Guy, Arkansas is a city in the central part of the state. In September 2010 more than 500 earthquakes hit the area over the next six months. The largest was magnitude 4.7. Investigated by the USGS, the quakes may possibly be related to the injection of salt and other waste water into deep wells, but confirmed causation has not been established. These quakes are known as the Guy–Greenbrier earthquake swarm because they hit between Guy AR and Greenbrier AR, about 7 miles away.
Arkansas has a town called “Weiner,” which is funny if you’re a 12-year-old boy, but if you’re a grown adult townsperson, you probably realize that the name of the town (probably) comes from one of the many variations of the rendering of the name of that town in Austria, called “Wien” by the locals, and “Vienna” in English. What is funny about the town is that it’s home to Weiner Christian Church (where the father of an old friend of mine was the preaching minister for decades), which bears a plaque that proudly states: “Weiner Christian Church: Erected 1961.”
Falco (born Johann Hölzel) was an Austrian singer and musician, who rose to stardom in the 1980s with songs that combined new-wave instrumentation with rap-style vocals. His hits included “Der Kommissar,” “Rock Me Amadeus,” and “Vienna Calling.”
Vienna is well known for the dish Wiener Schnitzel (“wiener” being the German work for “Viennese”). In North America, Vienna sausages are packaged and sold as shortened sausages in cans, usually packed in gelatin or with added flavors. In most instances, the sausages are indistinguishable from what we call “hot dogs.”
Weiner, Arkansas was named after a railroad official who helped bring the St. Louis, Southwestern Railroad through the area in the late 1800s. Apparently, he was so important that residents decided honoring him was worth being giggled at by their neighbors.
➜ History – City of Weiner ■ ← The station was named Weiner, after a St. Louis railroad official.
Wienerschnitzel (originally named “Der Wienerschnitzel”) is an American fast-food restaurant chain, which primarily operates in California and Texas.
Wienerschnitzel’s menu focuses on hot dogs (“wieners”); it does not actually serve the dish named “Wiener schnitzel,” which is not a wiener at all, but is actually a breaded and friend veal cutlet.
Besides the dish in Vienna known as Wiener Schnitzel, in Austria there are towns and places with Wiener in their names.
There is Wiener Neudorf, a town in the eastern part of the Mödling district in Austria; and there is also Wiener Neustadt, a town south of Vienna, in the state of Lower Austria, in Austria.
And there is also the Wiener Stadthalle, an indoor arena, in Vienna, and also the Wiener Staatsoper, which is the Vienna State Opera.
And as @knoodler has told us,
The Daschund is a short-legged, long-bodied breed of dog from the hound type. Bred to burrow and chase small game (notably, badgers), it is often nicknamed “wiener dog” because of it’s appearance.
The state of Wisconsin’s official nicknames are “The Badger State” and “America’s Dairyland.” The Badger State nickname dates to the 1820s, when immigrants flocked to what was then the Wisconsin Territory to mine lead. During the cold winter months, many of them lived in the mines that they had dug, earning the nickname of “badgers,” after the American badger, which digs burrows to live in.
American badgers are quite different from their European cousins. The European ones are shy, elusive and docile creatures. American badgers are just dicks. The (European) badger plays a part in one of my favorite stand up comedy routines. The comic is riffing on the silliness of the concept of Original Sin, and asks out loud how one even commits an Original Sin.
“Forgive me, Father, I have committed an original sin: I … poked a badger with a spoon. [The priest responds] Oooh, that’s original, that is.”
BTW, don’t poke an American badger with a spoon. I’ve never done it, but I imagine it will end poorly.
The Pope, now Leo XIV (born Robert Francis Prevost on the South Side of Chicago on Sept. 14, 1955), is commonly referred to by Vatican staff as “His Holiness” or “the Holy Father.”
The song "The Night Chicago Died*, by the pop group Paper Lace, was a #1 hit in the U.S. in 1974. The song’s lyrics depicts a gangland war between Al Capone’s mob and the Chicago Police, as told through the point of view of the son of a Chicago cop.
The song’s first line – “Daddy was a cop on the East Side of Chicago” – garnered amusement and criticism from people in the Chicago area, as the city of Chicago does not really have an East Side (the “east side” is effectively Lake Michigan). The song’s writers, Peter Callander and Mitch Murray, were both English; they admitted in interviews that they had not ever visited Chicago, and that their knowledge of the city was based entirely on old gangster movies.
