One of the most famous tenors alive today is 32-year old Jonathan Mark Ansell. When Ansell was 27 years old he and his wife were married in London of the 40th floor of 30 St Mary Axe, a building known informally as The Gherkin because it looks like a pickle.
The street of St Mary Axe was the location of the sorcerer’s shop in Gilbert and Sullivan’s opera The Sorcerer.
The full name of the Church of St Mary Axe was the Church of St. Mary, St. Ursula and her 11,000 Virgins. It is doubtful there ever were 11,000 virgins. That number likely came from a misinterpretation of the word, Undecimilia.
Only four women have been named SFWA Grandmasters: Andre Norton, Ursula K. Leguin, Anne McCaffrey, and Connie Willis.
Beldar and Prymaat Conehead on Saturday Night Live (and a later movie) had a daughter named Connie, who was coneheaded just like them, but was otherwise a typical rebellious, pop-culture-obsessed American teenager.
The presidential airplane for Dwight D. Eisenhower was the Lockheed Constellation (“Connie”).
Lockeed engineers created the UGM-133A Trident II (Trident D5) submarine-launched 3-stage ballistic missile. Each missile has up to 12() multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, each carrying a W88 or W76 warhead. ( - The S.A.L.Treaty prohibits more than 8 being mounted.)
Twenty-four Trident missiles are carried on each of 14 subs of the Ohio class, and sixteen Trident missiles on each of 4 British subs of the Vanguard class. The Trident D5LE (life-extension) version will remain in service until 2042.
A MIRV (pronounced like Merv, as in Merv Griffin) is a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle, a ballistic missile payload containing several warheads. Each warhead is capable of being aimed to hit one of a group of targets.
MIRV was a common term during the Cold War.
The shortest war in history is said to be the Anglo-Zanzibar War, which lasted for about 40 minutes on the morning of 27 August 1896.
In January 1964 the People’s Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba was formed. In April of that same year it merged with Tanganyika to create the United Republic of Tanzania.
From images of the Zanzibar archipelago, the scenery is beautiful: zanzibar archipelago - Yahoo Image Search Results
The highest point in Africa is Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, with an elevation of 5,895 m. It is the highest free-standing mountain in the world.
On 26 September 2014 a new world record for the highest-ever cricket match was set when a group of international cricketers played on a flat crater on the mountain at an altitude of 5,730 m.
Post #23,112:
Post #23,114:
Post #23,207:
Post #23,208 (in play):
The “Seven Summits” are:
- 8,848 m (29,029 ft) elevation: Mt. Everest (Asia)
- 6,961 m (22,838 ft) elevation: Aconcagua (South America)
- 6,194 m (20,322 ft) elevation: Mt. McKinley (North America)
- 5,895 m (19,341 ft) elevation: Mt. Kilimanjaro (Africa)
- 5,642 m (18,510 ft) elevation: Mt. Elbrus (Europe)¹
- 4,892 m (16,050 ft) elevation: Mt. Vinson
7a) 4,884 m (16,024 ft) elevation: Puncak Jaya (Australia)²
7b) 2,228 m (7,310 ft) elevation: Mt. Kosciuszko (Australia)³
¹ - Because the location of the boundary between Asia and Europe is not universally agreed upon, the inclusion of Elbrus in Europe is disputed
² - New Guinea, Australian continent
³ - Australian mainland
And the inspiration for one of my all-time favorite movie puns (“Here’s MIRV!”), in The Abyss.
In play:
J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the poetic fragment “Seven stars and seven stones and one white tree” for The Lord of the Rings, referring to the escape of Elendil and his sons from the downfall of Numenor.
The large seven-pointed star on the Australian flag is known as the Commonwealth Star. The six original states of the Commonwealth of Australia are represented by six of the points. The seventh point represents the territories.
The 7-pointed star, or heptagram, is used in Christianity to symbolize the seven days of creation and became a traditional symbol for warding off evil. This may also be a reason that many sheriff’s badges are obtuse heptagram shaped.
An obtuse triangle is one that contains an angle greater than 90 degrees.
Research Triangle Park is one of the largest research parks in the world. It is located near Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, in the Research Triangle region of North Carolina. Over 175 companies and institutions have facilities in or near Research Triangle Park, including the US CDC (Centers for Disease Controtl), IBM, Cisco, National Semiconductor, GlaxoSmithKline, Oracle, the US EPA and the Forest Service, and Dupont.
The surrender of CSA Generals Joseph Johnston and John C. Breckinridge (previously vice president of the United States in addition to numerous Confederate offices) to William Tecumseh Sherman at the Bennett farm near Durham, NC, was the largest surrender of troops- almost 90,000- on U.S. soil. The initial negotiations went very well for the Confederates as Sherman was jovial at ending the war and Breckinridge a brilliant negotiator once he had some whiskey (true story), but Sherman’s extremely generous terms were rejected by Stanton and the negotiations became much more somber once the news of Abraham Lincoln’s murder reached the participants.
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Sherman Way in Los Angeles is named for Gen. Sherman - but not that Gen. Sherman. Land developer Moses Sherman (nicknamed General) brought the Pacific Electric railway to the San Fernando Valley along the road named after him.