H.M. Bhumipol’s parents met in Massachusetts as medical students. His mother was a commoner on a scholarship; his father (who died before Bhumipol’s 2nd birthday) a son of Chulalongkorn the Great.
Bhumipol’s mother, Somdet Phra Srinagarindra Boromarajajonani (née Sangwan Talapat), was a marvelous woman of many good works, including the establishment of The Princess Mother’s Volunteer Flying Doctor Foundation. It was her personal deliveries of medical supplies by helicopter to remote hill tribes that led to her nickname “Royal Mother of the Sky.”
Anna Leonowens’ role as governess to Prince Chulalongkorn was made famous in “The King and I”. Prior to her life in Thailand, Anna lived with her husband and children at a remote convict depot north of Geraldton in Western Australia.
The six largest rice producing states in the US are Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas. Together these six states account for over 99% of all rice grown in the US.
Although only the fifth largest producer of rice, Thailand had been the world’s leading exporter of rice for several decades, but fell to third-place in 2012-2013 behind Vietnam and India due to P.M. Yingluck Shinawatra’s zany scheme to hoard rice and corner the world market. By now, Thailand has regained the #1 spot, in part by dumping from its deteriorating stockpiles at a huge loss.
Rice University in Houston, Texas, is named after William Marsh Rice (1814-1900) who, having been born in Massachusetts, eventually made his fortune by investing in land, real estate, lumber, railroads, cotton, and other prospects in Texas and Louisiana. William Marsh Rice bequeathed his fortune to found the university that bears his name.
Charles Waterhouse Goodyear (1846-1911) made a fortune investing in land, lumber, and railroads. He and his brother, who were 2nd cousins twice removed of the Charles Goodyear famous for inventing rubber vulcanization, founded the Great Southern Lumber Company. Charles’ great grandson, Charles Waterhouse Goodyear IV, is a controversial businessman today.
A 1980 Supreme Court decision in Diamond, Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks v. Diehr, et al. is a key precedent for software patents. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had refused a patent for a computer-controlled rubber vulcanization process on the grounds that it was just a mathematical algorithm implementing a public-domain procedure. By a 5-4 vote the Court ordered USPTO to issue Patent #4344142.
In Harvard College v. Canada (Commissioner of Patents), commonly called the Harvard Mouse Case, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled you cannot patent a living organism.
The term “patent” comes from “letters patent”, meaning a royal document which conferred a right on the recipient of the letter which was good against all the world, and was not sealed, thus “patent”. It was contrasted to “letters close”, which conferred a private benefit by the Crown on the recipient of the letter, which was not necessarily known to anyone else.
Crown and Anchor is a simple dice game, traditionally played for gambling purposes by sailors in the Royal Navy, and also in the British merchant and fishing fleets.
Anchor Steam Beer has been brewed in San Francisco since 1896. It is a steam beer because the brewery had no way to effectively chill the boiling wort using traditional means. So they pumped the hot wort up to large, shallow, open-top bins on the roof of the brewery so that it would be rapidly chilled by the cool air blowing in off the Pacific Ocean. Thus while brewing, the brewery had a distinct cloud of steam around the roof let off by the wort as it cooled, hence the name.
When the Tui Brewery tower was built in 1931 in Mangatainoka in the rural Wairarapa region north of Wellington in New Zealand, the builders forgot to include stairs or a lift.
Eight Major League Baseball teams have never won the World Series:
Seattle Mariners
Montreal Expos / Washington Nationals
Houston Astros
San Diego Padres
Colorado Rockies
Washington Senators / Texas Rangers
Tampa Bay Rays
Seattle Pilots / Milwaukee Brewers
Of these teams, all have appeared in at least one World Series except for the Mariners and Nationals.
The super-group Highwaymen with Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash was most famous for their song “Highwayman” in which each of the four states his former occupation. Jennings was a dam-builder at “a place called Boulder on the wild Colorado.” Cash flies a starship and when he reaches the other side “may become a highwayman again.”
The song had nothing to do with Alfred Noyes’ poem “The Highwayman” (set to music beautifully by Phil Ochs, btw), which he wrote on the edge of Bagshot Heath. The protagonist falls in love with a landlord’s daughter, who sacrifices her life to let him escape the law, but tragically unsuccessfully, although their ghosts unite on winter’s nights.
In an appendix to The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien wrote that King Elessar and Queen Arwen had a single son, Eldarion, who reigned after his father’s death. Tolkien referred to the royal couple’s daughters, as well, but neither named them nor wrote how many there were.