Former Alabama Governor George Wallace has the third longest gubernatorial tenure in post-Constitutional U.S. history at 5,848 days. In World War II Wallace flew B-29 missions over Japan for General Curtis LeMay. Then in 1968 as a Presidential candidate Wallace picked LeMay to be his VP running mate. It was in 1972 when an assassination attempt left him paralyzed and put Wallace into a wheelchair for his remaining years.
The fertility rate of Japan is 1.39, one of the lowest in the world. Japan’s population began falling in 2004 and is now ageing faster than any other on the planet. More than 22% of Japanese are already 65 or older.
The only foreign language taught in public Japanese schools is English.
The five foreign languages with the biggest candidatures in the 2014 NSW Higher School Certificate exams were (in decreasing order) French, Japanese, Chinese, Italian and Spanish.
The least popular languages were Dutch, Maltese and Ukrainian.
The custom of firefighters using the Maltese Cross as part of their emblems allegedly dates from an episode in the Crusades, when the Malta-based Knights of St. John besieging a Saracen castle were faced with an early form of Molotov cocktails, requiring many of them to become firefighters on the spot.
Longtime Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov was so scared of his boss, Josef Stalin, that he sometimes would have an aide bring a suitcase with a spare suit and underwear along with him when he was called to a Kremlin meeting with the dictator. Molotov would sometimes lose bowel control and have to change before returning to his office.
Ted Nugent (“Cat Scratch Fever”) later claimed to have just been telling a story in an interview in which he explained how he got out of the Vietnam draft by failing his medical examination:
Arlo Guthrie’s own story in “Alice’s Restaurant” is more entertaining, IMHO.
The Fugue in G minor (K. 30, L. 499) by Domenico Scarlatti is a one-movement harpsichord sonata popularly known as the *Cat’s fugue *(in Italian La Fuga del Gatto).
The nickname, introduced only early in the 19th century, originates from a story about how Scarlatti came up with the strikingly unusual motif on which the fugue is built. Legend has it that Scarlatti had a pet cat called Pulcinella, who was described by the composer as prone to walking across the keyboard, always curious about its sounds. On one occasion, according to the story, Scarlatti wrote down a phrase from one of these “improvisation sessions”, and used it as a lead motif in a fugue.
In all the incarnations of Star Trek, there has never been shown a captain of a starship Enterprise who kept a cat aboard, although Capt. Jonathan Archer of the Enterprise, NX-01, had a beagle named Porthos.
Actress Anne Archer was originally a Christian Scientist but now she practices Scientology.
*Toxophily *is the practice of the art/sport of archery. An archer is known as a toxophilite.
The words are derived from τόξο (‘toxo’), the Ancient Greek word for a bow.
In 1888, John A. Lejeune graduated from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, and then chose to enter the US Marine Corps. Lejeune served for nearly 40 years and achieved the rank of lieutenant general. From 1920 to 1929 Lejeune served as the Marine Corps’ 13th Commandant. Lejeune was also the first head of the executive board of the newly formed Marine Corps Association. Nicknames for John Archer Lejeune include “The Greatest of All Leathernecks” and “The Marine’s Marine.”
Every year on 10 November at Tun Tavern as Marines celebrate the establishment of the Marine Corps in 1775, this message from John Lejeune is always read:
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park has an area of approximately 345,000 km[sup]2[/sup] and was established in 1975. It protects a large part of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef from damaging activities. Fishing and the removal of artefacts or wildlife (fish, coral, sea shells, etc.) are strictly regulated, and commercial shipping traffic must stick to certain specific defined shipping routes that avoid the most sensitive areas of the park. The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest cluster of corals and other exotic marine life.
John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, off Key Largo, Florida, was the first underwater state park in the US. The Florida Keys and the Flower Garden Banks in the Gulf of Mexico off the Texas coast are the only living coral reef formations in the continental United States.
Cabo Pulmo National Park on the east coast of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula is the oldest of only three coral reefs on the west coast of North America and the northernmost coral reef in the eastern Pacific.
To ‘reef’ a sail means to reduce its area, usually by folding or rolling one edge of the canvas in on itself. Reefing improves the performance of a sailing vessel in strong winds, and is the primary safety precaution in rough weather. Reefing sails improves a vessel’s stability and minimises the risk of damage to the sail or other gear.
A ‘reefer’ could refer to a refrigerated shipping or trucking container or to a marijuana joint.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the top uniformed officer of the United States military. The current CJCS, four-star Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, has served since 2011. He will be retiring this year and is expected to be succeeded by Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the current Commandant of the Marine Corps.
Between his stints managing the New York Mets and Boston Red Sox, Bobby Valentine had a very successful run managing the Chiba Lotte Marines (previously Orions) of Japan’s Pacific League. In his first year, 2005, the Marines won the Japan Series for the first time in 31 years, over the Hanshin Tigers of the Central League. The Marines went on to defeat South Korea’s Samsung Lions in the final round of the Konami Cup Championships. They won the Series again in 2010, over the Chunichi Dragons, although Valentine had come back home after the previous season.
The Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis) is a large species of lizard found in the Indonesian islands of Komodo, Rinca, Flores, Gili Motang, and Padar. It is the largest living species of lizard, growing to a maximum length of 3 m and weighing up to approximately 70 kg.
The Komodo’s sense of smell is its primary food detector. It uses its long, yellow forked tongue to sample the air, after which the two tongue tips retreat to the roof of the mouth, where they make contact with the Jacobson’s organs. The chemical analysers “smell” prey by recognizing airborne molecules. This system, along with an undulatory walk in which the head swings from side to side, helps the dragon sense the existence and direction of odoriferous carrion from as far away 4 km.