Tom Swift is the main character of a series of American juvenile and adventure novels which first appeared in 1910. The stories emphasized science, technology, and especially invention, as the main theme of each of the series are the inventions of the protagonist. There are a total of 103 novels in the six series.
Tom Slick was one of three segments in the 1967 cartoon George of the Jungle (the other segment was Super Chicken). Tom was a race car driver who competes in races with his trusty vehicle, the Thunderbolt Greaseslapper. Voiced by Bill Scott, and with Jay Ward created the show, following their success with The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.
Lt. Cmdr. Montgomery “Scotty” Scott (James Doohan), chief engineer of the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701, described himself in one episode of Star Trek as “an old Aberdeen pub-crawler,” but there are other Scottish towns eager to claim him as a (future) native.
Actor James Doohan served in the Canadian Army during World War II; as a lieutenant in the 3rd Infantry Division, he participated in the D-Day landing. He was wounded by friendly fire during D-Day, and his injuries included a bullet which went through his right middle finger, which needed to be amputated.
During his acting career, Doohan sometimes (but not always) wore a flesh-colored glove, with a prosthetic finger, to conceal the missing digit. In the screen shot below, from the original Star Trek episode “By Any Other Name,” the missing finger is evident.
On D-Day, 06 June 1944, 14,000 Canadian troops participated in the Allied invasion of Normandy, France. Canadian troops constituted just under 10% of the nearly 150,000 Allied troops who landed or parachuted into the invasion area. The Canadians were assigned to Juno Beach, and the Royal Canadian Navy contributed 110 ships and 10,000 sailors in support of the landings while the R.C.A.F. had helped prepare the invasion by bombing targets inland. On D-Day and during the ensuing campaign, 15 R.C.A.F. fighter and fighter-bomber squadrons helped control the skies over Normandy and attacked enemy targets. On D-Day, Canadians suffered 1074 casualties, including 359 killed. This is as per the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.
The Canadian War Museum has the tombstone of the Canadian unknown soldier. When he was exhumed from a Commonwealth grave near Vimy and re-buried at the Cenotaph in Ottawa, his tombstone was installed in a small room in the War Museum. There is an upper window in the room that is designed so that the Sun will shine on the tombstone at 11 am, November 11.
Like the tombstones of others who died unknown, the soldier’s former tombstone reads: “A Soldier of the Great War – Known Unto God.”
Vimy, in northern France, has the Canadian National Vimy Memorial set at the highest point of Vimy Ridge. It is dedicated to the Battle of Vimy Ridge and the Canadian soldiers who were killed during the First World War. The Memorial is also the site of two Canadian cemeteries.
The Canadian National Vimy Memorial is the largest of Canada’s war monuments.
Vimy was the first battle where all four Canadian divisions fought together, as the Canadian Corps.
From 1994 to 1995 the Canadian Football League expanded to include seven franchises in the US. As of today, none of those franchises remain in the league.
The teams were:
- Baltimore Stallions
- Birmingham Barracudas
- Las Vegas Posse
- Memphis Mad Dogs
- Sacramento Gold Miners
- San Antonio Texans
- Shreveport Pirates
Birmingham, Alabama has never been host to an NFL team. However, it has been the home city for professional football teams from a number of other leagues, including the Americans and the Vulcans (both in the World Football League), the Barracudas (Canadian Football League), the Stallions (in both the original and revived USFL, and now the UFL), the Fire (World League of American Football) and the Iron (Alliance of American Football).
Of those teams, only the Fire and Stallions played more than a single season.
The command structure of the Marine Corps generally follows the “rule of three” where:
A Fire Team consists of 3 Marines.
A Squad consists of 3 Fire Teams.
A Platoon consists of 3 Squads.
A Company consists of 3 Platoons.
A Battalion consists of 3 Companies.
A Regiment consists of 3 Battalions.
A Division consists of 3 Regiments.
A Corps consists of 3 Divisions.
The Marine Corps currently has 4 Divisions.
Going up from there, according to defense.gov, for the US Army:
A Field Army consists of 4+ Divisions.
An Army Group consists of 4-5 Field Armies.
An Army Region consists of 3+ Field Armies.
The Marine Corps and the Coast Guard are the only two U.S. armed services in which the top uniformed officer holds the title “Commandant.” The Army and the Air Force have Chiefs of Staff; the Navy has a Chief of Naval Operations.
Politician Rahm Emanuel has held a range of political and governmental offices, including Senior Advisor to President Clinton, member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Chief of Staff to President Obama, Mayor of the City of Chicago, and Ambassador to Japan.
Barack Obama graduated magna cum laude at Harvard University. He was also the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Magna International is a Canadian business for making autoparts for automakers, the largest such company in North America.
In the past twenty-five years, all three of the major North American automakers have shut down one or more of their major marques (brand names):
- General Motors: Oldsmobile (ceased in 2004), Pontiac (2010), Saturn (2010), Hummer (2010)
- Ford: Mercury (2011)
- Chrysler: Plymouth (2001)
The GMC Hummer EV, produced since 2021, has a curb weight of just under 10,000 pounds.
In 1870, the Hudson’s Bay Company agreed to transfer all of Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory to Canada, in exchange for 300,000 pounds sterling.
(I am sitting on part (a very small part) of the land included in the exchange.)
The name “Rupert’s Land” refers to Prince Rupert of the Rhine, who was the cousin of King Charles II of England. When Charles granted the royal charter which created the Hudson’s Bay Company, he appointed Rupert as the territory’s first Governor.
The land grant in the Charter gave the Hudson’s Bay Company all of the land within the watershed of Hudson Bay. Maps were a bit sketchy back then, and they didn’t really know how much land that would be.
Turned out to be about 3,861,400 square kilometres.