Ulysses S. Grant served as President of the United States from 1869-77. He ran again in 1880, notwithstanding George Washington’s traditional but not legally-binding two-term limit, but did not get past the Republican National Convention. James A. Garfield of Ohio, a compromise choice of the convention, was narrowly elected President that fall.
An Australian artist, Martin Sharp, collaborated with Eric Clapton in writing the song “Tales of Brave Ulysses”. Sharp painted the cover of the Cream album Disraeli Gears, which features “Tales of Brave Ulysses” as the first track on side 2.
Martin Sheen played a (bad) President of the United States in The Dead Zone, a (good) President on The West Wing, a (good) White House chief of staff in The American President, and a (bad) director of a secret Federal agency in Firestarter.
The West Wing was broadcast on NBC for 7 seasons, from 1999 through 2006. There were a total of 156 episodes. The show won 26 Primetime Emmy awards, including the award for Outstanding Drama Series, which it won four consecutive years from 2000 through 2003.
Theodore Roosevelt had the West Wing built because the main White House was getting crowded.
In case you were wondering, the EAST Wing has offices too, including the First Lady’s.
Crow Wing is one of a number of Minnesota counties with colorful names, which includes Big Stone, Lake of the Woods and Otter Tail. Garrison Kiellor famously learned to name them by heart, to the climactic Yellow Medicine – a feat anyone can learn to do for his home state in an hour, unless you live in Texas.
A county is a territorial division within a state. All fifty US states have these subdivisions; however, they are known as “parishes” in Louisiana and “boroughs” in Alaska rather than counties. Texas has the most (254), and Delaware the fewest (3).
In 48 of the 50 states, the counties/parishes/boroughs also function as a unit of local government at a level just below that of the state. Rhode Island and Connecticut are the only two states where this is not the case – their counties are geographic, not political.
-“BB”-
Alaska has a total of 20 boroughs – 19 of them are classified as “organized boroughs,” while the other is officially named the “Unorganized Borough.”
The Unorganized Borough, which accounts for over half of Alaska’s land area, only contains 13% of the state’s population (about 81,000 people). It has no local government, other than that of municipalities and school districts within it. The borough is subdivided into 11 census areas, though the areas exist only to facilitate census-taking.
There have been four ships of the United States Navy named the USS Alaska, the most recent of which is an Ohio-class Trident ballistic missile submarine commissioned in 1986 and still on active duty.
Most people know that Alaska and Hawaii were the last two states admitted to the Union; it’s easy to remember which came first, as they were admitted in alphabetical order (in January and August 1959, respectively).
The Republic of Hawaii was annexed by the United States in 1898, and the Hawaii Territory was organized in 1900. Twelve people, appointed by the US President, served as governor of the Territory during its 59 years of existence. The last of these governors, William Quinn, won the first state gubernatorial election in 1959, but was defeated in his bid for reelection in 1962.
“Quinn the Eskimo (Mighty Quinn)” is a song which was written by Bob Dylan, and first recorded by Dylan, backed by the Band, during the “Basement Tapes” recording sessions in 1967. It is generally believed that Dylan named the song (and the character within the song) after actor Anthony Quinn, who played an Inuk in the 1960 film The Savage Innocents.
However, Dylan didn’t release a recording of the song immediately; the first version of the song to chart was recorded by the English group Manfred Mann in 1967 (released in early 1968), under the title “Mighty Quinn.”
Bob Dylan was born on 24 May 1941 in Duluth MN. He is 79 years old. His father played semi-pro baseball, until he contracted polio in his early 20s. Once Bob Dylan became an established musician, he dedicated a song to Jim “Catfish” Hunter, the hall of fame pitcher of the A’s (Kansas City and Oakland), and the New York Yankees. Dylan was a true baseball fan.
In his memoir, Bob Dylan said he had considered adopting the surname Dillon before he saw the work of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, and decided upon that spelling.
Hibbing MN is Bob Dylan’s hometown.
Hibbing MN is also Roger Maris’s hometown.
ETA this quote from Bob Dylan (about 1961 and Maris):
“I didn’t follow baseball that much but I did know that Roger Maris who was with the Yankees was in the process of breaking Babe Ruth’s home-run record and that meant something. Maris was from Hibbing, Minnesota, of all places. Of course, I never heard of him there, nobody did. I was hearing a lot about him now, though, and so was the rest of the land. On some level I guess I took pride in being from the same town.”
Hibbing, Minnesota, is in the northeast portion of the state, and is located in the Mesabi Iron Range, one of four major iron ranges in Minnesota.
The city’s current location is several miles south of its original location; when it was determined that the then-village of Hibbing sat directly atop an ore deposit, the Oliver Mining Company paid to move many of Hibbing’s buildings to the new location in 1919 through 1921 (thus opening up the original location of Hibbing for mining).
Minnesota, with 90,000 miles of shoreline, has more shoreline than California, Florida and Hawaii combined.
Canada’s coastline, 202,080 km/125567 miles is the longest in the world, and makes up almost 2/3 of the total world coastline, 356,000 km/221208 miles.
23 states have an ocean coastline. Eight states have a shoreline on one or more of the Great Lakes. New York is the only state to have both an ocean coastline and a Great Lakes shoreline.
Alaska, with 6,640 miles, has the most ocean coastline. New Hampshire, with 13 miles, has the least.
The Madden-Julian Oscillation, unlike the stationary El Nino, is a drift of weather that crosses the Indian and Pacific Oceans over a period of a month or so. It remains poorly understood, but has a profound effect on tropical climates.
posting simultaneously … I deleted mine. Play on
-“BB”-