The North American robin a/k/a red-breasted robin (Turdus migratorius) was named after the European robin, which also has a reddish-orange breast.The two species are not closely related; the American robin is actually a member of the thrush family, while the European robin is more closely related to the Old World flycatchers.
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Epcot in Walt Disney World does not have any roller coasters. Its biggest thrill ride is “Mission: Space”, a centrifugal motion attraction that simulates what an astronaut might experience aboard a spacecraft on a mission to Mars. Riders on the Orange version of the ride experience a g-force of 2.5 gs. Riders who want a milder ride can choose the Green version where the centrifuge does not spin. The cabs themselves still pitch and pivot, providing some motion.
San Francisco CA USA is about 49-50 square miles in area. It’s about the same size as Walt Disney World.
The Presidio of San Francisco was initially founded in 1776, when the Viceroyalty of New Spain established a military fort at the northern tip of what is now San Francisco; the fort’s original name was “El Presidio Real de San Francisco,” or “The Royal Fortress of Saint Francis.”
Control of the Presidio eventually passed to Mexico, which then handed it over to the United States at the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848. It remained a military installation until its decommissioning in 1994; the former fort is now part of the Golden Gate National Recreational Area, and is administered by the National Park Service.
Golden Gate Park in San Francisco is over 1,000 acres in size. It is 20 percent larger than Central Park in New York City. It is shaped like a rectangle over 3 miles long (east to west) and about a half-mile wide (north to south).
With 24 million visitors annually, Golden Gate is the third most-visited city park in the United States after Central Park and the Lincoln Memorial.
Theodore Roosevelt wore a ring containing Lincoln’s hair at his 1905 inauguration ceremony. The ring was given to him by Secretary of State John Hay, who had been Lincoln’s personal secretary.
https://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery-item.htm?id=285C7480-155D-451F-67FC968FB98B6B44&gid=2834E05C-155D-451F-67E114FC01591440 https://twitter.com/triviapotus/status/1254163487066132483/photo/1
Camp John Hay, in Baguio, the Philippines, was formerly a US military base. Its location was determined in 1900, and it was named after John Milton Hay (1838-1905), American statesman and official, and a private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln, then a Secretary of State for McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt. Up in Baguio, high in the mountains of Benguet Province, the climate is a cool and refreshing break from the heat and humidity of the rest of the Philippines. Camp John Hay was a refuge for military personnel. In 1991, Camp John Hay was turned over to the Philippines.
A former major league ballplayer has a street named after him in the
Philippines, where he is considered a national hero. Arlington Pond was a pitchin regular for the Baltimore team in the late 1890s, but also was a doctor who served later overseas with the army. He remained in the Philippines as a civilian doctor for many years and died in Cebu.
Amy Pond was a character on the new version of the British science fiction series Doctor Who, from 2010 through 2012; she was played by actress Karen Gillan.
Amy became one of the Companions of the Eleventh Doctor (played by Matt Smith), as did her fiance, Rory Williams. The two characters married during the series, and had a daughter together, named Melody Pond. It was later revealed that their daughter grew up to become (spoiled just in case):
a time-traveler named River Song, who also became one of the Doctor’s Companions.
The B&O, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, was acquired by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company in 1963. And in 1987 the B&O, in operation since 1827 to compete with merchants on the Erie Canal and on major rivers, was dissolved when it merged into the Chesapeake and Ohio.
In 1933, the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad ran a black-and-white print ad featuring a sleeping kitten snuggled comfortably underneath covers to advertise their sleeping car service on passenger trains operated by the railroad. The ad generated such a positive response that the company adopted the character as a mascot, giving it the name “Chessie”, and used the mascot to promote its passenger service up to 1971, when passenger service was consolidated under Amtrak.
In 1986, when the Chesapeake and Ohio merged with the Baltimore and Ohio and the Western Maryland railroads, the newly-formed company adopted the name “The Chessie System” and unveiled the “Chessie-C” logo, which incorporated the silhouette of the kitten into the “C” of the railroad’s name on its freight cars. Although its use on railroad equipment has gradually been phased out, the logo can still be found on older rolling stock which has not yet been repainted (or graffitied beyond recognition).
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Railroad graffiti, an art form in itself, dating back to yhe dawn of rail. It is called “Momiker” and as described by writers such as Jack London. It’s original purpose was to send warnings or other messages down the rail line. In recent years, moniker has been taken over by gangs.
Jack London’s mother was unmarried at the time of his birth. During her pregnancy, she shot herself but was not seriously wounded. After Jack was born, he was initially cared for by Virginia Prentiss, a former slave.
The “new” London Bridge, which originally crossed the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark, is a stone arch bridge, designed by John Rennie, and built from 1824 to 1831.
In 1968, the bridge was sold to American entrepreneur Robert McCulloch, who had the bridge disassembled, shipped to America, and rebuilt at Lake Havasu City, Arizona, where it re-opened in 1971.
The bridge was replaced, in the same location in London by the “modern” London Bridge, which opened in 1973.
Lake Havasu City AZ is the city where actor Michael Biehn, born in 1956, graduated high school in.
Lake Havasu City AZ is the city where Crystal Harris, born in 1986, was born. In 2009 when she was 23, she started dating, and later married, Hugh Hefner who was born in 1926.
In 1953, Hugh Hefner published the first issue of Playboy, featuring now-famous nude photos of Marilyn Monroe. The photos were from a photo shoot Monroe had done in 1948, when she was a struggling young actress and needed the money. She was paid fifty bucks for the photo shoot. Hefner bought all the photographs from that shoot for five hundred dollars, and used them to start his empire.
Hefner never met Monroe, but, prior to his death, he purchased the plot next to her crypt in Westwood Village Memorial Park cemetery. After his death in 2017, he was interred in the crypt next to Monroe’s.
Westworld was a 1973 science-fiction film, written and directed by Michael Crichton, about a technologically-advanced Western-themed amusement park, in which androids begin to malfunction and kill park visitors.
The original film spawned a sequel film, Futureworld (1976), a short-lived network TV series, Beyond Westworld (1980), and an HBO television series, *Westworld *(2016-present).
Ed Harris has played a corporate tycoon in Westworld, a Western lawman-for-hire in Appaloosa, a government agent in A Beautiful Mind, an astronaut in The Right Stuff, a TV producer in The Truman Show and presidential candidate John McCain in Game Change, among many other roles.
Ed Harris is a Jersey guy. He was born and raised in New Jersey, in Englewood and then Tenafly. His first film role came in Coma (1978), and then in 1983 came his breakout performance in The Right Stuff as John Glenn. He is married to actress Amy Madigan since 1983, and according to Wikipedia it is the first marriage for both of them. (Hooray for successful Hollywood marriages!)
In *Field of Dreams *(1989), Harris’s wife, Amy Madigan played the wife of Kevin Costner’s character. In the end credits, “The Voice,” who uttered the famous “if you build it, he will come,” line, among others, is mysteriously credited as “himself.” Auther W.P. Kinsella says he heard it was the actor Ed Harris. Other rumors say it was Ray Liotta, who played Shoeless Joe Jackson. Still other rumors claim it was Costner himself.
Listening to that voice, it could have been any one of them.
John Glenn was, for a time, Boston Red Sox great Ted Williams’s Marine Corps wingman during the Korean War.