The mob, the American Mafia / La Cosa Nostra, has its roots from Sicily. Mob activities peaked during the Prohibition years with bootlegging by mob leaders like Lucky Luciano. In New York City the mob was structured into Five Families and involved with gambling and racketeering. Their influence stretched to Las Vegas where they skimmed profits from casinos.
Several actors from the TV series The Sopranos (a show about mafiosos and their families) have ties to criminal organizations.
- Tony Sirico, who played Paulie “Walnuts”, worked for the Colombo Family of New York and spent quite a lot of time behind bars. (It was while incarcerated he became interested in acting.)
- Vincent Pastore, who played “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero, grew up in a criminal atmosphere, and while he avoided it’s tentacles his cousins and uncle were involved in it.
- Tony Lip, who played Carmine Lupertazzi (crime boss of the fictional DeMeo syndicate) was a former bouncer at the Copacabana Club in New York City, a notable hangout for underworld types, and worked as a bodyguard for classical pianist Don Shirley during Shirley’s tour of the deep south. (This was the inspiration for the movie Green Book.)
- Michael Squicciarini, who played Frank Cippolina (a capo in the DeMeo syndicate), spent many years in and out of prison for several crimes, including five years in prison for aggravated assault. Notably, he was associated with the DeCavalcante Family, which was one of the inspirations for The Sopranos.
Walnut ink has a deep, rich brown color; it was used by Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt. It is made from the green husk surrounding the walnut shell.
The juice from walnut husks was used extensively throughout history for inks and dyes; it is colorfast, lightfast, and virtually no solvent removes it from skin. In the Middle Ages walnut ink was used to stain the hands of criminals in Romani communities since it remains in the skin for a long time.
Leonardo da Vinci was born out of wedlock to, according to Wikipedia, “a successful notary and a lower-class woman.” He was, in the parlance of the times, a bastard.
The maiden voyage of the Italian Line’s SS Andrea Doria was in 1953. She was 695’ 6” long with a beam of 88’ 7”. Andrea Doria was not the biggest nor the fastest, but she was known for her luxury and known as a ‘floating art gallery’, and she was the largest and fastest of all luxury liners from Italy.
With 11 watertight compartments, Andrea Doria was considered to be very safe. Still, in a dense fog near Nantucket, Massachusetts, near the end of her run from Genoa to New York City, she collided with the passenger liner the MS Stockholm and listed severely to starboard such that half her lifeboats were unusable. She eventually floundered but her 11-hour survival time allowed for one of the largest and most successful maritime rescues in history. Of 1,706 souls on board, 1,663 were successfully rescued. The Stockholm, severely damaged, was able to sail to New York City under her own power for repairs at the Bethlehem Shipyard in Brooklyn. In the collision, 5 on board the Stockholm died instantly
Stockholm was able to rescue 572 from Andrea Doria. As the two ships were separated, one female passenger from Andrea Doria who had been in her bed was found to have been thrown onto the deck of Stockholm. She suffered moderate injuries and survived.
In 1960, SS Leonardo da Vinci was built as a replacement for Italian Line’s SS Andrea Doria.
The heavily damaged bow of MS Stockholm
Andrea Doria listing heavily to starboard the morning after the collision
In the sitcom Barney Miller, one suspect turned out to have made a false confession to a crime. Barney said that he had previously confessed to “the Brinks armored car robbery in Massachusetts, the Getty kidnapping, the murder of Albert Anastasia, the sinking of the Andrea Doria…”
The wreck of Andrea Doria is located near DD coordinates ▲ 40.49, -69.851.
“The Wreck of the Hesperus” is a narrative poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and published in 1842. It describes the tragic tale of a skipper who failed to heed the warnings from his crew of an approaching hurricane, and ties his daughter to the main mast of the ship to prevent her from being swept away.
The tale was inspired by the great blizzard of 1839, which ravaged the north-east coast of the United States, where many ships in the area were destroyed, and the death toll was over 40 souls lost. One ship in particular foundered off the coast of Glouchester, MA; all aboard were lost, including one woman who reportedly floated to shore dead but still tied to the mast.