Ikey Solomon, a Jewish London pawnbroker, fence, and the patriarch of a family of thieves who may have trained child pickpockets and burglars, is believed by Dickens scholars to have been an inspiration for Fagin. Solomon’s wife was arrested, tried, and ultimately exiled to Tasmania; Solomon was also arrested but escaped to Denmark, then New York, and finally made his way to Hobart to rejoin his family, but was arrested soon after arrival.
Ålborg (Aalborg) is Denmark’s most northerly city and its fourth largest city. Ålborg and Sydney Australia share something in common: Jorn Utzon, the designer of the Sydney Opera House, lived in Ålborg and found inspiration for the serene Australian sails from vessels in the boatyards where his father worked.
The Sydney Opera House was officially opened on 20 October 1973 by HM Queen Elizabeth II.
The 40th anniversary of its opening was celebrated on 27 October 2013 in the presence of Crown Prince Frederick and Crown Princess Mary of Denmark. And I sang in the performance that night.
Crown Prince Frederik served in the Royal Danish Navy Frømandskorpset, which is somewhat equivalent to the Royal Navy Special Boat Service or US Navy SEALs.
The Danish term for what the Anglophone world calls a Danish pastry is wienerbrød, “Vienna bread”. They were, by legend, introduced to Denmark by Austrian scab bakers hired during a bakers’ strike in 1850. They made their way to the US via Danish-immigrant baker Lauritz Klitteng, who baked them for President Woodrow Wilson’s wedding in 1915.
Woodrow Wilson is the only New Jersey Governor who ever became US President.
The governor of New Jersey is a particular powerful official when compared to his 49 peers. Under the New Jersey Constitution, the governor appoints all state officials including the state cabinet officers, attorney general and secretary of state, and all prosecutors, with the advice and consent of the state senate. Chris Christie is, of course, the incumbent governor.
Country singer Kenny Rogers was once a member of the 1960’s Muzak-folk group the New Christie Minstrels, but left due to feeling creatively stifled. The group was named for an antebellum blackface act, but never performed in blackface themselves. They were satirized as the New Main Street Singers in the mockumentary film A Mighty Wind.
Disneyland’s Main Street, U.S.A. is inspired by Walt Disney’s hometown of Marceline, Missouri and designed to resemble the center of town for an old, early 20th century small USA town.
Marceline is in north-central Missouri and is about:
125 miles NE of Kansas City, MO
200 miles WNW of St. Louis, MO, and
175 miles S of Des Moines, IA.
Branch Rickey developed the Farm System while working for the St Louis Cardinals.
He lived in St Louis till he death in 1965
Branch Rickey also established the first permanent spring training facility, hired the first statistician to study baseball statistics, and was the first executive to order his team to wear batting helmets.
123 men played for both the New York Mets and the New York Yankees, including Carlos Beltran, David Cone, Marv Throneberry, Curtis Granderson, Dave Kingman, Lee Mazzilli, John Olerud, Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Robin Ventura, and Rickey Henderson.
In 1980, Rickey Henderson became the 3rd modern-era player to steal 100 bases in a season. Maury Wills’s 104 in 1962 and Lou Brock’s 118 in 1974 had preceded him.
Bases react with acids to form salts.
The U.S. Navy has no bases in Ohio, although there is a U.S. Coast Guard station in Cleveland.
California has the most naval bases, nine, of any other US state. Florida and Virginia are next with 8, and no other state has more than 4.
George W. Bush won Virginia’s 13 Electoral College votes in the elections of 2000 and 2004; Barack Obama won them in both 2008 and 2012.
The USS Virginia (SSN-774) is a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine (hull classification symbol SSN) commissioned on 23 Oct 2004. It is the tenth Navy vessel to be named for the Commonwealth of Virginia and the first attack submarine to be named after a state, a pattern that is common throughout the Virginia class. There are 30 planned submarines in her class, and the Virginia class replaces the Los Angeles class (USS Los Angeles (SSN-688)).
There are currently 16 Commonwealth realms which recognise Elizabeth II as their sovereign.
Four of the 50 USA states call themselves a Commonwealth - Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Constitutionally, there is no difference between a state and a commonwealth.