“Victory in Europe Day” (also known as “VE Day,” “V-E Day,” and “Victory Day”) occurred on May 8th, 1945, with the acceptance by the Allies of the unconditional surrender of German forces.
In the Soviet Union (and now in Russia and other former Soviet bloc states), “Victory Day” was and is celebrated on May 9th, as the formal cessation of hostilties occured at 2301 Central European Time, which was past midnight (and, thus, on the 9th) in the Soviet Union.
The Victory Highway was an auto trail across the US between New York City and San Francisco, roughly equivalent to the present U.S. Route 40. Some parts of it are visible, and marked, like in Wendover NV as shown here: Victory Highway, Wendover NV (Oct 2010) - Album on Imgur.
In 1913, the Lincoln Highway was dedicated, providing a designated route from coast to coast. Rather than a construction project, it was a route-making process using existing roadways. It was intended to be the straightest possible shot between New York City and San Francisco, but it still took about a month to get across the country.
The current record for the Cannonball Run Challenge, driving across the country by car, is 26 hours and 38 minutes, set by Prem Patel earlier this year. His average speed was 106 mph.
The Cannonball Run Challenge was originated by automotive writer Brock Yates in 1971, when he was at Car and Driver magazine. Yates named it for Erwin “Cannonball” Baker, who raced automobiles and motorcyles in the early 20th century, and who made a large number of cross-country speed runs.
Yates’ original Cannonball Run, in May 1971, wasn’t a true race, as there was only one vehicle involved (a van driven by himself, his son, and two others). However, it spawned several actual (if illegal) competitive runs of the challenge during the 1970s, as well as two Hollywood films in the 1980s.
The first ‘Cannon Ball Train’ ran in the late 1800s-early 1900s from Chicago to El Paso (TX) and used a route encompassing several railroads, including both the Wabash and the Rock Island Line, but was not known at that time as the “Wabash Cannonball”.The Wabash Railroad did not actually name a train “The Wabash Cannonball” until 1949 when, in response to the popularity of the Roy Acuff song, they bestowed the “Wabash Cannonball” name on an existing daytime express run between Detroit and St. Louis.
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The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad is mentioned in the title of two famous songs, but both are misnomers. Wabash Cannonball is tho popular title of “The Great Rock Island Route”, but the railrod never extended as far east as the Wabash River. And Lonnie Donnegan’s “Rock Island Line” never “run on down to New Orleans”, but the terminus was in Rayne, Louisiana, over 100 miles from New Orleans.
“City of New Orleans” is a song made famous in 1972 by Arlo Guthrie about a train ride from Chicago to New Orleans on the Illinois Central Railroad’s City of New Orleans in bittersweet and nostalgic terms.
The song would prove to be Guthrie’s only top-40 hit and one of only two he would have on the Hot 100.
Janet Guthrie was active in auto racing in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1977, she raced in both the Daytona 500 and the Indianapolis 500, becoming the first woman to compete in both of those races.
In 1928, the lady born Janet Norton Lee (1907-1989, at 81 years old), married John Vernou “Black Jack” Bouvier III (1891-1957, at 66 years old), and together they would have two daughters, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier (1929–1994, at 64 years old) and Caroline Lee Bouvier (1933-2019, at 85 years old). The daughters would marry and become Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Princess Lee Radziwill.
J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings that King Elessar, formerly known as Aragorn or Strider, and his wife Arwen, daughter of Elrond, had one son, Eldarion, and at least two daughters. The author did not specify the number of princesses.
A Game of Thrones, published in 1996, was George R.R. Martin’s first novel in his epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire. There are thus far five novels, with two more planned. The sixth novel, The Winds of Winter, will reportedly be published sometime in 2020.
The Winds of War is a 1971 novel by Herman Wouk, set during the early portion of World War II (1939-1941). Wouk wrote a sequel, War and Remembrance, which was published in 1978, and is set during the period from late 1941 until 1945.
Wouk had originally set out to write a single novel, but when he realized that, after writing 1000 pages, and only getting to Pearl Harbor, he needed to break the story into two volumes.
Both novels were adapted into extremely successful television miniseries.
During World War I, over 8 million horses, donkeys and mules were brutally slaughtered in battle.
War elephants were used in battle in ancient times. Alexander the Great was impressed with them during his campaigns in Persia, acquired some of them for his own forces, and turned back from his advance into India when he found that the kings of the Nanda Empire and Gangaridai could deploy between 3,000 and 6,000 war elephants.
The chess piece known as the bishop in modern times developed from a piece called the elephant in the ancient Indian and Persian game; the diagonal line on the piece supposedly represents an elephant’s tusk.
There may have once been up to 350 species of elephants, but there are only two species surviving today–the Asian and the African species. The African elephant is the larger of the two, and both the males and the females grow tusks. Only the male Asian elephant develops tusks.
Wrens are a family of birds, of which there 87 species in the Americas, and only one species in the Old World. The Eurasian wren was long thought to be con-spcific with the North American Winter Wren, which has the longest and most varied song of any of them.
A local Spanish name for the giant wren and bicolored wren is chupahuevo, for “egg-sucker”.
Harlan Ellison’s interconnected series of post-apocalyptic short stories known as A Boy and His Dog (adapted for the screen in 1975 and starring a young Don Johnson) began chronologically with the story “Eggsucker.”
The Egg and I is a 1947 comedy film, starting Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert as a young city couple who move to the country to raise chickens.
The success of the film, and the popularity of two supporting characters, the hillbillies Ma and Pa Kettle, led to a popular spinoff series of nine films featuring the Kettles.