It has been theorized, but not confirmed, that the four kings in a standard card deck were originally based on actual rulers. The king of spades is said to be based on King David from the Old Testament; the king of clubs, Alexander the Great; the king of hearts, Charlemagne; and the king of diamonds, Caesar Augustus of Rome.
The distance around a baseball diamond, as the ant crawls, is not 360 feet. Bases are inside the 90x90 foot square, which reduces the distance touching all four bases by over 5 feet.
Formication is the sensation that resembles that of small insects crawling on the skin when there is nothing there. It is one specific form of a set of sensations known as paresthesias, which also include the more common prickling, tingling sensation known as “pins and needles”. The word is derived from formica, the Latin word for ant.
The laminated composite material Formica was developed at the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1912. Though it is now better-known for its use in decorative laminate products, Formica was originally created as a substitute for mica as an insulator in electrical equipment, and the name was chosen as it was to be used “for mica.” The name is, of course, also a play on the Latin word for ant, formica, as the resin originally used in the production of Formica, melamine resin, is made from formaldehyde.
Methanoic acid is the simplest carboxylic acid, and has the chemical formula HCOOH. It is an important intermediate in chemical synthesis and occurs naturally, most notably in some ants (family Formicidae), from which it derives its more common name of formic acid.
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The hostile ant-like alien race in Orson Scott Card’s 1984 military science fiction novel Ender’s Game are called Formics.
Orson Welles (1915-1985) is widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. His first movie, Citizen Kane, was released in 1941 and is consistently ranked as the greatest film ever made. Welles co-wrote, produced, directed, and starred in the movie.
H.G. Wells wrote a scathing movie review of the silent film classic “Metropolis”.
Downtown Chicago has two major streets named after two different people with the last name Wells.
Wells Street is a north-south street (though it is a one-way southbound street as it goes through downtown), named after William Wells, a U.S. Army Captain who died during the Battle of Fort Dearborn in the War of 1812.
Ida B. Wells Drive is an east-west street, which had been named Congress Parkway until 2018, when it was renamed after the civil rights pioneer Wells.
Wells Street and Ida B. Wells Drive intersect just southeast of the Loop, creating the potentially confusing intersection of Wells and Wells.
The city of Wells in Somerset, England, dates back to Roman times. It has had city status since medieval times, because of the presence of Wells Cathedral. Often described as England’s smallest city (with a population of under 12,000) it is actually second smallest to the City of London in area and population, but unlike London it is not part of a larger urban area.
Duke of Somerset is a title which has been created five times in the peerage of England by four different monarchs (King Henry VI, the first to do so in 1443, did it twice). John Seymour, who now holds the title as 19th Duke, is the second senior-most non-royal duke after the Duke of Norfolk: John Seymour, 19th Duke of Somerset - Wikipedia
Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died in 2014 of ‘combined drug intoxication’ at age 46, appeared in 55 movies during his 22-year acting career. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2005 for his work in Capote, and was nominated three times for Best Supporting Actor.
Charles Seymour was a Tory grandee in Jeffrey Archer’s thriller First Among Equals, which follows the rise of four (three in the American edition) Members of Parliament through British politics over the span of decades, all of them eventually vying to become Prime Minister after the retirement of Margaret Thatcher.
Seymour Glass is the eldest of the fictional Glass family, which figures prominently. in many of the stories of J. D. Salinger.
David Glass joined WalMart in 1976 in its Finance Division. In 1986, he succeeded company founder Sam Walton as CEO, a position from which he retired in 2000. During his tenure, the company grew from 123 stores to more than 4,000 stores.
On, US-36, it is over 600 miles, nine hours. from St. Joseph Missouri to Denver, the longest stretch of numbered highway in the USA with no town of over 4,000 population. The biggest town along the way is Hiawatha Kansas, with 3,125.
The Iowa-class battleship USS Missouri was named after the home state of the man who happened to become President in April 1945, Harry S Truman. A diplomatic and military delegation of the Japanese Empire signed articles of surrender on her deck in Sept. 1945, ending World War II. Later that year President Truman came aboard when the warship took part in Fleet Week celebrations in New York City. The Missouri is now permanently moored in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, not far from the wreck of the USS Arizona, destroyed in the Japanese sneak attack of Dec. 1941.
The “S” in Harry S Truman is not an initial for a middle name. It’s just “S”.
President Harry S Truman, Democrat of Missouri, had relatives named both Shippe and Solomon, and his parents supposedly did not want to alienate either side of the family by using one name but not the other. Although his middle name is often undotted when written today, Truman himself often dotted the S. in signing his name.
Author Truman Capote (1924-1984) was born Truman Streckfus Persons in New Orelans. His parents divorced when he was four, and he was sent to Alabama to live with his mother’s relatives. He taught himself to read and write at the age of five before he entered his first year of school.
One of his childhood neighbors and friends was a girl named Harper Lee.