According to legend, the bend in Broadway in New York just near Grace church is due to objections on the part of Henry Brevoort Sr., a prominent landowner of the early 1800s. He fought the proposed path of Broadway laid out in 1807 because it cut directly though his land and would have necessitated the destruction of a favourite tulip tree.
The Tulip Mania was one of the earliest speculative bubbles. Tulip bulbs became a status symbol in the Netherlands, and people would pay ridiculous prices (equal to ten times the income of a skilled craftsman of the time). Like all bubbles, it burst, and those who speculated in the bulbs as investment never saw more than a tiny fraction of the money they had spent.
The Poseidon bubble was a share market bubble in which the price of Australian mining shares soared in late 1969, then crashed in early 1970. It was triggered in September 1969 by the discovery of a promising site for nickel mining by the mining company Poseidon NL.
In the late 1960s nickel was in high demand due to the Vietnam War, but there was a shortage of supply due to industrial action against the major Canadian supplier Inco. These factors pushed the price of nickel to record levels. In September 1969 Poseidon NL announced a major nickel discovery in Western Australia. Despite the availability of any real information, shares in Poseidon rose sharply, with shares in other miners experiencing a similar boom as part of the frenzy. At their peak Poseidon shares rocketed from $0.80 to $280.00. The crash came in February 1970.
By the time Poseidon actually started producing nickel, the price of nickel had fallen. Also, the nickel ore was of a lower grade than originally thought, so extraction costs were higher. Profits from the mine were not sufficient to keep Poseidon afloat, and in 1976 it delisted.
I saw what you did there! 
INCO built a huge Canadian nickel, featuring George VI, near its mines in Sudbury, Ontario, right by the Trans-Canada Highway.
I read that over and over, thinking “a huge nickel what”? Then the penny dropped.
In play: Charles VI, of the House of Valois, was King of France from 1380 until his death in 1422. He was called *le Bien-Aimé *(‘the Beloved’) and *le Fou *(‘the Mad’).
On 29 January 1393 he was involved in an incident at a party celebrating the wedding of one of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, which came to be known as the *Bal des Ardents *(the ‘Ball of the Burning Men’). The king and four other lords dressed up as wild men and danced about. Their costumes had “linen cloth sewn onto their bodies and soaked in resinous wax or pitch to hold a covering of frazzled hemp, so that they appeared shaggy and hairy from head to foot”. When the king’s brother Louis of Valois, Duke of Orléans, approached with a lighted torch in order to discover the identity of the masqueraders, he set one of them on fire. There was panic as the fire spread. The king escaped, but four of the lords died from their injuries.
WWII veteran and subject of the book and movie Unbroken, Louis Zamperini, was born in Olean NY. Olean NY is where the famous USMC fighting knife, called the KA-BAR (“kay bar”), is made. All official KA-BARs have ‘KA-BAR, Olean NY’ stamped at the base of the blade. The other side of the blade is stamped ‘USMC’.
The KA-BAR company makes other knives but is best known for its USMC fighting knife. ‘The KA-BAR’ was first issued to WWII Marines in 1942 and is still used today. It has since been adopted by the Army, Navy, and Underwater Demolition Teams.
For every Marine, the KA-BAR is one of his/her prized possessions. I’ve had mine for over 25 years. It is well worn and a great knife.
The Untouchables is the first film whose screenplay included the term “bring a knife to a gunfight”. Sean Connery had the honor.
The pilot for the TV series The Untouchables was a two part episode originally aired on Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse on April 20 and 27, 1959. CBS, which had broadcast most of Desilu’s television output since 1951 beginning with I Love Lucy, was offered The Untouchables TV series following the success of the pilot film. Chairman William S. Paley rejected it on the advice of network vice president Hubbell Robinson. The series was signed by ABC and became a success.
The Dalits are the Indian caste formerly known, derogatorily, as “untouchables”. Gandhi used the name Harijan, or Children of God, but that name too became considered derogatory. The official name for the Dalits and other traditionally-shat-upon peoples is “Scheduled castes and scheduled tribes”.
In traditional Hindu society, Dalit status was associated with occupations regarded as ritually impure, such as leatherwork, butchering or removal of rubbish, animal carcasses and human waste. Dalits worked as manual laborers cleaning streets, latrines and sewers. These activities were considered to be polluting to the individual and this pollution was considered contagious.
Dame Ngaio Marsh, the New Zealand detective writer, was born 120 years ago today on 23 April 1895.
The very distinctive name *Ngaio *is of Maori origin and describes the Myoporum laetum, or Mousehole tree.
78 years ago today (where it’s 22 April here on the right side of the date line!) actor Jack Nicholson was born.
23 April is the feast of Saint George, the patron saint of England. It is also the day traditionally accepted by scholars as the date of birth of William Shakespeare, although there is no formal record of this. His baptism was recorded on 26 April 1564.
Shakespeare also died on 23 April, in 1616. Today is therefore the 399th anniversary of his death, according to the Julian calendar which was then in operation in England. According to the current Gregorian calendar, his date of death was 3 May.
St. George, Utah is the county seat of Washington County. While St. George was named after an apostle of the LDS Church, Washington County was named after George Washington, first president of the US.
Virginia and Annabel (‘Nan’) St George are two of the group of wealthy, fashionable and ambitious American girls whose marital assault on late 19th century English aristocratic society is detailed in Edith Wharton’s novel The Buccaneers. Both end up making disastrous marriages to peers: Virginia to Earl Seadown (later the Marquess of Brightlingsea) and Nan to the Duke of Tintagel.
Lord Peter Wimsey’s nephew carried the courtesy title of Viscount St George. In an interview, Sayers once indicated that she did not think St George survived WWII and that Lord Peter ultimately succeeded to the dukedom.
Lord’s Cricket Ground, generally known as Lord’s, is a cricket venue in St John’s Wood, London. It was named for its founder Thomas Lord. It is widely referred to as the “Home of Cricket” and houses the world’s oldest sporting museum. Among its exhibits is the Ashes urn, for which Australia and England regularly compete.
The Kunstkamera in St. Petersburg is the first museum in Russia. It was established by Peter the Great and opened in 1727.
Wimsey earned a blue playing cricket for Oxford. His ability as a cricketer is a plot point in Murder Must Advertise.
Wiki: The talking Cricket dolls (introduced in 1986 by Playmates Toys) operated in similar fashion to Teddy Ruxpin, but with two-sided tapes instead of ones with sound data on one track and movement data on the other track. The doll required four “C” batteries for the player and 1 9-volt battery for the mouth movement.
Cricket was available in an African-American version as well. The African-American Cricket doll was released with two different hair styles. One featured hair identical to the Caucasian version with two curly pigtails tied with pink yarn. The other version had short curly hair with no ribbons.
Cricket arrived in a pink sweater, yellow underpants, pleated mint green skirt, yellow socks, & pink hi-top sneakers with monogrammed laces. Her sweater came in two variations, one version was knitted, the other was made of velour. Cricket also came with her ‘health plan’ and two tapes, one labeled Operating & Caring for Cricket, the other was unlabeled and featured songs, jokes & stories.
Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt hated his nickname but knew that it was popular with the public. After leaving the White House he preferred to be called “T.R.,” or “the Colonel,” given his Spanish American War service; he was called “Teedie,” his childhood nickname, by family members. Edmund Morris’s book Colonel Roosevelt is the last in his award-winning trilogy on the Rough Rider, naturalist, sportsman, author and President.