In Tibet, Everest is known as Chomolungma or Qomolangma. Easily the most popular route to the summit is from the south, from Nepal and via the South Col.
OOP: There is evidence George Mallory summited then he and Irvine died on the way down.
In play: China annexed Tibet in 1950. The 14th Dalai Lama who agreed to the annexation later said it was under duress.
“Dalai Lama” is a title given to the head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. Adherents believe that each Dalai Lama is a reincarnation of the original holder of the position; after the death of a Dalai Lama, a search is undertaken to identify the individual who has become the reincarnation.
Since the 17th Century, the Dalai Lama was the secular leader of Tibet, as well as being a spiritual leader; this lasted until 1951, when the Chinese government formally annexed Tibet, and removed the Dalai Lama as its leader. The current, 14th, Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is 90 years old, and has held the role since 1940; he has lived in exile, in India, since 1959.
While Sir Hillary has admitted to this being possible, there is no concrete evidence that either he and/or Irvine made it to the summit.
In play —
Tibet, or more formally Tibet Autonomous Region, with its high average altitude of over 13,000’, is nicknamed the “Roof of the World”. It has over 7,000 monasteries. Only one of its cities, Lhasa, the capital, has an airport. Its airport code is LXA and its location in DD coordinates is ▲ 29.295, 90.899, but it is actually closer to another city, Gyazhugling (40 miles) than it is to Lhasa (60 miles). In all of China, LXA airport is about the 50th busiest airport.
“The Roof of the World” also applies to the entire Tibetan Plateau and is a more general term for High Asia which encompasses the Pamir, Himalayas, Hindu Kush, and other mountain ranges.
A highway crosses Tibet from east to west, from the Jinsha-Jiang River border with Sichuan province in the east at approximate DD coordinates ▲ 29.9348, 99.0611, to the border with the Ladakh region of India at approximate DD coordinates 34.7857, 80.1018. This highway traverses the southern part of Tibet, avoiding the high Himalayas, for a distance of about 2,000 miles.
In the film Monsters, Inc., Mike and Sulley briefly find themselves banished to the Himalayas, where they meet the Abominable Snowman.
John Ratzenberger, the voice of the Abominable Snowman and best remembered for his role of Cliff Clavin in Cheers, has voiced at least one character in every theatrical release from Pixar Studios, beginning with Toy Story (1994) all the way to Onward (2020). Following the departure of studio head John Lasseter, Ratzenberger has stated he would not be working with Pixar any longer (with the exception of Inside Out 2 (2024) due to contractual obligations).
John Ratzenberger was born in Bridgeport, Conn. Other actors from the town include the late Brian Dennehy and Robert Mitchum.
Brian Boru’s March is one of the tunes associated with James Galway. By using crescendo and diminuendo, Galway gives the impression of Boru and his soldiers marching past the listener.
“When Johnny Comes Marching Home (Again)” is a song from the American Civil War, published in 1863 by Patrick Gilmore under the pseudonym “Louis Lambert.” Gilmore reportedly based it on his sister’s prayers for the safe return of her fiancé, Union Light Artillery Captain John O’Roarke. (He returned, and they were wed in 1875.) The song was sung by both sides of the conflict. The tune borrows heavily from a Civil War drinking song “Johnny Fill Up the Bowl.”
Fantasy Island was an American television drama series, which aired on ABC from 1977 until 1984. It starred Ricardo Montalban as “Mr. Roarke,” a mysterious, possibly immortal figure, who oversaw a mysterious island where visitors could live out their fantasies; many of these fantasies were morality plays: they did not go as the visitor expected, and became opportunities for life lessons.
The series also featured Herve Villechaize as Tattoo, Mr. Roarke’s assistant, though Villechaize was fired from the show prior to its final season.
The series has been revived twice: in 1998, with Malcolm McDowell as Mr. Roarke, and in 2021, with Roselyn Sanchez as Emma Roarke, the grandniece of the original Mr. Roarke.
When Jane Austen begin to write Emma, a novel about a rich and too self-confident young woman, she explained her goal:
“I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.”
Jane Austen’s Emma has been adapted numerous times; the title role has been played by such actresses as Gwyneth Paltrow, Anya Taylor-Joy, Judy Campbell, Sarah Churchill, Kate Beckinsale and Romola Garai.
The plot (and to an extent, the characters) of Clueless (1995), starring Alicia Silverstone in the lead role, is based on “Emma.”
Emma of Normandy was Queen of England twice, first by her marriage to Æthelred the Unready (1002 to 1016), and then by her marriage to Cnut, who became King of England in 1017, dying in 1035.
The British monarch, now King Charles III, is customarily but unofficially referred to as the Duke of Normandy. William the Conqueror was Duke of Normandy when he won the crown of England after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, and the Channel Islands, the last vestige of the duchy of Normandy, remain under British rule. The title is gender-neutral; Queen Elizabeth II was also referred to as Duke.
Warren Hastings was an officer of the East India Company who was credited with developing British rule in India in the late 18th century. On his return to Britain he was impeached by the House of Commons, and tried by the house of lords. His trial took 148 sitting days in the Lords, spread out over seven years, from 1788 to 1795. He was acquitted by a near unanimous vote in the house of Lords. His legal bills amounted to £70,000.
At its peak, the East India Company was the largest corporation in the world and commandeered an area over twice the size of the British Isles, with an armed force comprised of about 260,000 soldiers.
Characters with “India” in their names appear in the following children’s books: Because of Winn-Dixie, by Kate DiCamillo; Adopted Jane, by Helen Fern Daringer, and India the Moonstone Fairy, by Linda Chapman.
The Children’s Crusade was a failed popular crusade that sought to establish a Second Latin Kingdom of Christianity in the Holy Land (Palestine). It comprised of two large groups of people, mostly children, who made separate journeys to the Mediterranean Sea with the purpose of continuing to Palestine. One group was lead by a German youth named Nicholas of Cologne and traveled across the Alps to Italy, where Pope Innocent III met with them and exhorted them to return home. A second group, also comprising mostly children, was led by Stephen (Etienne) of Cloyes, France, and made their way to Marseilles where they hoped the sea would part, allowing them to continue by foot to the Holy Land. Some accounts have the group returning home; others have them boarding merchant ships and being shipwrecked on Saint Denis, an island off the coast of Sardinia, or being ferried to Tunisia where they were sold into slavery.