Tango was first imported to Finland in the 1910s. But no-one could have expected it to take off in the way it did before and after World War Two, filling the charts and making an indelible mark on Finnish culture. Though based on Argentine Tango, Finnish Tango is a genre in its own right, with a distinctive style and traits that have earned their own heritage.
It’s not just the older generation twirling around the dancefloor to the melancholy strains of Tango Finlandia. The revival started in the 1990s and is still going strong. Finland’s annual Tangomarkkinat (Tango festival), held in the small town of Seinajoki, attracts over 100,000 people, with a further 1.5m following its events on TV and radio. Not bad for a country with a population of just under 5.5m.
Finland declared independence from Russia in December of 1917, shortly after the start of the Russian revolution. In 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Finland, which resulted in the Finnish government allying itself with Germany for arms and supplies. Following World War II, Finland maintained an official status of neutrality. After the dissolution of the USSR, Finland joined the European Union in 1995.
The only known recording of Hitler speaking in a normal conversational voice was made in Finland in 1942. It features Hitler speaking with Field Marshal Mannerheim over a luncheon meeting and was recorded by a Finnish journalist.
Mannheim Steamroller is an American neo-classical musical group, founded in 1975 by composer/percussionist Chip Davis. The group is known for its series of albums of Christmas music, as well as its “Fresh Aire” albums.
In the 1970s, Davis also collaborated with Bill Fries on several country albums, featuring the character C.W. McCall, including the hit song “Convoy.”
A Quonset hut is a lightweight prefabricated structure of corrugated galvanized steel having a semi cylindrical cross-section. The sides were corrugated steel sheets, and the two ends were covered with plywood which had doors and windows. The interior was insulated and had pressed wood lining and a wood floor.
The name comes from Quonset Point at the Davisville Naval Construction Battalion Center in Davisville, Rhode Island, where they were first manufactured.
Between 150,000 and 170,000 Quonset huts were manufactured during World War II, and the military sold its surplus huts to the public after the war.
Quonset huts were based on the Nissen huts of the British Army during WWI. The Nissen huts were named after Major Peter Norman Nissen, the engineer who put the design into production in 1916. Quonset is an Algonquin word meaning a small, long place.
The British Army is not technically “royal” in its name, the way the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force are. All of its personnel swear a similar oath of loyalty and obedience to Her Majesty the Queen, however, as sovereign and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The Army is considered to have been founded on January 1, 1660.
The English Navy became the Royal Navy after the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II in 1660. One of Charles‘ first acts was to officially name the Royal Navy. The prefix HMS became officially attached to its vessels for the first time.
The Czech city of Karlovy Vary (“Charles’ Baths,” also known as “Karlsbad”/“Carlsbad”) is named after Charles IV, who was King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor in the 14th Century, and who is said to have founded the city.
The “baths” portion of the city’s name refers to the numerous hot springs which are located in the area, which led to it becoming a popular spa.
Carlsbad Caverns National Park, established in 1930, is located in Eddy County, New Mexico, in the Guadalupe Mountains of southeastern New Mexico. Named for its signature attraction, Carlsbad Cavern, the park actually contains over 100 caves. Lechuguilla Cave, which is not open to the public, has been mapped to a depth of 1,600 feet, making it the second deepest limestone cave in the U.S.
Carlsbad CA was known as Frazier’s Station in the late 19th century, after John Frazier who dug a water hole by the train station. The water was tested and found to be chemically close to some of the best spa water available in the world. Because of that the town was renamed to Carlsbad after Karlovy Vary CZE.
By contrast, the most popular name for a pope is John. There have been 21 of them; the last, Pope John XXIII, died in 1963. (Pope John XVI was an antipope, and there never was a Pope John XX.)
The current pope, Pope Francis, is the first to carry that moniker.
Pope John II (reigned 533 to 535) was the first pope to adopt a papal name on being elected. His baptismal name was Mercurius, and he did not think it appropriate for the pope to have the name of a pagan god.
Boxer Muhammad Ali had the birth name of Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. He was named after his father, who was, himself, named after the 19th Century politician and abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay.
All three Cassius Clays were also born in the Commonwealth of Kentucky - the first, in Madison County in 1810; the second, in Jefferson County in 1912; and the third and most famous, in Louisville in 1942.
The best-known of many people named Cassius in antiquity is Gaius Cassius Longinus. A Roman senator and one of Julius Caesar’s assassins in 44 BC, he is sometimes labelled “the tyrannicide” to distinguish him from others with the same names. Several of these, like him, were from a very old Roman family, the gens Cassia.
Longines is a Swiss manufacturer of luxury watches. Originally named “Raiguel Jeune & Cie” when it was founded in 1832, the company changed to its current name in the latter half of the 19th Century, taking its new name from the area where its factory was located in the Saint-Imier region of Switzerland, which was commonly known as “Les Longines” (French for “the long meadows”).
Longines’ logo, which depicts a winged hourglass, is the oldest trademark, still in use in its original form, to be registered with the World Intellectual Property Association.
Switzerland produces about 20 million watches each year, which represents about 2% of the global manufacturing. However, more than 95% of watches that sell for $1000 or more are produced by Swiss companies.
In 2019 Apple sold more watches than all of the Swiss companies combined.
