King Charles III, monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is also King of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and eleven other Commonwealth realms. He was earlier Prince of Wales for 64 years and 44 days, the longest-serving in British history.
The Mercury Monarch was a luxury compact car, marketed by the Mercury division of the Ford Motor Company from the 1975 through 1980 model years. The Monarch was a sister car to the Ford Granada and the Lincoln Versailles.
The Alhambra is a palantine city and fortress built by Mulim rulers, located near Granada, Spain, with construction beginning in 1238 CE. After the Christian Reconquista of 1492, it became the royal court of Ferdinand and Isabella. Christopher Columbus met with the king and queen here, before setting off on his journey across the Atlantic Ocean. Over the centuries, the Alhambra fell into disrepair, with squatters inhabiting its structures. Napoleon’s troops destroyed part of it in 1812. Following Napoleon’s defeat, it became a tourist destination for British, American, and European travelers; author Washington Irving described it’s grandeur in Tales of the Alhambra in 1832. It has since been restored, and is now one of Spain’s greatest tourist attractions and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The Ford Granada (1975-1982) was an upscale budget car that shared its chassis and drivetrain with the Ford Maverick. It was a car that Ford compared to the Mercedes-Benz 280 in its 1976 Bicentennial promotional brochures as the “American Mercedes”. The Granada was the first Ford vehicle in the US to wear the iconic “Ford” blue oval logo since the Great Depression.
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Though food was scarce at times and in places throughout the Great Depression, and though malnourishment was certainly a problem, the number of (likely; there is no official number) deaths due to starvation in the US is surprisingly low. One estimate puts it in the low hundreds nationwide. However, those numbers come from cities where record-keeping was more diligent; out in the rural areas, particularly those ravaged by the Dust Bowl, well, who knows? But the number is almost certainly not in the millions, like some internet rumors have suggested.
Hard to believe it, but we’re coming up on 100 years since The Great Depression hit. How should we celebrate it in October 2029? (Mostly a rhetorical question.)
The Great Depression was the worst economic disaster in the history of the US. Many lost their jobs (about 13 million Americans), and for those that were able to retain theirs, their pay dropped on average about 42%. In 1933, unemployment reached a peak of approx 25%. Over 1 million men left their wives and kids to fend for themselves. The Great Dust Bowl led to the decade nickname, The Dirty 30s. Many Americans escaped west on US Route 66, seeking a better life. Route 66 was nicknamed The Mother Road.
Dorothea Lange’s 1936 iconic photo, Migrant Mother, is representative of the Great Depression.
The photo was taken in 1936 in Nipomo CA, then a tiny town along hwy US-101 between San Luis Obispo and Santa Maria (today Nipomo CA is a sprawling town of about 20,000; US-101 was established in November 1926, and the first signage of it was in 1928).
Worldwide, The Great Depression slashed global GDP by about 15%, and international trade by over 50%.
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Two Guns, Arizona, is an unincorporated area near Interstate 40 and Old Route 66, about halfway between Winslow and Flagstaff. Once part of Canyon Diablo, it was renamed after the owner of several businesses, Harry Edgar Miller, who was Caucasian but claimed to be of Indian descent, and referred to himself as “Two Guns”, “Indian Miller”, and “Chief Crazy Thunder”. Miller and his wife settled in the area in early 1925 and opened a souvenir shop and a zoo. After the opening of Interstate 40 in the 1950s the tourist trade dried up, and despite new businesses coming in the stores and zoo both closed, with fires destroying most of the structures by the early 60s. What remains is considered a ghost town, although local historians claim it was never a town to begin with.
Former SNL cast member and Weekend Update host Dennis Miller will turn 73 on Nov. 3. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pa., the oldest of five children, and grew up in the suburb of Castle Shannon.
The River Shannon is the primary river on the island of Ireland, and at 360 kilometers in length, is the longest river in the British Isles.
The Ohio River meets the Mississippi River at Cairo, Illinois, almost 1,000 miles from its source in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the confluence of the rivers, the Ohio River is the larger of the two, both in width and water volume.
As with many river cities, shifting dynamics regarding transportation in the US, as well as frequent devastating flooding, meant that Cairo was always on the razor’s edge of economic failure. But the citizens of Cairo hastened along their own demise in the 1960s due to frequent clashes between Blacks and Whites, which culminated in a Black boycott of the city’s businesses. Rather than integrate, the business owners decided to simply close up shop and move on. The once-bustling city is now a ruin, marked by block after block of boarded-up businesses and empty houses.
