General Motors placed consumer activist Ralph Nader under surveillance by private detectives after his book
Unsafe at Any Speed came out, something for which GM executives later apologized while testifying before a Congressional committee.
Ninja’d! ETA: GM did not apologize to Justice Sotomayor.
Not in play: very cool @Railer13 ! Thanks for that. Right now the ride is in western Nebraska, close to entering Colorado.
The Chevy Corvair was powered by a flat-6 air cooled boxer engine. That is the same engine layout as the Porsche 911. Early 911s were air cooled. Current 911s are water cooled.
911 emergency service in the United States started in Haleyville, Alabama in 1968
In the UK and Ireland, 9-9-9 is designated as an emergency number. Like 9-1-1, there is no charge to place the call and can be accessed by any working phone.
Phone calls within the 330 area code in eastern Ohio must, when dialed, include eleven digits every time, such as 1-330-555-1234, even if you’re just calling next door. Calling in some other American area codes is equally cumbersome.
The Airbus A330 passenger jet has been in service since January 1994. As of May 2024, Delta Air Lines is the largest operator with 69 airplanes in its fleet. 1,470 A330s are in service with 148 different operators.
Air France Flight 447 was an Airbus A330 flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on 01 June 2009 when inconsistent airspeed indications and miscommunication led to the pilots inadvertently stalling the airplane. They failed to recover the plane from the stall, and the plane crashed into the mid Atlantic Ocean killing all 228 passengers and crew on board. The flight recorders were not recovered from the ocean floor until May 2011, nearly two years later. The accident is the deadliest in the history of Air France, as well as the deadliest aviation accident involving the Airbus A330.
Rio was the second studio album by English pop-rock band Duran Duran, released in May of 1982. The album helped the band to break through as a major act in many countries, including the United States, and featured three songs which became hits: “Hungry Like the Wolf,” “Save a Prayer,” and “Rio.”
The album’s cover used a painting by American artist Patrick Nagel, and is considered to be one of the most iconic rock album covers ever produced.
According to author Neil Gaiman, the character Desire in his acclaimed comic book series The Sandman was visually inspired in part by “the sexy, androgynous prints created by artist Patrick Nagel that seemed to be everywhere in the early 1980s.”
Neil Gaiman won the Newbery Medal for The Graveyard Book, which was inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book.
Newberry Springs, California is in the Mojave Desert about 20 miles west of Barstow. The Newberry Spring supplied water to the local Santa Fe Railway in the late 1800s. The average daytime summer temperature is 107 °F.
But it’s a dry heat. 
Wakulla Springs, located about 14 miles south of Tallahassee, Florida, is believed to be the largest and deepest freshwater spring in the world. In the springtime, flow rate of the spring is between 2 million and 3 million US gallons of water each day. A record peak flow in April of 1973 was measured at 1.2 billion US gallons of water per day. The spring forms the Wakulla River which flows 9 miles to the southeast where it joins the St. Mark’s River. After another 5 miles, the St. Mark’s empties into the Gulf of Mexico.
The coil spring as we know it today was patented by Richard Tredwell in 1763.
France ceded all of New France to Britain in the Treaty of Paris in 1763, ending the Seven Years’ War.
In addition to the Seven Years’ War, the American Revolution and Spanish-American War we also ended by a Treaty of Paris. There was also a Treaty of Paris in 1259 where English king Henry III relinquished many of the claims he has on the continent to France.
Actor Robert Duncan McNeil had a guest-starring role on Star Trek: The Next Generation, in a season 5 episode, “The First Duty.” In the episode, McNeil played a brash, charismatic Starfleet cadet, Nick Locarno, who was ultimately expelled from the Academy for covering up the cause of a fatal training accident.
Soon after, when Star Trek: Voyager was in development, the producers created a character who was similar in personality to Locarno (but who had not been forced out of Starfleet), named Tom Paris; they eventually chose to cast McNeil in that role, as well.
Robert Duncan McNeill appeared in the music video for “Material Girl” as one of several tuxedoed gentlemen dancing with Madonna.
Possibly he’s the guy lying on the floor.
The evening dress for men now popularly known as a tuxedo takes its name from Tuxedo Park, Orange County, New York. It was brought there by James Brown Potter, who was introduced to the garment by the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII).
Edward VII started the fashion trend for men to leave the bottom button of his vest unbuttoned.
American figure skater Dick Button was one of the leading athletes in his sport in the years immediately after World War II. Button won gold medals at the 1948 (St. Moritz) and 1952 (Oslo) Winter Olympics, and won the world championship in five consecutive years (1948-1952). He was the first skater to successfully execute a double axel jump in a competition, the first to land a triple jump in competition, and invented the flying camel spin.
After retiring from competitive figure skating, Button became well-known as a commentator on televised coverage of figure skating events (particularly at the Olympics), and for producing numerous television sports specials.