When Denmark’s official religion became Lutheran in 1538, they banned the Faroese from using the Faroe language in church, education and any state function.
During World War II, Great Britain controlled the Faroes while the Germans occupied Denmark.
The fall of Denmark in April 1940 left the Danish colony of Greenland an unoccupied territory of an occupied nation, under the possibility of seizure by the United Kingdom, United States or Canada. To forestall this, the United States acted to guarantee Greenland’s position. With the entrance of the United States into the war in December 1941, Greenland became a combatant.
The world’s largest national park is in Greenland: Northeast Greenland National Park. It covers 375,000 square miles which is larger than 166 of the world’s 195 countries, and is more than 100 times the size of Yellowstone National Park.
The United States either considered or actually proposed buying Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, in 1867, 1910, 1946 and 2019. Denmark has never accepted any such offer.
On many world map projections, Greenland looks huge because of the distortion of the projection.
A good rule of thumb is that Greenland and Saudi Arabia are about the same size. Greenland is 836,300 mi² while Saudi Arabia is 830,000 mi².
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded in 1960 in Baghdad. The five founding members were Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, Iran, and Iraq. Currently, the organization has 12 member countries, and it is responsible for about 38% of the world’s oil production. Additionally, it is estimated that close to 80 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves are located within OPEC nations.
Saudi Arabia has more than 260 billion barrels in proven oil reserves, according to government and industry estimates. The North Slope of Alaska has about 10 billion. But the maximum daily production from Anwar could be about 1.4 million barrels a day—more than the US imports from Saudi Arabia.
Cmdr. William T. Riker, First Officer of the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-D on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was a native of Alaska. He was played by Jonathan Frakes, who was born and raised in Pennsylvania.
Actor/director Jonathan Frakes has been married to actress Genie Francis – best-known for playing Laura Spencer on the soap opera General Hospital – since 1988.
Jonathan Frakes is one of only two actors to appear in every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The other is Patrick Stewart.
Patrick Stewart was once considered for the role of William Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Actors who were considered for the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation included Roy Thinnes, Mitchell Ryan, Patrick Bauchau, Yaphet Kotto, and Edward James Olmos, as well as Patrick Stewart. Before the role went to Stewart, both Kotto and Olmos were apparently offered the part, and turned it down.
When Yaphet Kotto died in March 2021 in Manila, Philippines, he was 81 years old. When he was 33, he was the youngest actor to play a main James Bond villain when he played Dr. Kananga / Mr. Big in Live and Let Die (1973). He was also the first black actor to play a main James Bond villain.
The ‘thrilla in Manila’ was the third of three epic boxing matches between heavyweights Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. The first, dubbed the Fight of the Century, was in 1971, and featured the two fighters who were both undefeated. Ali had had his crown stripped, and Frazier had earned the title in his absence. Frazier won the 15-rounder by unanimous decision. In January of 1974, they met again in a 12-round bout in which neither was champion, as George Foreman had defeated Frazier for the title. Ali won the second fight by decision. Then, 18 months later after Ali had regained the crown by defeating Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle, the two met for the final time in what is widely considered as one of the best fights in history. Ali won by TKO, as Frazier’s handler asked the referee to stop the fight after the 14th round.
Boxer George Foreman retired from the sport in 1977; ten years later, at age 38, he came out of retirement. In 1994, at age 45, Foreman won the unified WBA and IBF heavyweight championships, making him the oldest person to ever hold the world heavyweight championship.
George Foreman is one of the most powerful punchers in boxing history. He had little experience in 1968 when he won the AAU title, the Olympic trials and the Olympic Games in Mexico City where he defeated Jonas Čepulis of the Soviet Union.
Foreman was only 19 years old. It was only his 19th fight, ever. This was the 19th Olympiad. Lots of 19s.
In the 1st round, Foreman had bloodied Čepulis significantly. In the 2nd round, the referee gave the battered Čepulis a standing 8 count, and then later in the round he stopped the fight because Čepulis could not respond to Foreman’s punches. It was all over in the 2nd round.
Foreman became famous for waving a small American flag to the four corners of the auditorium after his Gold Medal victory. That was especially significant given the tenor of the times and the protests of black American athletes, namely Tommie Smith and John Carlos, on the Olympic victory platform.
YouTube ➜ https://youtu.be/sCEtaaQ9ZPY
George Foreman had a 40-0 record when he faced Muhammed Ali in 1974’s Rumble in the Jungle bout. Foreman held the WBC and WBA titles, having beaten both Joe Frazier and Ken Norton. Ali had previously lost matches to both of those men.
When he resigned on Aug. 9, 1974, President Richard M. Nixon, Republican of California, was succeeded by Gerald Ford, Republican of Michigan. Ford was the first and so far only person to hold both the Vice Presidency and the Presidency without having been elected by the nation. He was nominated as Vice President by Nixon in late 1973 pursuant to the 25th Amendment, and confirmed to the office by a vote of both houses of Congress.
Not in play, but I was a 13yo paperboy and delivered this edition. In my 3 years delivering the morning paper, that was the biggest headline I’d ever seen on the Hartford Courant!
