Of the deaths of Jesus’ apostles, only those of Judas and James are depicted in the bible.
The sinking of the Cataraque, a British barque, off the south-west coast of King Island in Bass Strait on 4 August 1845 caused 406 deaths. It is Australia’s worst ever civil maritime disaster.
During the US’ Revolutionary War, on 03 August 1778, sailors and US Marines aboard the Continental Navy ship General Gates defeated the British letter-of-marque brigantine HMS Montague under the command of Captain Horatio Nelson (Lord Nelson).
The Nelson title lives on in the person of Simon John Horatio Nelson, 10th Earl Nelson, who succeeded to the title in 2009. He is the great, great, great, great, great-nephew of the illustrious naval hero.
Buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in the Punchbowl Crater in Honolulu, Hawaii, is a US Marine who was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for galantry in battle. Lieutenant Colonel Horatio Cornick Woodhouse, jr and the Marines of 2/22, the 2nd Battalion of the 22nd Marine Regiment, of the 6th Division (the “Striking Sixth”) were in the invasion of Okinawa in Aprill and May of 1945. On 30 May 1945, Lt Col Woodhouse was fatally struck by a Japanese sniper’s bullet.
The Silver Star Medal is America’s third highest military decoration for valor. Lt Col Woodhouse was the great great great nephew of US founding father James Madison.
Rahm Emanuel, the current Mayor of Chicago, served in the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois’s 5th District from 2003 to 2009, when he became President Barack Obama’s first White House Chief of Staff.
In Illinois if you are legally carrying a concealed firearm, if asked if you’re carrying you are not legally bound to inform an officer of that fact. This requirement varies by state.
In Canada, it is extremely rare to have a permit to carry concealed. It is estimated that the total number of such permits at any given time is about 200.
On Friday 31 October 2014 in Ottawa, Ontario, former US Marine Major R.E.G. Sinke, a Vietnam War veteran, stood guard at the National War Memorial to pay tribute to Canadian soldier Corporal Nathan Cirillo, a reservist from Hamilton, Ont. who was shot dead while guarding the monument.
The tomb of Canada’s Unknown Soldier is directly in front of the National War Monument. It contains the remains of a Canadian soldier of the Great War, “Known unto God.”
The Tomb only dates to 2000, when the remains of an unknown Canadian soldier, likely killed at Vimy, were exhumed from a grave in a Commonwealth graveyard in France and re-interred in a granite sarcophagus in front of the Memorial.
The original tombstone was installed in the Memorial Hall at the National War Museum. The Hall is designed with a window that allows the sun to shine on the tombstone every year at 11 am, November 11.
The US National World War I Museum in Kansas City, MO, is the only museum in the United States dedicated to WWI. It is located at the Liberty Memorial across the street from Union Station, the site of the Union Station Massacre (a.k.a. the Kansas City Massacre) of 17 June 1933. One can still see bullet damage on the walls of Union Station from this shootout.
The National Museum of Australia is located on Acton Peninsula on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra. The peninsula was previously the site of the Royal Canberra Hospital, the subject of a controlled explosive demolition which went spectacularly wrong on 13 July 1997, killing one of the large crowd that had gathered to watch.
The largest peninsula in the world is the Arabian Peninsula. One of the smallest peninsulas in the world is Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Cape Spear on the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland is the eastern most point in North America.
http://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/PlacesToGo/CapeSpearLighthouseNationalHistoricSite
The Australian International Airshow is held biennially at Avalon Airport, near Geelong, Victoria. It regularly features planes from the Royal Australian Air Force, United States Navy and the United States Air Force. It is claimed to be the largest air show in the Southern Hemisphere.
The world’s largest military air show is the Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford, United Kingdom.
The Sydney Royal Easter Show is an annual show held in Sydney over two weeks around Easter. It is run by the Royal Agricultural Society of New South Wales and was first held in 1823. Queen Victoria awarded the Society and its show the right to use the word “Royal” in its name.
The Kansas City Royals baseball team began play in 1969. They have won one wild card, six division titles, three American League pennants, and one World Series title. The team was named after the American Royal livestock show and rodeo, held annually in Kansas City since 1899. The team’s logo was designed by a local resident who was an artist for Hallmark Cards.
The Royal Visit by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to Canada in 1939 was a major success for the shy new monarch, who had become King unexpectedly after his brother’s abdication. They were greeted by excited, welcoming large crowds everywhere they went. They then went on a similar tour to the United States, meeting President Roosevelt. It was the first major trip abroad for the new king and queen, and helped to counter North American isolationism.
In later years, as Queen Mum, Elizabeth would reminisce fondly about the tour’s success, saying “Canada made us,” referring to the tremendous confidence boost they personally got from the tour. She returned to Canada on several occasions in her long life.
FDR’s invitation to King George VI was a significant first. No reigning British Monarch had ever set foot on American soil, not even in colonial times. Ever since America declared its independence from England in 1776, the United States and Great Britain oftentimes experienced tense relations, but Roosevelt’s invitation to the King carried great significance in the history of Anglo-American relations, not only because of their colonial past, but more importantly, because it signified the dawn of a new era in American and British cooperation.