The king, queen, bishop, and rook are chess pieces that cannot be moved on the first move. All other pieces can be moved.
The oldest known chess pieces have been found in excavations of ancient Persian territories. The chess piece now known as the King was originally called the Shah, which is the Persian word for King. The phrase ‘Checkmate’ is the English rendition of ‘Shah Mat’, which is Persian for “the king is finished”.
In the Middle East, Persian cats are widely known as “Shirazi cats”, after the ancient city of Shiraz in Iran.
Syrah (also sometimes known as “Shiraz”) is a variety of dark-skinned grape, primarily used in the creation of red wine.
Due to its name(s), it had been hypotheized by some that the variety originiated in the Sicilian city of Syracuse, or the Iranian city of Shiraz. However, DNA testing has demonstrated that the Syrah variety was the product of two French varieties (Dureza and Mondeuse Blanche), and that it almost undoubtedly originated in or near the northern Rhone region of France.
In Diamonds are Forever, James Bond caught Mr. Wint as a fake sommalier by commenting that althought the Mouton Rothschild was excellent he expected a claret. When Mr. Wint says they do not have clarets, Bond points out that it actually is a claret. The unspoken reason is that MR is a red bordeaux wine and is therefore a claret.
Le Bijou du Roi (the King’s Jewel), Le bleu de France (France’s Blue), and the Tavernier Blue are all names for the Hope Diamond, the 45.52 carat blue diamond housed at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC. Often described as the most famous diamond in the world, it was obtained in the mid-1600s by Jean-Baptiste Tavernier in India according to the earliest records of the diamond. At that time it weighed about 112-115 carats before it was cut. In 1678, Louis XIV had the diamond cut into a stone weighing 67.125 carats.
The diamond disappeared from history on September 11, 1792 when thieves stole the diamond during the French Revolution. In 1812 a diamond of the same shape, size, and blue color was found in the possession of a diamond merchant in London. It weighed 45.54 carats.
The diamond has been in the United States since the early 1900s.
The Tuaregs have been called the “blue people” for the indigo dye coloured clothes they traditionally wear and which stains their skin. There are about 3-million Tuaregs livine Sahelian Africa today, mostly in Niger.
The Volkswagen Touareg is built in Bratislava, Slovakia, alongside the Audi Q7 and Porsche Cayenne. All three SUVs share common parts. Early Touaregs, built since 2002, had front and rear locking differentials — a not common feature, especially among luxury SUVs.
The Volkswagen Type 181 was a four-door convertible car, produced from 1968 until 1983. It was originally developed for use as a light transport vehicle for the West German army, and was inspired by the Kübelwagen, which Volkswagen had made for the German army during World War II.
Volkswagen also introduced versions of the Type 181 for civilian sales – as a civilian vehicle, it was branded as the Kurierwagen (“courier car”) in West Germany, the Thing in the U.S., the Trekker in the U.K., the Safari in Mexico and South America, and the Pescaccia in Italy.
Per Wiki, Slovakia is the world’s largest per-capita car producer with a total of 1,110,000 cars manufactured in the country in 2019 alone, and the fifth largest car producer in the European Union, representing 43% of Slovakia’s total industrial output.
In 2017, Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, was ranked as the third richest region of the European Union by GDP per capita, with Hamburg and Luxembourg City ranking first and second.
When Slovakia and the Czech Republic were a united country, it produced the Škoda, a car of some dubious repute (we used to refer to it as the Skrota). The company was originally founded in 1895 and called Laurin & Klement, but was acquired by Škoda Auto in 1925. In 2000, it became wholly owned by the Volkswagen Group. Nowadays, the car line is the second highest seller in the VW line.
In 1933, Adolf Hitler met with Ferdinand Porsche to discuss the development of a “Volks-Wagen” (“People Car”), a basic vehicle that would be capable of transporting two adults and three children at a speed of 100 km/h (62 mph).
The Volkswagen Type 1, more commonly known as the Beetle, was produced by Volkswagen from 1938 until 2003.
Adolphe Menjou, an American actor, was born in Pittsburgh, buy was thought of as French, due to his debonair demeanor and the French spelling of his name, when “Adolf” would have been anathema. He was perennially regarded as America’s best-dressed man, and like the other Adolf. his mustache was symbolic – Menjou was a vitriolic anti-communist and his mustache in the east was a caricature of the west.
Adolphe Adam, a French composer, wrote numerous operas and ballets, but is best known today for his Christmas carol “Cantique de Noël”, written in 1847 and translated to English in 1855 as “O Holy Night”.
The Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. (“Special Search List Great Britain”) was a list developed by the SS in 1940, as part of Nazi Germany’s preparations for an invasion of Britain. The list, which came to later be known as “The Black Book,” contained the names of 2,820 British subjects and residents, who were to be arrested (and, in many cases, executed) upon Germany’s occupation of the island.
While the list contained many politicians, it also included a number of entertainers and writers, including Noël Coward, Virginia Woolf, Bertrand Russell, Paul Robeson, and H.G. Wells.
The last public executions in Canada occurred in 1885, when six members of First Nations were executed by hanging in the plain below Government House, Battleford, Northwest Territories, for their participation in the Northwest Rebellion.
Battleford is now an urban complex of 17,000, which has been in the province of Saskatchewan since 1905. Among those executed was Louis Riel, who has come to be seen as a Canadian hero,
The North-West Rebellion was a rebellion by the Métis people under Louis Riel in present-day Saskatchewan and Alberta, in March 26 – June 3, 1885. An associated uprising by First Nations Cree and Assiniboine of the District of Saskatchewan took place against the government of Canada. Many Métis felt Canada was not protecting their rights, their land and their survival as a distinct people. Riel had been invited to lead the movement of protest. He turned it into a military action with a heavily religious tone.
Although the preamble to the United States Constitution has no legal significance in its own right, its opening words “We the People” have been highlighted by some legal scholars as an important symbolic statement that all Americans played a role in its writing and ratification, not just state legislatures or a governing elite.