Joe Biden, Democrat of Delaware, is the second Roman Catholic President of the United States, after John F. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. Both are also of Irish descent, and took a trip to Ireland while in office.
I hope that trend doesn’t continue …
John F. Kennedy was the first Irish Catholic to be elected President of the United States. His maternal grandfather, John F. Fitzgerald, was the first Irish Catholic to be elected Mayor of Boston, Massachusetts, in 1906.
Indeed not, NoPi.
Sen. John F. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, was encouraged by party insiders, in the runup to the 1960 campaign, to consider angling for the Vice Presidency once more, as he had done at the Democratic National Convention in 1956 (the VP nomination went instead to Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee). Kennedy, already looking towards the White House, joked, “I’m opposed to vice of all kinds.”
Estes Industries is a manufacturer of model rocketry products, including rocket kits and engines. It is based in Penrose, Colorado, outside of Denver, and was founded in 1958 by Vern Estes, one of the pioneers of the model rocketry hobby.
Nitpick: While Penrose is indeed ‘outside of Denver’, it’s over 100 miles from city to city. Penrose is about 30 miles from both Colorado Springs and Pueblo.
In play: Estes Park, a town of 5,000+ inhabitants, is located north and west of Denver. It is often referred to as the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park, as the park entrance is just a few miles from the town. Estes Park was named after Joel Estes, a miner who had struck it rich in California, and was one of the first white settlers in the area.
The Rocky Mountain Arsenal was a major center for U.S. military chemical weapons manufacture, including mustard gas, napalm, white phosphorus, lewisite, chlorine gas and sarin. It was closed in 1992 during the administration of President George H.W. Bush, Republican of Texas. After reclamation of what had once been declared a Superfund site, much of it is now a wildlife refuge.
Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), and is administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It was enacted by Congress in 1980 in response to the threat of hazardous waste sites, typified by the Love Canal disaster in New York (state), and the Valley of the Drums in Kentucky.
(I was going to play off of lateral earlier, but got ninja’d by Railer13. Long ago, now. I’ve been saving this. I can not play off of New York.)
The Music City Miracle is one of the greatest moments in NFL history. It is one of the greatest moments in all of sports history.
In the playoffs of the 1999 season, after Buffalo Bills kicker Steve Christie hit a 41 yard field goal against the Tennessee Titans at Nashville (The Music City), Buffalo (of New York) had a 16-15 lead with 16 seconds left in the game. The situation looked dire for the Titans. On the ensuing kickoff, Lorenzo Neal caught the kickoff at the Tennessee 24 and handed it off to Frank Wycheck. Wycheck ran to the right towards the right sideline and turned around at the 25 and threw a lateral pass back to Kevin Dyson who was also at the 25. The pass was ruled to be a lateral, if only barely just so.
Dyson ran down the left sideline to score a touchdown that put the Titans ahead 22–16 with 3 seconds left. The game ended with that score and Tennessee continued their playoff run while Buffalo returned home.
This URL leads to the entire game but it is set at the kickoff and subsequent miracle return.
The Music City Miracle —
Well it looks like I cannot include that link. Here it is that can be C&P’d:
The Music City Miracle —
\https://youtu.be/eoE0VLUz00o&t=2h3m
Just remove the leading backslash.
A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure, which encompasses a star, and which would allow a spacefaring civilization to meet its energy needs by capturing a large portion of the star’s solar output. The first modern depiction of such a structure was by author Olaf Stapledon in his 1937 science-fiction novel Star Maker, and the idea was further formalized in a 1960 paper by physicist Freeman Dyson, whose name became associated with the concept.
Not in play: I had no allegiance in that game, but I thought at the time, and still think, after watching the replay, that the lateral was a forward pass. I totally understand why it wasn’t overturned, but, man, it was close!
You and Wade Phillips, both. It was very, very close. To my eye the football moved slightly forward but within the width of the ball itself. As it was explained then, that technically would still be a lateral. Just barely.
In play:
Astrophysicist Freeman Dyson disagreed with the scientific consensus on climate change. He believed that some of the effects of increased CO2 levels are favorable and not taken into account by climate scientists, such as increased agricultural yield, and further that the positive benefits of CO2 likely outweigh the negative effects. Dyson was skeptical about the simulation models used to predict climate change, arguing that political efforts to reduce causes of climate change distract from other global problems that should take priority.
Jeptha Wade was one of the founders of the Western Union telegraph company, which made him rich. Born in Romulus, New York, he moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 1856 and became a major philanthropist there. Wade Park there is named after him. Wade had one child with his first wife, Rebecca. After she died, he remarried; he and his second wife Susan adopted four children.
ETA: Ninja’d! Freeman Dyson’s middle name was John, and neither Jeptha nor Wade.
There is a Dyson sphere in Silverberg’s novel, Across a Billion Years
Across the Universe is a 2007 jukebox musical romantic drama film directed by Julie Taymor. It took its name from the Beatles’ song of the same, incorporating 34 songs from the Beatles’ catalog including the names of the six main characters (and most minor characters), which were inspired by Beatles song titles and lyrics. The film received mixed reviews from critics, with many praising the visuals, cast and singing performances, though criticized the plot and direction. The film was a major box-office bomb, failing to earn even half of its total production budget at the box office.
Julie Taymor was the first woman to receive the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical, which she won for The Lion King in 1997. She is known for a distinct visual style, with extensive use of puppets and masks, developed largely from her time in Indonesia working with wayang kulit shadow puppets.
Nearly all wild lions live in Africa, although there are some that live in western India. When they eat, in a single meal lions can eat about one quarter of their body weight in meat. That’s about 90lbs of meat.
Pope Leo I (Leo is Latin for lion) had one of the most influential papacies ever. He has been declared a saint. He is a Doctor of the Church. He was the first Pope to be called Patriarch of the West.