Vice President John Adams suggested several pompous titles for the President and Vice President during the First Congress in 1789-91, none of which were adopted; he was mocked by critics as “His Rotundity.”
Husky basketball player Charles Barkley stole his nickname, The Round Mound of Rebound, from obese country singer Kenny Price, The Round Mound of Sound.
Prince Charles recently visited Mount Vernon, the restored home of George Washington, during his visit to the U.S. He and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, laid a wreath at Washington’s tomb.
Camilla, daughter of the King of the Volsci, is a character in Virgil’s Aeneid.
She is said to be able to run so swiftly that she could run over a field of wheat without breaking the tops of the plants or across the seas without wetting her feet.
The first NASA astronaut to fly in space twice was Virgil Ivan “Gus” Grissom.
Commentary: he likely would have been the first man to walk on the moon had it not been for the tragic accident in the AS-204 (renamed Apollo 1) fire.
The deadliest fire in New Zealand history occurred on 18 November 1947, when a blaze broke out in Ballantyne’s department store in central Christchurch. There were 41 people killed. All were employees of the store.
“Silver Blaze” is the Sherlock Holmes story with the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
The statue of the Dog on the Tuckerbox is a well-known monument and tourist attraction located at Snake Gully, “five miles from Gundagai”, in New South Wales.
NM
Tuckerbox is Australian slang for lunch box.
Joanna Southcott (April 1750 – 27 December 1814) was an English religious prophetess. She was born and raised in Devon. She identified herself as the woman spoken of in the Book of Revelation.
On her death Southcott left a sealed wooden box of prophecies, known as Joanna Southcott’s Box, with the instruction that it be opened only at a time of national crisis, and then only in the presence of all 24 bishops of the Church of England (there were only 24 at the time). In 1927 the psychic researcher Harry Price claimed that he had come into possession of the box and arranged to have it opened in the presence of the Bishop of Grantham: it was found to contain only a few oddments and unimportant papers, among them a lottery ticket and a horse-pistol. Followers of Southcott claim that the box opened in 1927 was not the authentic one.
One woman mentioned in Revelation is the Whore of Babylon. Her full title is given as “Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and Abominations of the Earth.”
One of William Walton’s best known choral works is the cantata Belshazzar’s Feast, based on the biblical story during the time of the Jews’ exile in Babylon. It had its premier at the Leeds Festival on 8 October 1931.
The addition of brass bands to the orchestration was suggested by the festival director, the famous conductor Sir Thomas Beecham. The bands were on hand anyway for a performance of Berlioz’s Requiem, and Beecham said to the young Walton: “As you’ll never hear the thing again, my boy, why not throw in a couple of brass bands?”. In fact the work was an immediate success.
According to the book of Daniel, Belshazzar was the last King of Babylon.
King Felipe VI of Spain succeeded to the throne on 19 June 2014 following the abdication of his father, King Juan Carlos.
In 1968, Felipe was baptized with water from the River Jordan. This is a royal custom for Spanish monarchy.
The British royal family has a similar custom. It’s not uncommon. When I went to Israel a couple of years ago I brought back a bottle of Jordan water for the baptism of a work colleague’s child.
In play:
During state receptions and functions at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg the Jordan Staircase was a focal point for arriving guests. After entering the palace through the Ambassadors’ entrance, in the central courtyard, they would pass through the colonnaded ground floor Jordan Hall before ascending the staircase to the state apartments.
Jordan Almonds are thought to originate in Ancient Rome, where honey-covered almonds were commonly eaten at festivities. The term “Jordan” is most likely a corrupted version of the French word jardin, meaning “garden,” hence, a cultivated rather than wild almond.However, others suggest the term referred to a variety of almonds originally grown along the Jordan River characterized by long, thin, slender, rather smooth kernels in thick, heavy shells.
The Jerusalem artichoke is neither from Jerusalem nor an artichoke. It is a species of sunflower with an edible tuber (that does, in fact, taste like an artichoke). The name probably comes from girasole, the Italian word for sunflower.
The true artichoke (genus Cynara) is also in the sunflower family, but in the thistle subfamily. The thistle is a national symbol of Scotland, possibly because the Battle of Largs was saved when a Norseman gave away his position crying out after stepping on a thistle (prob. of genus Cirsium).