Sint Eustatius is a small Caribbean island and a special municipality of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The ‘First Salute’ (in honor of the 4th of July): In the 18th century, Sint Eustatius sold arms and ammunition to anyone willing to pay. It was one of the few places from which the rebellious British Thirteen Colonies of North America could obtain weaponry. This good relationship between St. Eustatius and the United States resulted in the noted “First Salute” of 16 November 1776, when Commander Johannes de Graaff of St. Eustatius decided to return the salute fire of the visiting American brig Andrew Doria by firing the cannons of Fort Oranje.
This was the first international acknowledgment of the independence of the United States. The British took the incident seriously, and protested against the continuous trade between the United States and St. Eustatius.
In 1939, while in the harbor of St. Eustatius, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt recognized the importance of the event by offering a plaque that says:
“Here the sovereignty of the United States of America was first formally acknowledged to a national vessel by a foreign official.”
The gesture also provided the title for Barbara W. Tuchman’s 1988 book The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution.
Edward Harrison “Dutch” Zwilling was the only baseball player to play his entire career for three different major league teams that were all based in the same city.
When George, Prince of Wales, saw his future bride, Caroline of Ansbach, for the first time, he is reputed to have said to his aide, “Harris, I am quite ill. Pray get me a glass of brandy.”
80% of Netherlanders are of Dutch ethnicity, and the Dutch people include Famke Janssen; Vincent van Gogh; Rembrandt van Rijn; Desiderius Erasmus; Christiaan Huygens; Antonie van Leeuwenhoek; Anthony Fokker; Jan Oort; Arie Luyendyk; Rik Smits; Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor; Anne Frank; Mata Hari; and Peter Stuyvesant.
ETA: ninja’d, so I will add another Dutchman, George Maduro.
Francis II was the last Holy Roman Emperor, losing the title upon the dissolution of the Empire in 1806. However, he was also the first Emperor of Austria, reigning as Francis I, so it wasn’t all bad news.
Francis Greenway was transported to Australia in 1814 after being convicted of forgery. He went on to become one of the best-known architects of the colonial era and was responsible for many of Sydney’s finest buildings.
The first Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan, Amédée Forget, had a pet monkey, Jacko, who had free range of Government House. One of Jacko’s favourite pastimes was swinging from the chandeliers in the formal rooms of the House.
According to singer Ray Stevens in his novelty hit, Guitarzan has a pet monkey who likes to get drunkey and he sings boogie-woogie and it sounds real funky.
*Come on, your turn, boy
Sing one, monkey!
Lets hear it for the monkey!
On Saturday night they need some excitement
Jane gets right and the monkey gets tight
And their voices unite
In the pale moonlight
And it sounds all right
Yeah, it’s dynamite,
It’s out of sight.*
Before humans went into space, several animals were launched into space, including numerous non-human primates, so that scientists could investigate the biological effects of space travel.
The United States launched flights containing primate cargo primarily between 1948-1961 with one flight in 1969 and one in 1985. The first-ever monkey astronaut was Albert, a rhesus monkey, who on June 11, 1948 rode to over 63 km (39 mi) on a V2 rocket. Albert died of suffocation during the flight.
France launched two monkey-carrying flights in 1967.
The Soviet Union and Russia launched monkeys between 1983 and 1996
Most primates were anesthetized before lift-off. Overall thirty-two monkeys flew in the space program; none flew more than once.
Prince Albert is commemorated in Saskatchewan by the northern city of Prince Albert, and Albert Street in Regina, the main north-south street in the city centre.
Prince Albert is, to date, the only British royal to hold the title “Prince Consort.” There have been occasional suggestions that the title also now be bestowed on Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.
Queen Victoria was born in 1819. She was baptised Alexandrina, after one of her godparents, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, and Victoria after her mother. When at 18 she became queen, the official documents prepared on the first day of her reign described her as Alexandrina Victoria, but the first name was withdrawn at her own wish and not used again.
Princess Katherine of Greece and Denmark, youngest daughter of King Constantine I and Queen Sophia of the Hellenes, had as her godparents all the members of the Greek army and navy.
Constantinople, named after Constantine the Great, was dedicated in the year 330 AD. It was founded in 660 BC as Byzantium by the Megarian Byzas (Byzantium is a Latinization of Byzantion). In 1930 when modern Turkey was established, the city was renamed to Istanbul. Now it’s Istanbul, (not Constantinople)
*Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That’s nobody’s business but the Turks
*