Cairo IL is pronounced KAY-ro, not like the Cairo in Egypt.
(Kind of related…) There’s a small town located on the northern edge of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington named Sequim where the “e” is silent and it’s pronounced as one syllable: “S’quim.”
There’s also a small beach town on the Oregon Coast named Yachats, pronounced “YAH-hots.” Locals can quickly identify tourists by their mispronunciations.
(And since I’m this far: there’s an Indian casino 10 miles north of Portland, OR named “Ilani” but it’s pronounced “AY-lin-AY.”)
Within an afternoon’s drive of Joplin, Missouri (pronounced exactly as it looks) are Nevada, Missouri, which the locals insist is pronounced “neh-VAY-duh,” and Miami, Oklahoma, which the locals insist is pronounced “my-AM-uh.” A little further down the road you’ll cross the Arkansas River, which, in bordering Oklahoma and Arkansas counties, is pronounced “the ar-KAN-zus river.”
Oklahoma features the longest drivable stretch of Route 66 in the nation, boasting over 400 miles of the legendary “Mother Road” from Quapaw in the northeast to Texola in the west. Established 11 November 1926 and then later gradually decommissioned as mainly Interstate highways 40 and 44 were created, by 1985 it was officially removed from the US Highway System.
In Oklahoma, Route 66 passed through Miami OK (in Ottawa County) — pronounced my-AM-uh, as @HeyHomie enlightened us. Today, some sections of the Mother Road exist in and near Miami as a gravel and partly-paved ‘sidewalk highway’.
Miami today also has the Miami Original Nine-Foot Section of Route 66 Roadbed which is on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Ottawa County.
An alternate alignment of the Mother Road also existed for a time in and just south of Miami, to Narcissa OK — over its years the official routing of Route 66 had some minor changes throughout its length.
Also today, a historic gas station remains on the Mother Road in Miami. It is a Marathon Station.
If my plans come to fruition, I’ll be driving the Mother Road from Chicago to Santa Monica this August. Maybe by then I’ll be able to say my-AM-uh without skipping a beat. Also ar-KAN-zus.
OUT OF PLAY: Skip the Cozy Dog in Springfield, IL; it’s great as a piece of Rt. 66 history, it sucks ass as a place to eat; the food is overpriced and awful. If the timing is right, I will buy you a beer when your come through Cuba, MO. It’s about a 40-minute drive from where I live. Make sure to check out the murals and, if it’s lunch time, eat at Missouri Hick BBQ. Absolutely nothing to see or do in Springfield, MO unless Bass & Pro Shops is your thing. About 15 miles out of your way south, in the Springfield Suburbs, is Lambert’s Cafe. Despite the shtick and the tourist-trap-yness of it all, the food there is to die for. In Joplin, go a few miles out of your way to the Tornado Memorial (and watch Into The Storm on Netflix first). Eat at Hackett Hot Wings or Fred Red Chili. In Galena, Kansas is a little roadside kind-of-a-park where a few old cars are painted up to resemble the characters in the Pixar movie. Rumor has it that, when the Disney researchers were researching for Cars, they came to Galena where a) they learned what being bypassed by an interstate does to a town, and b) the found the old car lot and drew inspiration for some of the characters, including Tow-Mater.
Longest straight section of railroad track in the world is on the Nullabor Plain in Southern Australia as part of the Trans-Australian Railroad and is 478 km or 297 miles in old money (Trans-Australian Railway - Wikipedia).
Trans-Siberian Orchestra is a neoclassical metal group, originally founded by producer and songwriter Paul O’Neill in 1996. The group has released six albums, but has become particularly known for its Christmas music, especially the songs “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24” and “Wizards in Winter.”
“Wizards in Winter” is one of the most popular choices to be synced with DIY Christmas/Holiday home light shows. For Halloween themed light shows, “Thriller” by Michael Jackson is the most popular music option.
The Wizards (or Istari) in the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien included Saruman the White, Gandalf the Grey and Radagast the Brown. There were also two Blue Wizards who went far to the east of Middle-earth, but Tolkien never definitively decided upon either their names or what happened to them.