The Aztec island capital, Tenochtitlan, is believed by historians to have been bigger and cleaner (including widespread indoor plumbing) than any European city of its day. Its ruins lie beneath the current Mexico City, which was founded after the Spanish conquest when much of Lake Texcoco was drained. There have been extensive archeological studies of the city.
At an elevation of 7,350 feet, Mexico City is the 8th-highest capital city in the world. The highest capital city is La Paz, Bolivia, with an elevation of 11,942 feet. Numbers 2, 3, and 4 on the list are Quito, Ecuador, Thimphu, Bhutan, and Bogota, Colombia.
The ending of the William Goldman-written movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), in which our two wounded heroes take on a large cavalry detachment of the Army of Bolivia (presumably very much not to the Americans’ advantage), has given its name to a TV Trope.
Lake Poopó (yes, really) was once Bolivia’s second-largest lake and an important fishing resource for local communities; many of the local inhabitants are now working in salt mines instead.
The lake essentially dried up in 2015 after decades of water diversion for regional irrigation needs and a dry El Niño season. Scientists say that the lake is unlikely to recover especially considering the effect of climate change, and the area is now a desert.
(According to this video the name is pronounced pop-oh, accent on 2nd syllable, not poop-oh "El Lago Poopó es Vida: Estrategias para la Defensa de la Madre Tierra y la Madre Agua" - YouTube)
Paraguay and Bolivia are the only two landlocked countries in South America. There are several landlocked countries in the world, but only two are doubly landlocked: Liechtenstein, and Uzbekistan.
The Copa América, or South American Football Championship, is a men’s football (soccer) tournament, currently conducted every two years, among South America’s national football teams.
Since 1993, the tournament format has consisted of twelve teams; since there are only 10 national teams in CONMEBOL (the South American Football Confederation), two additional national teams, typically from North America or the Caribbean, are invited to compete in each tournament. Argentina and Uruguay have won the most Copa América championships (15 each).
In 1943, World War II had depleted football rosters. To solve this problem, the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers combined teams to form the Steagles and ended the season with a 5-4-1 record. One of the strangest things about this hybrid team is that it had two head coaches (Greasy Neale and Walt Kiesling).
The Steagles combined teams in 1943, but the Cleveland Rams suspended play for the season, due to the lack of players. They returned in 1944 and won the NFL championship in 1945.
With the loss of over 800 of her crew from Japanese air attacks in March 1945, the Essex-class aircraft carrier USS Franklin (CV-13) became the most heavily damaged US Navy aircraft carrier to survive the war.
Among major languages of the world, Japanese is considered the 4th-hardest to learn. Number one on this list is Mandarin, followed by Arabic and Telugu, a language of India.
The round citrus fruit which is commonly known as “orange” or “sweet orange” is a hybrid of two distinct citrus species: the mandarin orange and the pomelo (a large citrus fruit, which is an ancestor to the grapefruit).
I always heard Basque was the hardest language to learn.
In play:
Abraham Lincoln’s and Andrew Johnson’s Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, a former newspaperman and abolitionist from Connecticut, was an ancestor of actor/film director Orson Welles.
The Hobbit was an animated musical film produced in 1977 by Rankin/Bass, based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien. Rankin/Bass are mostly known for stop action holiday animation a la Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The film features a talented but unusual voice cast, with actor Orson Bean as Bilbo Baggins, John Huston as Gandalf, Hans Conreid (Snidely Whiplash) as Thorin Oakenshield, director Otto Preminger as Thranduil, Richard Boone (Have Gun, Will Travel) as Smaug and Brother Theodore(!) as Gollum. Thurl Ravenscroft (Tony the Tiger, “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”) provides a singing voice for goblins.
Rankin/Bass Productions was an animation production company, founded by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass. The two men had previously worked in advertising, and they had initially founded the predecessor company to Rankin/Bass, Videocraft International, to produce television commercials.
The lead character designer for the 1969 Rankin-Bass production Frosty the Snowman was Paul Coker, Jr., one of the main illustrators for MAD magazine.
Frosty Hesson is a former regular Mavericks surfer from the Santa Cruz CA area. He taught a young, 8 year old boy named Jay Moriarty to surf there. When Moriarty was 16, in 1994, he became famous from a photo that made the cover of Surfer magazine when he wiped out on a big wave.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in writing his Sherlock Holmes stories, was not always especially careful as to continuity, resulting in Dr. Watson describing his old war wound as having been in different parts of his body in different stories, and Holmes’s criminal-mastermind archnemesis Prof. James Moriarty also having a brother named James.
Doyle, Lassen County, California is about 50 miles southeast of Susanville. It is a census-designated place that had a population of 678 at the 2010 census.
Doyle, Lassen County, California is 400 miles north of
Doyle, Tulare County, California which is 40 miles east of Visalia.
Doyle Brunson, born in Longworth, Texas, in 1933, is a retired professional poker player. He won the Main Event at the World Series of Poker in 1976 and 1977. In the final hand in both tournaments, Brunson was dealt a 10-2 and called the all-in bet by his opponent, who held a superior hand. In both years, Brunson flopped a full house to win the hand and the tournament. In poker circles, a 10-2 is now known as the ‘Doyle Brunson hand.’
Longworth TX is at the bottom of the Texas panhandle, between Amarillo and Lubbock. Its population is 65 people. Longworth is in Fisher Couny whose largest town is Rotan TX, whose population is 1,400.
The great 1940s NFL quarterback and Hall of Famer Sammy Baugh was from Rotan. He is buried in the town cemetery.