The 1985 Chicago Bears are considered one of the best-ever NFL teams. Those Bears featured a very strong defense, and throughout that season they lost only one game, to the Miami Dolphins in week 13 of the regular season. The Bears finished the season with a 15-1 regular season record. In their two playoff games against the New York Giants and Los Angeles Rams, the Bears outscored their opponents 45–0 and became the first team to record back-to-back playoff shutouts. They won Super Bowl XX, 46-10 over the New England Patriots.
In the preceding season, the 1984 San Francisco 49ers also went 15-1 during the regular season, losing only to the Pittsburgh Steelers in week 7 of the regular season. In the playoffs they shut out the Chicago Bears 23-0. They won Super Bowl XIX, 38-19 over the Miami Dolphins.
“So mote it be” is a phrase that dates back to the late medieval era and is often used in Masonic rituals, including Masonic funerals.
(I once got the giggles at a funeral when my father was saying the Masonic eulogy and a half literate old Mason behind him was solemnly repeating “somo tibby, somo tibby”- I think of him when I hear the Masons are the powers behind the thrones of the world.)
The Requiem mass is the Catholic funeral ritual. It takes its name from the first word of the the Introit chant, the verse sung as the priest enters the church and processes to the altar. The Introit is: Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine…“Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord”.
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem, based in part on what he’d read of the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia, was regularly performed on the London stage in late 1985.
The longest running production on the London stage is Agatha Christie’s play The Mousetrap, which premiered on 25 November 1952. It notched up its 25,000th performance on 18 November 2012 and is still running.
The American Revolutionary War where America declared her Independence from Great Britain and celebrates its birthday of 04 July 1776 did not end that year. The British fought and maintained their presence in America for several years as the young country continued to fight and defeat the old world power. Britain continued to occupy a military presence until 1783, when their last military post in the new country was finally evacuated. This post, on New York City’s Manhattan Island, was evacuated on a day now called Evacuation Day: 25 November 1783.
Manhattanhenge is a phenomenon in which the sun sets in alignment with the east–west streets of the Manhattan street grid. This occurs twice a year, on dates evenly spaced around the summer solstice. The first Manhattanhenge occurs around 28 May, while the second occurs around 12 July. Similarly, sunrise aligns with the streets on the Manhattan grid around the time of the winter solstice, on approximately 5 December and 8 January.
The UNESCO World Heritage Site near St. Louis, Cahokia Mounds in Illinois, included at least five separate large circles with post holes to hold large stripped tree trunks. These circles are each an American “Woodhenge” which are calendars marking the solstices and equinoxes. The sun’s rising aligns with poles in the holes. The Woodhenge that stands there today was reconstructed in 1985.
The trunk, or proboscis, of an elephant is a fusion of the nose and upper lip. An adult Asian elephant is capable of holding 8.5 L of water in its trunk.
The North Shore railway line serves the residential suburbs in the northern parts of Sydney. It was completed in its current form in 1932 with the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Working from the city, stations along the line are Milson’s Point, North Sydney, Waverton, Wollstonecraft, St Leonards, Artarmon, Chatswood, Roseville, Lindfield, Killara, Gordon, Pymble, Turramurra, Warrawee, Wahroonga, Waitara and Hornsby.
The U.S. military prison at Johnson’s Island, on Lake Erie near Sandusky, Ohio, was originally intended for Confederate prisoners of all ranks, but was soon designated for officers only. The last prisoner was freed in June 1865, but the facility did not close until early the following year.
There have been 65 four-star generals in the history of the United States Marine Corps. The Marine Corps does not have a five-star general, nor has it ever had one.
Of note is the title of “General of the Armies of the United States.” There have been only two people to have ever held this title, George Washington and John Pershing. Washington was given the title posthumously, in 1976 by President Ford.
In WWII the British Royal Navy battleship HMS King George V helped to sink the German battleship Bismarck. Later during the war, in 1945, King George V operated in the Pacific Ocean against the Japanese forces. Following the war, King George V spent three years as the flagship of the British Home Fleet, was placed in reserve in 1949, and scrapped eight years later.