Ronald Reagan, Republican of California, was reelected as President of the United States in 1984, defeating Walter Mondale, Democrat of Minnesota. It was one of the biggest landslides in U.S. history; Reagan carried every state but Minnesota.
Walter Mondale was born in Ceylon, Minnesota, about 150 miles SW of Minneapolis. The island of Ceylon is off the SE coast of India by about 50 miles. Ceylon achieved its independence from England in 1948.
In 1972, its formal name was changed to “Free, Sovereign and Independent Republic of Sri Lanka”.
In 1978, its name was changed to the “Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka”.
Adam’s Bridge, also known as Rama’s Bridge or Rama Setu, is a 30 mile/ 48-km. chain of limestone shoals & sand bars in the ocean between mainland India and Sri Lanka.
According to the Ramayana, to rescue his wife Sita who was being held captive by the demon Ravana, Rama needed to cross to the island of Lanka. Brahma created an army of vanaras, intelligent warrior monkeys, to aid Rama. The vanaras constructed the bridge to Lanka in five days.
The Arkadiko Bridge in southern Greece, dating from the 13th century BC, is one of the oldest arch bridges still in existence and use. Designed to carry chariots, it was originally built on a road that linked the cities of Tiryns and Epidauros.
The Frankford Avenue Bridge, built in 1697 in Philadelphia, is the oldest surviving roadway bridge in the US.
Amman. Jordan, is now a city of over 4-millllion, built on the site of ancient Philadelphia. The ancient site remained unpopulated until the 1878 resettlement of of thousands of blonde, green-eyed Circassians, who were driven out of the Russian Empire.
The Russian Empire is considered to be the 3rd-largest empire of all times, behind only the British and Mongol Empires. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian Empire extended from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea in the south, and from the Baltic Sea on the west into Alaska and Northern California in America on the east. Fort Ross, located in Sonoma County, California, was the hub of the southernmost Russian settlements from 1812 to 1842.
William H. Seward, Secretary of State to both President Abraham Lincoln and his successor, Andrew Johnson, negotiated the 1867 purchase of Alaska from the Russian Empire by the United States for about two cents an acre. The phrase “Seward’s Folly” was not coined until several years later; the purchase was approved by the U.S. Congress by wide margins in both houses at the time.
The Ice Follies was a touring ice-skating variety show, originally founded in 1936 by Eddie and Roy Shipstad, and Oscar Johnson. The shows featured stunts, comedy acts and former Olympic skaters.
After being owned for a time by Arthur Wirtz (who also owned the Chicago Blackhawks of the NHL), the Ice Follies and another ice show, Holiday on Ice, were purchased in 1979 by Feld Entertainment, which also owned the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Lyndon Johnson liked to tell a story about a teacher in Depression-era Texas who was desperate for a job. When told by the chairman of the local Board of Education that some people in the area believed the Earth was flat, while others believed it was round, he blurted out, “I can teach it either way!”
Olympic diver Vicki Draves, featured on August 4th’s Google Doodle, was the first Asian American woman to win an Olympic medal; she overcame many obstacles and won 2 golds in the 1948 games.
With the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor still fresh on many Americans’ minds, Draves — despite being half Filipino, not Japanese — was frequently discriminated against and barred from practicing in higher-end pools in San Francisco. Her father was Filipino and his last name, Manalo, means “to win”, but to use “whites only” pools she used her mother’s maiden name, Taylor, and then the name of her husband, swim coach Lyle Draves.
Oops, ninja’d!
Draves never lived in Texas AFAIK
Rebekah Baines, mother of LBJ, was born in McKinney TX in 1881. She served four years under Texas Governor John Ireland, as secretary of state. After marrying rancher Samuel Ealy Johnson Jr. in 1907, her eldest son Lyndon was born in 1908. After her husband died in 1937, she died in September 1958. She is buried in Stonewall TX.
Edited: ninja’d, and revised.
The Daughters of Rebekah were founded in 1851 as a female-only auxiliary to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a U.S. branch of the Odd Fellows fraternal organization. The organization is now formally known as the International Association of Rebekah Assemblies, and allows both male and female members (though its senior leadership remains female).
Note: John Ireland served as Texas Governor from 1883-1887. Rebekah Baines’ father, Joseph Baines, served as secretary of state in the Ireland administration.
In play: LBJ’s wife, Lady Bird Johnson, was born Claudia Alta Taylor in 1912. When she was an infant, her nursemaid said that she was ‘purty as a ladybird’, and she was called by that nickname for the rest of her life.
ETA: Lady Bird Johnson was never a member of the Daughters of Rebekah, as far as I know.
Thanks @Railer13, I went back to the source site and see how I misread it.
Ireland’s Eye was a small place in TRinity Bay, Newfoundland. Although on the main island, it never had a road connection, accessible only by boat.The population was 92 people in 1956. The community was “depopulated” in the 60’s, alond with 200 other isolated fishing outports, many with similar colorful names.
Jill Ireland was an English actor. She was married twice: first to actor David McCallum (with whom she appeared in five episodes of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.), and then to actor Charles Bronson (with whom she worked on 15 films).
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was an American-produced TV show which ran on NBC for four seasons from Sept 1964 to January 1968. The program led the spy-fiction craze on television.
U.N.C.L.E. was intended to be a multi-national secret agency, created to counter an organization known only as THRUSH. Originally the name was meant to be left undefined and ambiguous so it could either refer to “Uncle Sam” or the United Nations. Concerns by the MGM legal department about using “U.N.” for commercial purposes resulted in the producers’ clarification that U.N.C.L.E. was an acronym for the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.
In addition, THRUSH originally had no meaning either; however, following the popularity of the show it was given its own backronym, the Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity, in the subsequent trade paperback novelizations.
The show was often compared to the early James Bond films, and this is not surprising as Ian Fleming, the novelist who created the James Bond character, was approached by the show’s co-creator. Fleming proposed two characters, Napoleon Solo (the original focus of the series) and April Dancer (who later appeared in the spin-off series, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.); and the original pilot was shot under the name of Ian Fleming’s Solo, later shortened to just Solo.
-“BB”-
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.‘s lead actor was supposed to be Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo; David McCallum as Illya Kuryakin was originally a minor role. However, during the series’ run, Illya became a draw and his role was expanded; eventually he became so popular that David McCallum received more fan mail than any other actor in MGM’s history
Napoleon Bonaparte was once so amorously aggressive in jumping onto the bed of his wife, the Empress Josephine, that her dog bit him.