Ah, thanks. ISTR a movie review at the time which credited RFK’s book as the major source of info for the production.
In play:
His Grace the Duke of Buckingham is a significant secondary character in season two of HBO’s The Gilded Age, set in early 1883. Hector is a young nobleman who gets caught up in the feuds of high society in New York City. There was indeed a Duke of Buckingham at the time, but he was older and not named Hector.
At least 15 Nobel laureates and 3 Turing Award winners have been affiliated with Duke University.
Alan Turing, the noted British mathematician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist (before there was such a thing) was extremely worried about losing his savings in the event of a German invasion. To protect his wealth, he bought two silver bars and buried them in the woods near Bletchley Park. But when he later returned to dig them up, he found that he couldn’t crack his own code that described where he had hidden the treasure, and he never found the silver.
Alan Turing was prosecuted and convicted for homosexual activity in 1952; he died, likely of suicide, two years later. In 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology for “the appalling way [Turing] was treated.” Queen Elizabeth II granted Turing a royal pardon in 2013.
In 1952, the Empire of Ethiopia officially annexed Eritrea. Eritrea would gain its independence in 1993 returning Ethiopia back to being a landlocked country.
Laos, a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, is sometimes described as being at the heart of the Indochinese Peninsula. The country is pursuing an initiative to become a “land-linked” nation, building railroads connecting it to neighboring countries.
Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam are the countries of Indochina. The name Indochina describes the influence of India and China on this part of the world.
Kinh Dương Vương was the legendary first King of Vietnam, ruling more than 2800 years BC. The last monarch to rule Vietnam was the Emperor Bảo Đại, who abdicated in 1945 with the fall of Imperial Japan, his patron, at the end of World War II. Vietnam has been a republic of various kinds since then.
With 2,066 miles of coastline, Vietnam ranks 33rd in the world by coastline length, between The Bahamas at 32 with 2,125 miles, and Somalia at 34 with 2,000 miles. Canada has the longest coastline with 121,248 miles, and Norway is second with 49,969 miles.
Sonja Henie, the Norwegian figure skater, finished last in that event at the Olympics when she was eleven, but went on to win gold three times.
Sonja Henie went on to make 14 movies, all of which either centered around her as a skater or included scenes of her skating.
Sonja Henie died in 1969 after a nine-month battle with leukemia. She passed away on an ambulance plane flying from Paris to Oslo. She was 57 years old.
Per Wikipedia, there are twenty-three communities of varying sizes in the United States called Paris.
Disgraced Starfleet officer Tom Paris was confined in a Federation penal colony in New Zealand when he was recruited by Capt. Kathryn Janeway to become helm officer of the Intrepid-class light cruiser USS Voyager in the first episode, “Caretaker,” of the sf TV series Star Trek: Voyager.
Robert Duncan McNeill, who played Tom Paris, also played Nicholas Locarno on a Star Trek: TNG episode. That character was expelled from Starfleet Academy as a senior and there is a fan theory that he changed his name to Tom Paris (IIRC using his middle name and he originally used his mom’s maiden name of Locarno) and found alternate means to become a Starfleet officer.
The 5 US military service academies with the year they were founded are:
1802: US Military Academy, West Point NY
1845: US Naval Academy, Annapolis MD
1876: US Coast Guard Academy, New London CT
1943: US Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point NY
1954: US Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs CO
Only West Point, Annapolis, and USAFA are operated by the Department of Defense. The Coast Guard Academy is operated by the Department of Homeland Security, and the Merchant Marine Academy is operated by the Department of Transportation.
Annapolis and USAFA each serve two different services. Annapolis serves the Navy and the Marine Corps, and USAFA serves the Air Force and the Space Force.
The admissions process is very competitive. The average acceptance rate is between 8-17% for each of the schools.
Future President Harry S. Truman was rejected by West Point, according to biographer David McCullough, because of his poor vision. (Some other accounts say he withdrew from consideration, knowing he’d never pass the eye test.)
After serving with distinction as an artillery captain in the Missouri National Guard during World War I, then-U.S. Senator Harry S. Truman tried to join the U.S. Army in the years leading up to World War II. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall, his future Secretary of Defense and also of State, turned him down, saying he was too old and could do more good for his country in the Senate.
Four future judges of the Supreme Court of Canada served with the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery during WWII: Roland Ritchie, Brian Dickson, Antonio Lamer, and Gerald LeDain.
I was actually talking about this earlier today, so I might as well start it now, from memory… most of my Marine Corps career was in artillery FDC, fire direction control, and I got out over 30 years ago so my memory is questionable, but here goes…
Artillery FDC considers many variables in calculating firing data, to include (and this is by no means a comprehensive list):
Firing battery location coordinates
Target location coordinates, to determine range to tgt
Elevation difference between the two
Projectile weight
Fuze type and setting
Angle of fire (high angle, or not)
Air temperature
Wind speed and direction, at different altitudes
Air density
Humidity
Latitude of the firing battery, distance to target, and direction to target, for the Coriolis Force’s effect on the trajectory
There are probably more but I can’t recall them right now. The effects of these variables were tested at BRL, the ballistics research laboratory in Aberdeen MD.