The Li’l Abner comic strip was unusual in many ways, not the least of which was that it contained a comic strip within the comic strip, called Fearless Fosdick, a satire of the Dick Tracy comic strip.
“Dick” is a now-dated term for “detective,” which dates back to the 19th century. Several hypotheses have been proposed for the origin of the term: it may simply be a shortening of the word “detective,” or it may derive from a 19th-century slang term, used among criminals, of “to dick,” meaning “to watch.”
Evan Morris suggests the word “fuzz” to refer to the police, “arose as a term of contempt for police based on the use of ‘fuzz’ or ‘fuzzy’ in other items of derogatory criminal slang of the period. To be ‘fuzzy’ was to be unmanly, incompetent and soft. How better to insult the police, after all, than to mock them as ineffectual?” Ed McBain used “Fuzz” for the 6th title in his 87th Precinct alphabetic title list.
One of Crayola’s crayon colors is “Fuzzy Wuzzy”; it was known as “Fuzzy Wuzzy Brown” from 1998 (when it made its debut) to 2005.
Fuzzy-Wuzzy has its own Wikipedia page(!).
It is a poem by Rudyard Kipling and was published in 1892. “Fuzzy-Wuzzy” was the term used by British colonial soldiers for the nineteenth-century Beja warriors supporting the Sudanese Mahdi in the Mahdist War. The term Fuzzy Wuzzy is purely of English origin and is not connected with Arabic. The Beja are not Arabic speakers: their language, Tu Bedawi, is of Cushitic origin and is related to Somali and Afar.
The Beja are an ethnic Cushitic people numbering about 1.2 million and inhabiting Sudan, Egypt, and Eritrea.
In terms of land area, Sudan ranks 3rd among the 54 countries on the African continent. Algeria is the largest country by size, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
In terms of population, however, Sudan ranks 11th. Nigeria has the largest population, followed by Ethiopia and Egypt.
Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest lake by area, the world’s largest tropical lake, and the world’s second largest fresh water lake by surface area after Lake Superior.
The population of Lagos, Nigeria, has more than doubled in every decade since the mid-centory. From 300,000 in 1950, the metro is now over 20-million, a 60-fold increase in 70 years.
Lagos, Portugal is one of the most visited cities in the Algarve (southern region of Portugal), due to its variety of tourist-friendly beaches, rock formations (Ponta da Piedade (images > https://is.gd/mHHHA3)), bars, restaurants and hotels, renowned for its vibrant summer nightlife and parties.
Portugal has remained within the same boundaries longer than any other country in the world. Aside from a few border cessions, the country has been the same since 718.
“Sonnets from the Portuguese” is a collection of love sonnets, written by English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, first published in 1850.
Browning had written the sonnets for her husband, Robert Browning, and was initially hesitant to publish them, feeling that they were too personal. The title of the book may have been chosen to obscure the sonnets’ personal nature: it may have been chosen by Elizabeth to reflect her admiration of Portuguese poet Luís de Camões, or it may have been a reference to Robert’s pet name for her, “my little Portuguese” (she was not, in fact, Portuguese – the nickname was apparently inspired by her dark complexion).
Robert, California, also Roberts Landing, California was a settlement in Alameda County in the SFBA and is now incorporated into the city of San Leandro. It is located at the mouth of San Lorenzo Creek on San Francisco Bay just west of the city of San Lorenzo. It was originally named Thompson’s Landing and was founded in 1850 by Robert Thompson, Peter Anderson, and Captain William Roberts. The landing was built on one of the largest of the tidal sloughs in the San Lorenzo marshes.
The landing had a long wharf and for many years was used to ship farm produce across to San Francisco.
William Roberts, whose family originated in Amlwch, Wales, bought Robert Thompson out in 1856 and changed the name to Roberts’ Landing. Roberts’ Landing is located here on the map, near the east end of the San Mateo Bridge (just north of it), and the residential area just to the east is called Robert’s Landing >> Google Maps.
I might ride over there at lunch today, just to check it out.
The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was built at approximately the same time (1933-1936) as the more famous Golden Gate Bridge.
During the 1989 earthquake, a portion of the Bay Bridge’s eastern section upper deck collapsed onto the lower deck and the bridge was closed for a month. Reconstruction of the eastern section of the bridge began in 2002; the new section opened September 2, 2013. The reported cost was over $6.5 billion, a 2,500% cost overrun from the original estimate of $250 million.
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel is almost 20 miles long and its northbound direction was opened in 1964. Its southbound direction was opened in 1999. I drove it for the first time in 1983, and to date that is the only time I’ve driven it. It was officially named the Lucius J. Kellam Jr. Bridge–Tunnel in August 1987, 23 years after opening, honoring one of the civic leaders who had long worked for its development, construction and operation; it continues however to be best known as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel.
“The Tay Bridge Disaster” is a poem written in 1880 by the Scottish poet William McGonagall, who has been called the worst poet in history.
A sampling of the poem:
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember’d for a very long time.
. . .
Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.
The Johnstown Flood disaster occurred on May 31, 1889, after the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam, located on the south fork of the Little Conemaugh River, 14 miles upstream of the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The dam broke after several days of extremely heavy rainfall, releasing 14.55 million cubic meters of water. With a volumetric flow rate that temporarily equaled the average flow rate of the Mississippi River, the flood killed more than 2,200 people.
The Southfork Ranch, located in Parker, Texas (north of Dallas) became well-known in the 1970s and 1980s when it served as the setting for the CBS television series Dallas. Exterior shots for the show were filmed at Southfork Ranch from 1978 until 1989, when Lorimar Productions moved production to a reproduction of the ranch’s exterior in California. However, several reunion movies were filmed at the ranch, as was the series revival in 2012.
Though it was originally built as a private ranch, Southfork is now a conference and event center.
*Dallas * aired on CBS from April 2, 1978, to May 3, 1991. During its 14-year run, 357 episodes were produced. J.R. Ewing, played by Larry Hagman, was the only character to have appeared in every episode.
Ewing Galloway was the largest supplier of stock photograps in the 50s, and his name was well-known to every bored school child who read the credits under lame generic textbook photos. The photos were gathered and owned by Galloway himself, a small-town Kentucky lawyer, who died in a car crash in 1953.
Basketball player Patrick Ewing’s four-year college career is cited as one of the most successful college runs of all time. Among his many accomplishments, he helped Georgetown reach the final game of the NCAA Tournament three out of four years, win three Big East Tournament titles, and was named a first-team All-American three times.