Corbetts are defined as Scottish mountains over 2,500 feet and under the 3,000 feet mark that defines the more famous Munros. There are currently 220 summits classified as Corbetts, which must have a drop of a least 500 feet between each listed hill and any adjacent higher one.
These were originally listed by John Rooke Corbett, who joined the Scottish Mountaineering Club in 1923, and in 1930 became the fourth person, and first Englishman, to complete the Munros List.
On 18 April 2014, an avalanche on Mount Everest near Everest Base Camp killed sixteen Nepalese guides.
The 1984 John Hughes teen movie, Sixteen Candles, took its title from the 1958 song by the Crests. The cover by The Stray Cats appeared in the film.
The Original Sixteen is a beer produced by the Great Western Brewing Company in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The brewery had operated since 1927 under various corporate names. In 1989, Molsons acquired the brewery through a merger with another company. Molsons immediately announced that it planned to close it.
Sixteen of the employees and managers put together a plan to keep the brewery going, and managed to buy it from Molsons. Re-named the Great Western Brewery, it has become one of western Canada’s largest regional breweries.
The Original Sixteen beer honours the sixteen employees who kept the brewery alive and flourishing.
The Sixteen are a well known English choral group, under the direction of Harry Christophers. They specialise in early English polyphony and Renaissance music.
San Francisco 49ers legendary quarterback Joe Montana wore jersey number 16 for his entire 49ers NFL career. Near the end of his NFL career when he went to play for the Kansas City Chiefs, he couldn’t have #16 because it had been retired for their former Super Bowl-winning quarterback, Len Dawson. Montana chose to wear #19 with the Chiefs because it was the sum of his college jersey number, #3 at Notre Dame, and his 49ers #16.
The all-time leading quarterback in passing in North American pro football, Anthony Calvillo, retired in the off-season from the Montreal Alouettes, with 79,816 passing yards.
Both Calvillo and Damon Allen, the # 2 on the list with 72,381, played their entire careers in the CFL.
It’s not until rank # 3 that you find an NFL QB, Brett Favre with 71,838.
The Greek legend of Damon and Pythias exemplifies the ideals of loyalty and friendship.
Pythias, sentenced to be executed, pleads for some time to return to his home and tidy his affairs. His friend Damon stands in for him, agreeing to be executed in his place should Pythias not return. Of course Pythias is delayed. He turns up just in time to halt Damon’s execution. Both are released and pardoned in recognition of their loyalty.
The Kinghts of Pythias is a fraternal order formed in the USA in the early 1800s. It’s membership has declined from a peak of a million to a present number of only about 50,000. Men with physical disabilities or deformities were not admitted during the first half century of the order’s existence.
“Kinghts” are known as “knights” in most of the English-speaking world. Knights in Westeros, in the tales of George R.R. Martin, are entitled to the prefix “Ser.”
Sir Robert Menzies, former Prime Minister, was the only Australian to have been appointed a Knight of the Order of the Thistle.
At USMC boot camp (either MCRD Parris Island, or MCRD San Diego), the first word out of a recruit’s mouth is “Sir,” and the last word out of a recruit’s mouth is “Sir.” Recruits must first request permission in order to speak, typically with, “Sir, request permission to speak, sir.” If asked a question to which the answer is Yes, the recruit must say, “Sir, yes sir.”
The First Fleet left Portsmouth on 13 May 1787. The first vessels arrived in Sydney Harbour on 26 January 1788. Australia Day is now celebrated on 26 January.
The German High Seas Fleet was interned temporarily at Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands, at the end of World War I while the victorious powers bickered over who would get the ships. On 21 June 1919 German Real-Admiral Ludwig von Reuter ordered the fleet scuttled. (He had already prepared for rapid scuttling by ordering portholes loosened, etc.) Fifteen (out of 16) capital ships and 37 other ships sank to the bottom of the sea.
Oliver Peter St John, 9th Earl of Orkney, is a professor at the University of Manitoba.
The 14th, 15th and 16th Barons St John of Bledsoe all had as their given name “St Andrew.” The 16th Baron had no sons so title passed to his brother, named “Beauchamp St John.”
In Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre the first cousin of Jane, the clergyman St John Rivers, urges her to marry him and travel with him to India to aid him in his missionary work. Jane refuses and instead returns to marry Mr Rochester, whose attic-bound insane wife has since died in the fire which she herself started at Thornfield, thus freeing Mr Rochester to marry Jane.
The Reverend George Burroughs was hanged for witchcraft at Witches Hill, Salem, Massachusetts on the 19th of August, 1692. Accusations had been brought based on his religious beliefs rather than any real evidence of witchcraft. While waiting to be hanged, Burroughs recited the Lord’s Prayer successfully, a feat impossible for witches to perform. He was hanged nevertheless, with the Rev. Cotton Mather claiming that, unlike himself, Burroughs was not an ordained Puritan clergyman.
Bulgaria’s national hero, Vasil Levski, was executed by hanging by the Ottoman court in Sofia in 1873. Every year since Bulgaria’s liberation, thousands come with flowers on the date of his death, February 19, to his monument where the gallows stood. Levski was a former Orthodox monk, who led the revolution of Bulgarians against Ottoman rule.
The year 193 A.D. was called “The Year of the Five Emperors” because the murder of Emperor Pertinax led to a succession crisis. The crisis finally ended on 19 February 197 when Lucius Septimius Severus Augustus defeated Decimus Clodius Septimius Albinus Augustus at the Battle of Lugdunum, Gaul (now Lyon, France) and became sole Emperor. The Battle of Lugdunum was the largest Roman-vs-Roman battle ever.