothers Arthur and Walter Davidson, began designing and building a small engine designed to fit on a standard bicycle frame. However, the prototype did not have enough power to climb the hills around Milwaukee. With the help of Ole Evinrude, they designed a larger engine which was built for a motorcycle, rather than a bicycle.