Taurus (Latin for ‘bull’) is a zodiacal constellation prominent in the summer sky. Its brightest star is the first magnitude red giant Aldebaran.
nm
Aldebaran has 44 times the diameter and 425 times the brightness of the sun.
Carol Burnett once did a sketch of an alleged Old West shooting of a fellow named Lester More, which ended with the following epitaph:
“Here lies Lester More,
Dead from four shots
From a 44.
No less, no more.”
Erin Burnett used the term “serial killer” regarding the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s plans for aerial shooting to cull Australian feral camels in the outback.
Kevin Rudd was twice Prime Minister of Australia; the second time in 2013 for a period of only 12 weeks.
He was the first PM to return to the office since Robert Menzies in 1949.
“The Rooster”, NASCAR driver Ricky Rudd, is known as the “Iron man”. He holds the record for most consecutive starts in NASCAR racing. At the conclusion of the 2005 season, Rudd had made 788 consecutive starts. He retired in 2007 with 23 career wins under his belt.
NASCAR racing is an offshoot of Prohibition, when bootleggers modified their street cars to enable them to outrun the police, and then evolved into racing among themselves for entertainment and to show off t heir cars.
NASCAR racing history evolved after Prohibition was repealed in 1933. Drivers and fast cars continued to “run shine” (moonshine), but instead of evading the cops they evaded revenuers who wanted to tax their operations.
NASCAR’s signature event, the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway, was originally a 200 mile event run on a temporary circuit partly on the beach and partly on the adjacent Route A1A. NASCAR’s founding father, William France Sr., promoted races there as well as competing in them.
New France once encompassed the Maritime provinces of Canada, southern Quebec, much of southern Ontario, and along the Mississippi to New Orleans.
The great Acadian exodus took place in the mid-18th century when half the Acadian population of Nova Scotia left. It was led by Father Jean-Louis Le Loutre, and the British gave him the code name “Moses” because of it. It was caused by the Catholic Acadians who refused Great Britain’s insistence of full allegiance to the crown. The British fort at Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, still stands to this day.
The Crown of Saint Stephen was used in the coronation ceremonies of the Kings of Hungary.
It was entrusted to the Unites States for safekeeping at the end of WWII and was returned to Hungary in 1978.
Saint Stephen of the bible is considered to be Christianity’s first martyr. His death by stoning (imagine that, guys) was witnessed by Saul of Tarsus (later better known by his Roman name, Paul), a Pharisee who would later become a follower himself of Jesus and an apostle.
The feast of Saint Stephen, Protomartyr is celebrated on 26 December.
This day is also known as Boxing Day.
December was originally the tenth month in the calendar until the Romans added January and February.
Stephen is one of the four names which has only been used once as an English/British regnal name since William the Conqueror was crowned on December 25, 1066. The other three are John, Anne and Victoria.
A portion of the Bayeux tapestry shows Halley’s Comet’s visit in 1066.
Bayeux, although historically very famous, is a very small town, whose population never exceeded 12,000 from Napoleon’s time to the 1970s, but it now has 14,000.
Saint Helena Island is situated 21 km east of Brisbane in Moreton Bay. It was originally used as a gaol, and is now a national park. Named Noogoon by the local aborigines, it was renamed Saint Helena after an aborigine named Napoleon who was exiled there in 1826.