The U.S. Embassy built in 1960 in London was located in Grosvenor Square. It was designed by famed architect Eero Saarinen. In WWII, Eisenhower’s headquarters were also on Grosvenor Square, which was then nicknamed “Eisenhower Platz”. The new embassy, built in 2017, is located in Nine Elms, overlooking the Thames. It’s the largest embassy in western Europe.
The U.S. Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, which had a large metal bald eagle over the main entrance and was frequently the site of protests against U.S. foreign and military policy, was prominently featured in the 1988 Cold War miniseries A Very British Coup.
The last non-royal duke created was when Hugh Grosvenor was raised by Queen Victoria from Marquess of Westminster to Duke of Westminster.
Out of play: @Northern_Piper The Anglo-Texan Society. The mission to pay the rent dressed in buckskin.
Queen Victoria reigned 63 years. Queen Elizabeth II reigned 70 years. Between them, four kings ruled for a total of 50 years.
Canada has existed since July 1, 1867, for 152 years. We’ve had a queen regnant for 104 of those years.
Three men are members of both the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, and the (American) Pro Football Hall of Fame: quarterback Warren Moon, and coaches Bud Grant and Marv Levy.
(Grant and Levy both started coaching football in the 1950s; they are both still alive, at ages 95 and 97, respectively.)
Bud Grant and Marv Levy are the only two NFL coaches to have 0-4 records in Super Bowls.
Don Shula also lost four Super Bowls, but he has two Super Bowl victories.
Chuck Noll has the best record in Super Bowls, with four victories against zero losses. Bill Walsh has three wins against no losses
Bill Belichik has the most Super Bowl victories, with six. He has three losses.
Among recent Democratic Presidents, Bill Clinton carried Ohio twice by pluralities, Ross Perot having been on the ballot in both 1992 and 1996. Barack Obama carried Ohio twice by outright majorities. Joe Biden did not carry Ohio in 2020. Donald Trump having actually improved on his 2016 Ohio results in his failed reelection bid, and Republicans having just swept all statewide offices in last week’s elections, it seems unlikely that Biden - and perhaps any other Democrat running for the White House - can win the state two years hence. But anything’s possible.
The name ‘Ohio’ came from the Seneca word ohiːyo’ , meaning “good river”, “great river”, or “large creek”.
Seneca Foods was founded in 1949 in Dundee, NY, by Arthur S Wolcott, a Cornell University business student.
Harry Truman, Democrat of Missouri, was sworn in for a full term as President of the United States on Jan. 20, 1949 with the man who was then, and is still, the oldest to ever hold the Vice Presidency, Alben Barkley of Kentucky. There is a small Barkley museum in his former home in Paducah, Ky., which I once visited.
(drawing from the last two posts)
There are a number of U.S. cities and towns named Seneca, including Seneca, Missouri, a small city (population 2,230) in the southwestern corner of the state, on the Missouri/Oklahoma border.
Seneca, Missouri was the hometown of Steve and Cassie Gaines, a brother and sister who were members of the southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd; both of them died in a 1977 plane crash which also killed several other band members.
The town of Seneca Falls NY is in the state’s Finger Lakes Region. The Finger Lakes are a group of eleven long, narrow, roughly north–south lakes located south of Lake Ontario. Though none of the lakes’ widths exceed 3.5 miles, Seneca Lake is 38.1 miles long and 66.9 square miles and is the largest in total area. The lakes were formed by glacial action, as glaciers advanced and receded to and from the north.
In terms of overall height, the ‘tallest’ waterfall in the world is believed to be Tugela Falls, located in Royal Natal National Park in South Africa. Close behind is Angel Falls in Venezuela, followed by Tres Hermanas Falls in Peru. Tugela Falls has a height of 983 meters; Angel Falls, 979 meters; Tres Hermanas Falls, 914 meters.
The Tugela River effectively bisects KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa, generally in an west-to-east manner. It drains into the Indian Ocean. Tugela Falls is roughly at the river’s midpoint. One of the river’s tributaries is Blood River, which was named by the Boers after they defeated the Zulu king Dingane on 16 December 1838, when the river was said to have run red with the blood of Zulu warriors.
A fellow officer in the Australian court-martial drama Breaker Morant, set during the Boer War, puns that the title character ought to be fighting on the other side, as “He’s a bit of a bore, isn’t he?”
“Convoy” is a 1975 novelty song written and sung by Bill Fries, aka C. W. McCall. It reached number one on both country and pop charts. It was the first song to achieve this level of popularity that incorporated CB slang, including phrases like “Rubber Duck”, “Sodbuster”, and “swindle sheets”; the opening lines are, “Yeah, Breaker one-nine, this here’s the Rubber Duck/ You got a copy on me, Pig Pen, Come on?”
In the 1970s, musician Chip Davis was working at the Bozell & Jacobs advertising agency in Omaha, Nebraska, writing advertising jingles. He collaborated with copywriter Bill Fries on a series of ads for a bakery, which featured a trucker character, C.W. McCall. Fries and Davis then began writing songs using the character, including the hit “Convoy.”
With his success from the C.W. McCall projects, Davis was able to leave advertising, and founded his own band, Mannheim Steamroller, which specialized in using classical music techniques and instruments in modern popular music. Mannheim Steamroller became popular for their Christmas-themed albums, and continue to tour today.
According to the official website for the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System:
Alaska has 365,000 miles of river,
Texas has 184,797 miles of river, and
Nebraska has 79,056 miles of river.