Pope Francis I, the former Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is the first Jesuit pope.
Only cardinals below the age of 80 may participate in the election of a pope.
Three former Cardinals are memorialized in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium.
Paul IV, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI
Isn’t that Paul VI and not Paul IV?
The new Yankee Stadium has a Hard Rock Café in it.
In 1971 Isaac Tigrett and Peter Morton were two shaggy-haired Americans who just wanted to find a good American burger while living in London. They opened up their own American style diner in an old Rolls Royce dealership. They called it Hard Rock Cafe. Initially, Isaac & Peter were only given a 6-month lease.
Isaac Tigrett and Maureen Cox Starkey (ex-wife of Beatle Ringo Starr) had a daughter Augusta King Tigreet, born on January 4, 1987. They married in 1989 and stayed married until Maureen’s death of leukemia in 1994. Maureen is the only Beatle ex-wife to have another child post-divorce.
The minor league affiliates of the San Francisco Giants are:
— The Fresno Grizzlies of the Pacific Coast League in Fresno, CA (AAA league)
— The Richmond Flying Squirrels of the Eastern League in Richmond, VA (AA league)
— The San Jose Giants of the California League in San Jose, CA (A league)
— The Augusta GreenJackets of the South Atlantic League in Augusta, GA (A league)
— The Salem-Keizer Volcanoes of the Northwest League in Keizer, OR (A, short season league)
— The AZL Giants of the Arizona League in Scottsdale, AZ (rookie league)
— The DSL Giants of the Dominican Summer League in Boca Chica, Dominican Republic (rookie league)
The Bocca della Verita is a sculptured image located in the portico of the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome. It became well known after its appearance in the film Roman Holiday.
A portico is a row of columns supporting a roof at the entrance of a building; it’s a colonnade or covered walkway especially in classical architecture and often at the entrance of a building.
The longest portico in the world is nearly 4km long and located in Bologna, Italy. The Portico di San Luca consists of 666 arches.
Saint Luke is one of the four Evangelists. He is traditionally considered to have been a doctor. His feast day is 18 October.
Revelation 4:7 describes four creatures surrounding God’s throne:
(New International Version (NIV))
The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle.
These creatures are often equated with the four evangelists as
[ul]
[li]Matthew: man[/li][li]Mark: lion[/li][li]Luke: ox[/li][li]John: eagle[/li][/ul]
The plural form of the word ox is oxen. It is one of a small number of nouns in English with an irregular plural form stemming from the Old English weak declension. Two others are:
- child/children
- brother/brethren
The Celestial Equatorial Coordinate System is based on the concept of the celestial sphere, which is an imaginary sphere of infinite radius surrounding the earth. The celestial sphere is fixed with respect to the universe. Its orientation does not change. The Celestial Equatorial Coordinate System identifies angles east-west, and north-south, that are somewhat similar to latitude and longitude on the earth.
The origin of the Celestial Equatorial Coordinate System, its (0, 0) point, can be anywhere in the Solar System but is usually placed at the center of the earth.
The two coordinates in the Celestial Equatorial Coordinate System are declination (as opposed to declension) and right ascension. Declination is similar to latitude and is the angle above or below the celestial equator, which is the line coplanar with the earth’s equator (and 90° to its axis of rotation).
On the earth, longitude begins at an arbitrarily-selected 0° meridian and is the east-west angle from that meridian. Similarly, right ascension is the east-west angle from a fixed 0° meridian that has been somewhat arbitrarily selected. This 0° meridian is set at the vernal equinox point and is the line running 90° to the celestial equator. The vernal equinox point is the point where the sun crosses the celestial equator in going from the south to the north.
Because the earth rotates, from the perspective of the earth the celestial sphere rotates once about every 24 (sidereal) hours. Right ascension, consequently, is measured in (sidereal) hours, 0h to 24h east from the Vernal Equinox Point. That is, east is the direction of increasing right ascension. The half-circle with right ascension 0h is called the 0 hour circle. As a circle is 360°, 1 hour right ascension = 15°.
The vernal equinox point is also known as the First Point of Aries, as this constellation used to contain (circa 150 BC) this point. The process known as precession has caused this point on the celestial sphere to move slowly westwards along the ecliptic. It is now actually located in the constellation Pisces. However the original name has been retained.
Aries (the Ram) is actually a rather inconspicuous northern constellation. It is the second smallest in area of the zodiacal constellations. Capricornus is the smallest and Virgo is the largest.
It is possible to balance an egg on it’s end on the vernal equinox. Of course, Cecil tells us it’s possible all other days as well. You just need really steady hands.
Camel spiders can grow to be as large as dinner plates. They can traverse desert sand at speeds up to 25 MPH, making screaming noises as they run. They can jump several feet in the air.
Camel spiders eat the stomachs of camels and lay their eggs there, hence the name “camel spider.”
Sopwith Camel was the first band out of the San Francisco rock scene of the 60s to have a top 40 hit, with “Hello, Hello,” which reached #26 in the US in 1967.
At 195 km/hr, the Sopwith Snipe was the fastest of the Sopwith Aviation Company’s WWI aircraft. The company built aircraft from 1912 until 1920 when it became defunct.
There are 25 different species of snipe. They are wading birds and generally have very long, slender bills.
The *Campbell Island snipe *was discovered as recently as 1997 on the outlying island of New Zealand.