The first jet to make a nonstop unrefueled flight across the Atlantic Ocean was a Martin B-57 Canberra on 21 February 1951.
The common house martin (Delichon urbicum) is a migratory passerine bird of the swallow family which breeds in Europe, north Africa and temperate Asia. It winters in sub-Saharan Africa and tropical Asia.
The average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow is about 11 mps.
“Doretta’s Dream” is the popular title for the aria Chi il bel sogno di Doretta, which came to prominence in the film “A Room with a View”. The aria is sung in Puccini’s opera La Rondine (“The Swallow”).
Richard Farina wrote The Swallow Song for his sister-in-law, Joan Baez, who later recorded it. She had a knack for getting birds to land on her hand and sit their while she stroked them.
Albert Baez, father of Joan Baez, was born in Puebla, Mexico and studied mathematics and physics. He is the co-inventor of the X-ray microscope.
MANY thanks for this - at last the question is answered!
In play:
Mexico City, capital of Mexico, is a Federal district just as Washington, D.C., capital of the United States of America, is.
Mexico City is in the top ten of largest national capitals by population, while Washinton, D.C. is not among the top one hundred. Beijing is the largest of all, and is almost twice as big as the second largest, Tokyo. Beijing has 20 million people while Tokyo has 13 million.
The origin of the expression “Mexican standoff” (a stalemate, or a confrontation between two or more sides that no side can win) is uncertain. It may have arisen in the American southwest during the late 1800s. but some sources claim that the term is of Australian origin.
One of the most riveting scenes in film is the three-way standoff in a cemetery in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach (as a Mexican) stare each other down, speaking only with their gradually widening eyes, for what feels like twenty minutes. Eventually The Bad (Van Cleef as Angel Eyes) draws first, but The Good (Eastwood as Blondie) fires first and kills him. The Ugly (Wallach as Tuco Ramirez) shoots at Blondie but finds Blondie had secretly unloaded his gun the night before. Blondie makes Tuco do all the digging in the grave where the gold is hidden before killing him.
Footage of Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush rallies during the 1992 presidential campaign was digitally altered for use in Clint Eastwood’s (excellent IMHO) Secret Service crime thriller In the Line of Fire.
The barony of Clinton was created in 1298. The current, 22nd holder is Gerard Nevile Mark Fane Trefusis.
Lothar-Siegfried von Richthofen was a top W.W.I German flying ace with 40 victories, and, despite that this is only half the total claimed by his famous older brother, the “Red Baron”, is sometimes considered the more proficient combat pilot.
Like his older brother, Lothar died when an airplane he was flying crashed, though it was a peacetime (1922) passenger flight.
The top US Marine Corps ace of WWII, Joseph Foss, had 26 victories. The third-highest WWII USMC ace and more renowned, Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, had 22 victories. Boyington flew the fast and sleek F4U Corsair. In fact 4 of the top 5 flew the Corsair, but Foss, the top ace, flew the (very) humble F4F Grumman Wildcat.
The top U-boat ace of all time was a World War One skipper by the flamboyant, one might almost say histrionic name of Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière, with 195 ships sunk or captured (455,869 tons). That was far more than the leading WWII ace Otto Kretschmer’s 46 ships sunk (273.043 tons).
During the entirety of WWII the US Navy lost only three battleships. All three were sunk on the same day, Sunday 07 December 1941: the USS Utah, USS Oklahoma, and the USS Arizona. The wreck of the USS Utah remains in Pearl Harbor as a memorial.
The wreck of the USS Arizona also remains in Pearl Harbor as a memorial. The funerary urns of former crewmembers are occasionally interred by Navy divers on the ship.
My great uncle, R.I.P., Patrocinio Pablo OS1c, was a survivor of the USS Arizona:
http://www.nps.gov/valr/learn/historyculture/ussarizonasurvivors.htm
Pablo Escobar was known as “The King of Cocaine”. He is regarded as the wealthiest criminal in history, with an estimated net-worth of US$30 billion by the early 1990s.
King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand is the world’s longest-serving current head of state.