Olympus Mons is a shield volcano that is 13 miles high and 350 miles in diameter. Its height of 13 miles equates to over 68,000 feet high. Mount Everest is 29,000 feet high.
Olympus Mons, on the planet Mars and more than twice the height of Everest, is the highest mountain of any planet in our solar system.
Mars was named after the Roman god of war. The Greeks called the planet Ares, after their god of war.
Both the Romans and Greeks associated the planet with war because its color resembles the color of blood.
Prominently featured in Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit; sales skyrocketed.
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Due to the distance and complexity of such missions, about 60% of all automated probes sent to Mars have failed. Human beings have not yet walked on Mars, but exploration of the Red Planet has long been a staple of science fiction.
The Expanse is a science-fiction television series, based on a series of novels by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, who collaborate under the pen name James S.A. Corey.
The series and books depict our Solar System, several hundred years in the future, and the conflicts between the three powers in the system: the United Nations of Earth and Luna, the Martian Congressional Republic (settlers from Earth, who are terraforming Mars), and the Belters (humans who live in the asteroid belt, and on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn), who are loosely unified as the Outer Planets Alliance.
Astronaut and lunar explorer Buzz Aldrin’s mother was named Marion Moon.
Russell “Buzz” Arlett was called “the Babe Ruth of the minor leagues.” Like Ruth, he also started his career as a pitcher, earning his nickname as he cut through opposing batters like a buzz saw, before moving to the outfield.
He played much of his career in the Pacific Coast League, making his Major League debut in 1931 with the Phillies when he was 32. He was considered a poor fielder and the Phillies sold his contract to the Baltimore Orioles (the International League team). He played for the Birmingham Barons and Minneapolis Millers.
A switch hitter who hit for a good average with excellent power, he finished his career with .341 average, 432 home runs, and 1,786 RBI in the Minor Leagues.
In October, 1993, at the age of 30, basketball star Michael Jordan retired from the Chicago Bulls, after the Bulls had won the previous three NBA championships. Jordan’s father James had been murdered the previous summer, and Jordan expressed that, after losing his father, he had lost his desire to play basketball.
The next spring, Jordan signed a contract with the Chicago White Sox of MLB, and announced his plan to pursue a career in professional baseball, which he said that his late father had always hoped he might pursue. Jordan spent the 1994 season playing for the Birmingham Barons, the White Sox’s AA minor-league affiliate, where he hit .202, with three home runs, and 30 stolen bases. Jordan also played with the Scottsdale Scorpions in the Arizona Fall League, where he hit somewhat better (.252).
The following March, Jordan ended his baseball career, and re-joined the Bulls.
On April 16, 2003, playing for the Washington Wizards, Michael Jordan played his last game in the NBA. He scored 15 points and had 4 rebounds and 4 assists in a 107-87 loss to the Philadelphia 76ers.
In the 90’s, largely due to endorsements, Michael Jordan became the highest-paid athlete of all time, topping the mark of Muhammed Ali. When Ali went into the rrecords, he replaced a woman. The greatest wealth ever attained through athletic perforance before Ali had been that of Sonja Henie.
Sonja Henie was only 57 years old when she died in 1969 of leukemia.
Norwegian Air Shuttle is a low-cost airline and Norway’s largest. It is also the largest Scandinavian airline and ninth-largest in Europe, in terms of passenger numbers. One of the airline’s trademarks is having portraits of famous deceased Norwegians on the tails of its aircraft. For a time, Sonja Henie’s picture adorned the tail of a Norwegian Air Shuttle Boeing 737-300.
The Lærdalstunnelen, in Voss NOR, is the Lærdal Tunnel, the world’s longest tunnel. It is 15 miles long and connects the towns of Aurland NOR and Lærdal NOR.
The Delaware Aqueduct, which runs from several reservoirs in upstate New York to Yonkers (just north of New York City) supplies roughly half of NYC’s fresh water. At 85 miles in length, the aqueduct is the world’s longest currently-used tunnel.
The Delaware River (from which the Delaware aqueduct takes its name) was named for Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, an English nobleman and Virginia’s first colonial governor. One of Thomas West’s famous descendants was writer Vita Sackville-West, who was played by Gemma Arterton in the 2018 film Vita & Virginia.
Nova Scotia is nearly an island, being connected to the mainland only by the Tantramar Marsh, a low salt marsh near Sackville, New Brunswick. Radio Canada International broadcasts short-wave from dozens of transmission towers, situated in the marsh for its high grounding conductivity.
The Atlantic Schooners are a proposed expansion team in the Canadian Football League (CFL). The league announced the new team in 2018, with plans for it to begin play sometime in the 2020s. The Schooners plan to ultimately play in a new stadium in Halifax, Nova Scotia, though they may begin play in the existing Croix-Bleue Medavie Stadium, in Moncton, New Brunswick.
In 1994, the CFL attempted to expand into the United States, awarding franchises in Baltimore, Las Vegas, Shreveport, and Sacramento. In 1995, there were CFL teams playing in Baltimore, Birmingham, Memphis, San Antonio, and Shreveport. However, by 1996, all of the American-based CFL teams had folded.
The USFL was founded in 1982 and they started with the intent to play football in the spring and not play in the fall and compete directly with the NFL. The league played games from March 1983 with 12 teams until its demise and dissolvement in 1986. The league lasted only three seasons. It eventually included teams playing in New York (playing games in NJ), Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Tampa, Oakland, Denver, Washington, Philadelphia, Birmingham and San Diego (switched later to Phoenix), Houston, Memphis, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, Tulsa. Its last game was the 1985 title game, played on July 14, 1985 between the Oakland Invaders and the Baltimore Stars. The Stars won the game, 28-24, in front of almost 50,000 fans.
Like in other arenas, Donald Trump played a major role in the USFL’s demise. As owner of the New Jersey Generals, he insisted the league change to the fall and compete head-to-head against the NFL. This played a major part in the league’s failure.
Steve Young, a star quarterback at Brigham Young University, was drafted in the first round of the 1984 USFL draft by Los Angeles Express – the USFL held their draft prior to the NFL’s draft, where many had expected that Young would have been the first overall pick.
Young signed a ten-year, $40 million contract with the Express, though he agreed to take much of the payment in the form of an annuity, which would have paid him annually through the year 2027. However, it appears that Young negotiated a settlement with the Express in 1985, for a lump-sump payment of $1.4 million.
Steve Young may have been the best known of athletes who were Mormons, but there have been others including boxer Jack Dempsey. Also, in baseball., Harmon Killibrew, Bryce Harper, Dale Murphy, Jack Morris and Jacoby Ellsbury.