The Australian one and two cent coins were withdrawn from circulation in 1992. The move was due to inflation reducing their value, and the high cost of bronze.
After removal from circulation, some of the coins were melted down to make bronze medals for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.
The US $2 bill was first issued in 1862. It had the portrait of Alexander Hamilton on it. Hamilton’s face was a profile view and was different from what is on the $10 bill today. Thomas Jefferson first appeared on the $2 bill in 1869 when he replaced Hamilton.
The $2 bill remained in circulation until 1966. It had been resized in 1928 when all bills were changed to their current size. Then in 1976 the $2 bill was reissued. In all, 590,729,000 were printed in series 1976. The $2 remains in circulation today.
O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” begins with “One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies.” Some today think that this is an math error, but at the time there were two- and three-cent pieces, allowing for odd amounts. Thus the 27 cents left could be a quarter and a two-cent piece. O. Henry was once a bank teller, and not likely to make a mistake like that.
While William Sydney Porter (nom de plume O. Henry) is known for doing jail time for embezzlement, the truth of the matter is that after he was found guilty in February 1898, sentenced to five years in prison, and imprisoned on March 25, 1898 at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio, he was also a licensed pharmacist who worked in the prison hospital as the night druggist. Porter was given his own room in the hospital wing, and there is no record that he actually spent time in the cell block of the prison. He had fourteen stories published under various pseudonyms while he was in prison, but was becoming best known as “O. Henry”, a pseudonym that first appeared over the story “Whistling Dick’s Christmas Stocking” in the December 1899 issue of McClure’s Magazine. A friend of his in New Orleans would forward his stories to publishers, so they had no idea the writer was imprisoned. Porter was released on July 24, 1901, for good behavior after serving three years.
O. Henry was the pen name of William Sydney Porter. He was born William Sidney Porter (an “I” in Sidney) in 1862 in Greenboro, NC, where he was raised. At 24 he had moved to Austin, TX and got married there. It was in Austin that he worked as a bank teller, for the First National Bank of Austin. It was also in Austin where he started writing a weekly satire called The Rolling Stone.
O. Henry was accused of embezzlement and was fired by the bank. Federal auditors found evidence of his embezzling and a federal indictment was issued. O. Henry fled to Honduras, with which the US did not have an extradition treaty at the time.
While in Honduras O. Henry befriended a notorious train robber, and in his writings there O. Henry was the first to coin the term, “banana republic.”
There are 72 banks licensed to operate in Australia:
NFL quarterback Tony Banks played for ten seasons:
1996-1998: St. Louis Rams
1999-2000: Baltimore Ravens
2001: Dallas Cowboys
2002-2005: Houston Texans
He won one Super Bowl ring with the Ravens in Super Bowl XXXV as a backup to Trent Dilfer.
The retirement savings system in Australia is known as ‘superannuation’ or, colloquially, as ‘super’. Currently all employers are required to contribute 9.5% of their employees’ earnings (full-time, part-time and casual) to super accounts. The employer contribution rate will be increased gradually until it reaches 12% in 2022.
In the year 2022 construction of the TMT, the Thirty Meter Telescope being built on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, is expected to be completed. Construction began last July.
Mauna Kea is considered by some authorities to be the tallest (as opposed to highest) mountain in the world, as measured from its base to its peak.
The highest point on Earth, the summit of Mt. Everest, is 8,848m above mean sea level. The highest point on the moon is 10,786m above the moon’s mean radius.
In the must-read Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer describes his 1996 Everest ascent. The 1996 season was the deadliest on Mt. Everest until an avalanche in 2014.
Yes, but the summit of Mt. Everest is more than 11 km above the earth’s mean radius and the summit of Mt. Chimborazo 2 km higher still.
Krakauer describes how many people in the two climbing parties, Rob Hall’s and Scott Fischer’s, were poorly trained and inexperienced for such a climb. Sandy Hill Pittman being short-roped to the top is one example. I’m convinced that Hall died because of his dedication and loyalty to repeat customer Doug Hansen, who just the year before was turned around short of the summit by Hall, because it was getting too late in the day to make it back to Camp IV. safely. In 1996, Hamsen struggled again beyond Camp IV.
Dr. Beck Weathers’ story as a 1996 client of Rob Hall is particularly remarkable. He lied to get on the tour, since high altitude is contraindicated by his Lasik eye-surgery, and spent much of the fateful day blind, waiting for Rob Hall to return from the summit to guide him back to Camp Four. Caught in the snowstorm, he was abandoned for dead, struggled to the Camp where, presumed to be dying, he was given little assistance. He did survive, though ears, nose, feet, right hand, and four fingers on his left hand were all amputated.
Dr. Weathers became an inspirational speaker, much in demand by the Tea Party.
*Beck *is the regional name for a stream used in parts of the UK (Yorkshire, Lancashire, Dumfriesshire, Cumbria, Norfolk, and Lincolnshire).
Jackson Beck was a radio announcer, best known as the person doing the introduction to radio’s Adventures of Superman (“strange visitor from another planet…”). He also narrated Woody Allen’s Take the Money and Run.
Rex Jackson was a Minister for Corrective Services in the NSW government. In 1987 he was convicted of corruption relating to the early release of prisoners, and was sentenced to five years in Berrima gaol. The press had a field day with their headlines.
President Andrew Jackson appointed Gideon Welles, Abraham Lincoln’s future Secretary of the Navy, to a postmastership in Connecticut.
Princess Andrew of Greece (née Princess Alice of Battenberg) was the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. After she was widowed she established a nursing order of Greek Orthodox nuns, known as the the *Christian Sisterhood of Martha and *Mary.
She caused rather a stir in the UK when she dressed in her habit while attending the coronation of her daughter-in-law Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.
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