“Torte” is pronounced the same as “tort”, the English common law term for court actions for certain types of civil wrongs. The English term comes from the Norman French word, “tort”, meaning “wrong.”
Well, of course they would. It wouldn’t be safe to have a corpse at the bottom of an unfilled grave.
It is often claimed that the term “rule of thumb” had its origin in a law that limited the maximum thickness of a stick with which it was permissible for a man to beat his wife. English common law before the reign of Charles II permitted a man to give his wife “moderate correction,” but no “rule of thumb” has ever been the law in England. Such “moderate correction” specifically excluded beatings, and in fact only allowed the husband to confine a wife to his house.
The practice of soliciting a ride in the USA by holding up one’s** thumb,**still mostly restricted to the western world, originated in the late 1930s, and spread to Britain after WWII. The word “hitchhike” originated in the 1920s.
The Romans used the name Provincia Britannia for their settlements in Britain.
Britannia, the symbol of the female personification of Britain, first appeared on British coinage on the farthing of 1672. The figure of Britannia was said by Samuel Pepys to have been modelled on Frances Teresa Stuart, the future Duchess of Richmond. She was known at the time for refusing to become the mistress of King Charles II, despite his strong infatuation with her.
In American coinage, the dime was originally spelled “disme”, but probably pronounced the same. It’s thought that the word disme came from a French word, dixième.
Darrell Lance Abbott, aka “Dimebag” Darrell, was the lead guitarist for Pantera and Damageplan. His stage name was originally “Diamond Darrell” during Pantera’s early glam-metal days. He was murdered onstage by a deranged fan named Nathan Gale on December 8, 2004.
Zadok the Priest, the famous anthem by Handel, has been sung at every British coronation since that of King George II in 1727, traditionally during the sovereign’s anointing. Its text is:
Georg Handel was not recognized as a good musician during his lifetime, but more of a commercial success. In short, he was considered “the Andrew Lloyd Webber of his day.”
The crux decussata, or X-shaped cross, is also known as a Saint Andrew’s cross, because by tradition Saint Andrew is said to have been martyred on such a cross.
Exene Cervenka, singer of the LA Punk band X, was briefly married to Viggo Mortenson.
Daisy Fellowes (née Marguerite Séverine Philippine Decazes de Glücksberg) was a well-known 20th century society figure in France and the UK celebrated for her beauty, style and wealth (she was heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune). Her second marriage was to the Hon. Reginald Fellowes, a cousin of Winston Churchill.
Churchill records an incident in Paris where he returned to his hotel room to discover his cousin’s wife Daisy lying naked on a rug, intent on seducing him.
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sometimes referred to himself in wartime communications with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt as “FNP,” for “Former Naval Person.”
Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911. He was one of the driving forces behind the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in WWI and wore much of the blame for its failure.
**Churchill **County, Nevada, was named after Mexican-American War hero brevet Brigadier General Sylvester Churchill, who was originally a journalist, publishing a newspaper in Vermont.
The name Nevada comes from the Spanish and means ‘snow covered’.
The fictional Ponderosa Ranch in the TV series Bonanza was located on the eastern shore of Lake Tahoe and about a 2-hr horse ride from Virginia City, NV.
Lake George is an intermittent lake in south-eastern NSW, about 40 kilometres north-east of Canberra. It is an endorheic lake i.e. it allows no outflow to other external bodies of water.
It is 25 km long and 10 km wide and is largely flat and extremely shallow. It is subject to ‘mysterious’ epsiodes of filling and draining. These can be explained by high evaporation rates and a tendency for strong winds to blow the water back on itself. Popular mythology attributes the filling and draining to a link with various other lakes, often in other countries, that simultaneously fill/empty as Lake George empties/fills.
Lake Nicaragua is the largest lake in Central America. Although the Pacific Ocean can be seen from the tops of mountains on islands in the lake, the lake’s water empties into the Atlantic Ocean.
While most people think that the Panama Canal runs from east in the Atlantic Ocean to the west to the Pacific Ocean, its direction of travel is actually northwest to southeast from Atlantic to Pacific.
If the Chinese build a rival to the Panama Canal, as has long been discussed, it would possibly pass through Lake Nicaragua.