Astronaut Jack Swigert retired from NASA in 1977, and then pursued a career in politics. Swigert ran for one of Colorado’s U.S. Senate seats in 1978, but lost in the primary election to Bill Armstrong. In 1982, he ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, again in Colorado; during the campaign, he was diagnosed with cancer. Swigert won election to the seat, but died in December of 1982, before taking office.
In 2000, Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan ran the US Senate against John Ashcroft. Carnahan died in an airplane crash three weeks prior to the election, and Ashcroft suspended all campaigning after the plane crash. Because of Missouri state election laws and the short time to election, Carnahan’s name remained on the ballot. Lieutenant Governor Roger B. Wilson became governor upon Carnahan’s death. Wilson said that should Carnahan be elected, he would appoint his widow, Jean Carnahan, to serve in her husband’s place; Mrs. Carnahan stated that, in accordance with her late husband’s goal, she would serve in the Senate if voters elected his name. Following these developments, Ashcroft resumed campaigning.
Carnahan won the election 51% to 49%. No one had ever posthumously won election to the Senate, though voters had on at least three occasions chosen deceased candidates for the House of Representatives. Ashcroft remains the only U.S. Senator defeated for re-election by a dead person.
The Missouri Compromise of 1820 admitted Maine as a free state (non-slave state) and Missouri as a slave state to the Union, to balance the Union at 12 free states and 12 slave states. It also established the 36°30′ parallel as the northern limit for slavery to be legal in the territories of the west of the remaining Louisiana Purchase lands. However, almost all of Missouri lies north of this parallel. All of Missouri’s southern boundary with Arkansas, except for its bootheel, lies on the 36°30′ parallel. This parallel also defines the state boundary between the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas.
Missouri is known as the “Show Me State.” The name purportedly comes from a quote from Willard Duncan Vandiver, who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1897 to 1903. H said in a speech, “I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.”
However, an alternate origin came from a Leadville, CO, mining camp, when a bunch of Missourians joined the mine and had trouble following instructions. Mine bosses would say, “That man is from Missouri. You’re going to have to show him.”
It’s unsure which story – or perhaps another one – is the true origin, though there’s at least a record of Vandiver’s speech, even though it was later than the other origins.
At an elevation of 10,158’, Leadville CO is the highest incorporated city in the US and it is surrounded by two of the tallest 14,000 foot peaks in Colorado:
At an elevation of 14,400’, Mount Elbert, 12 miles to the southwest, is the highest summit of the Rocky Mountains and the highest point in the entire Mississippi River drainage basin.
At an elevation of 14,428’, Mount Massive, 11 miles to the southwest, is the second highest summit in the Rocky Mountains and state of Colorado, and the third highest in the contiguous United States after Mount Whitney and Mount Elbert.
A ‘fourteener’ is a mountain peak with an elevation of at least 14,000 feet and at least 300 feet of prominence from its surroundings. In the United States, there are 96 such peaks, and all are west of the Mississippi River. Colorado is home to 53 of these fourteeners, while Alaska has 29. California has 12 and there is one in Washington. The 22 highest fourteeners are in Alaska.
The math didn’t check. It turns out there are two in Washington:
Mount Rainier — 14,417 ft
Liberty Cap — 14,118 ft
That’s what I get for believing Wikipedia…
I’ve been stung that way too.
There’s a contradiction between the text of the article and the table. I’ve posted a query.
The Federal Communications Commission assigns “call signs” (a set of three or four letters) to U.S. television and radio stations, based on the location of their “community of license” – those licensed in communities to the east of the Mississippi River are assigned call signs starting with the letter “W,” while those west of the Mississippi are assigned call signs starting with “K.”
There are, however, some older, “grandfathered” exceptions to this rule:
- Some stations which received their call signs early in the days of radio have call signs starting with “K,” even though they are in the eastern U.S. (such as KDKA in Pittsburgh).
- The initial east/west boundary was placed by the FCC along the Texas/New Mexico boundary line, then shifted to the Mississippi River in 1923. As a result, a few radio stations in those states which were east of the original boundary, such as WBAP in Fort Worth, Texas, have “W” call signs, despite being located west of the Mississippi.
The US and Canada regulated radio transmissions, but Mexico did not. Stations were built just across the Rio Grande from the US (notably XERA and XERF) that blasted 50,000 watts, then 65,000 watts, eventually reaching 250,000 watts which could be heard from California to New York. These “X” stations played rock and roll (drawing the interests of Wolfman Jack and Billy Gibbons) and country (the Carter Family and Johnny Cash joined them), but mostly broadcast the sermons of Pentecostal preachers. These stations were eventually curbed by pressure from the Roman Catholic Church, which held sway with the Mexican authorities.
XTRA-FM, at 91.1 MHz, is an English-language radio station licensed in Tijuana BC MEX. It first aired in 1968. Initially, programming was recorded at the downtown San Diego studios in the Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich Building and driven across the border to the transmitter site several times a day. That proved to be unworkable. Disc jockeys then began commuting from San Diego to Tijuana for each shift.
Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass were a popular instrumental band in the 1960s, known for hits including “Tijuana Taxi,” “The Lonely Bull,” “A Taste of Honey,” “Spanish Flea,” and the theme song from the film Casino Royale.
Despite the Mexican-sounding name of the group, Alpert was an American, the son of Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe, who was born and raised in Los Angeles; the rest of the “Tijuana Brass” were American session musicians, typically members of the well-known “Wrecking Crew” group.
Trumpeter Herb Alpert and recording executive Jerry Moss founded A&M Records in 1962. The company went defunct in 1999. Herb Alpert is the only musician to hit No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 as both a vocalist (“This Guy’s in Love with You”, 1968) and as an instrumentalist (“Rise”, 1979).
A&M was bought by PolyGram for $500 million in 1989. Alpert and Moss continued to manage the label until 1993. In 1998, PolyGram was bought by Seagram and merged into Universal Music Group. The A&M lot on La Brea Avenue was shut down in January 1999. During the farewell celebration, the company’s staff placed a black band over the A&M sign above the main entrance, indicating the death of the company. The old A&M studios and executive offices are now the home of the Jim Henson Company.
Jim Henson had been battling a sore throat and cold when he woke up coughing blood. Despite this, he refused to go to the hospital until a couple of hours later when his condition worsened. The doctor that treated him stated later that had he not waited those couple of hours, he may not have died from streptococcal toxic shock syndrome.
sniped
-“BB”-
He also played a tightass former Marine and Nixon’s post-White House chief of staff in Frost/Nixon (2008).
Cool. Thanks.
In play — Jim Henson was only 53 when he died in 1990. His alma mater was the University of Maryland, College Park. On that campus there is a statue of him and Kermit the Frog sitting on a bench.
Comment — when my daughter graduated from there a few years back I went to see his statue and took this picture.
