The two heavily-modified 747 jet transports, flown by the President of the United States and bearing the callsign Air Force One when he (someday she) is aboard, have the Air Force designation VC-25A.
Pan Am was the principal and largest international air carrier in the United States from 1927 until its collapse on December 4, 1991. Pan Am was founded as a shell company on 14 March 1927 by a group including Air Corps Major Henry H. “Hap” Arnold.
Hap Arnold is the only man to ever hold five-star rank in two branches of the U.S. military: the Army and the Air Force.
On one episode of “Green Acres”, the Ziffel’s pig, Arnold, whom they treated like a son, fell in love with Mr. Haney’s prized Basset Hound “Cynthia”, but in a scene full of pig grunts and dog barks, subtitles explained that they were realizing that their love could never be. Mr. Haney then threatened to sue Mr. Ziffel, claiming that Arnold had ruined Cynthia for show as she had begun to grunt like a pig too.
Cyril Royston Guyton Bassett VC (3 January 1892 – 9 January 1983) was a New Zealand recipient of the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was the first and only New Zealander to be awarded the VC in the Gallipoli Campaign of the First World War.
Three recipients of the VC came from Winnipeg Manitoba. They lived on the same street before the war, but it is not known if they knew each other. Two of the awards were posthumous.
The City of Winnipeg has re-named the street Valour Road, after the simple motto of the VC: “For Valour”.
In 1921 the Victoria Cross was given to the American Unknown Soldier of the First World War. The British Unknown Warrior was reciprocally awarded the US Medal of Honor.
At the end of each day, commencing at 4.55 pm, the Last Post ceremony takes place at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The ceremony begins with the singing of the National Anthem, followed by a Lament, played by a piper. The Roll of Honour in the Cloisters lists the names of more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations over more than a century. At each ceremony the story behind one of these names is recounted. The Ode is then recited, and the ceremony ends with the sounding of the Last Post.
The Veterans War Memorial in Cupertino, California (near San Jose, south of San Francisco) has a statue called The Guardians. It is an image of two defenders, ever watchful, back to back. The two soldiers represented are Cupertino’s own Matthew Axelson and James Suh, two Navy SEALs who died fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan during Operation Red Wings. This was also the subject of the book and movie, Lone Survivor.
ETA: adding the link to the Cupertino Veterans Memorial; http://www.cupertinoVeteransMemorial.org/
The popular choral piece Seal Lullaby, by the American composer Eric Whitacre, was commissioned at the request of Disney executives who were planning a movie of ‘The White Seal’. After submitting the hauntingly beautiful piece, Whitacre heard nothing from Disney. In an amusing anecdote, he recalls the outcome of the commission:
According to Boston Red Sox third baseman Pablo Sandoval’s website, “On September 19, 2008, he received the nickname “Kung Fu Panda” from teammate Barry Zito, after a play where Sandoval scored a run against the Dodgers by jumping over the tag of catcher Danny Ardoin.”
The red panda (Ailurus fulgens), also called the lesser panda, red bear-cat and red cat-bear, is a small arboreal mammal native to the eastern Himalayas and south-western China.
The red panda is the only living species of the genus Ailurus and the family Ailuridae. It is not closely related to the giant panda.
The red poison dart frog, or strawberry poison dart frog, is native to Central America. It is a popular frog in captivity, due to its striking colors and unique life cycle. They have been imported in vast quantities to the United States and Europe since the early 1990s, when they would typically be available for around US$30 each. However, these shipments have since stopped, and it is apparently now much less common.
Dartmouth is a town in the county of Devon in England. It is located on the western side of the estuary of the River Dart.
The town is home to the Royal Navy’s officer training college (Britannia Royal Naval College), where all officers of the Royal Navy and many foreign naval officers are trained.
While it is often pointed out that the charter of Dartmouth College, granted to Eleazar Wheelock in 1769 proclaims that the institution was created “for the education and instruction of Youth of the Indian Tribes in this Land in reading, writing and all parts of Learning… as well as in all liberal Arts and Sciences; and also of English Youth and any others,” Wheelock primarily intended the college to educate White youth, and the few Native students that attended Dartmouth experienced much difficulty in an institution ostensibly dedicated to their education. The funds for the Charity School for Native Americans that preceded Dartmouth College were raised primarily by the efforts of a Native American named Samson Occom, and at least some of those funds were used to help found the college. And the college graduated only 19 Native Americans during its first two hundred years
Marin County’s Museum of the American Indian is located in Novato, California, which is 30 miles north of San Francisco. It originally focused on the Miwoks (“MEE-walks”) of the California Coast when it opened in 1967 but has since expanded to exhibit Native American artifacts from across the continent.
The Cleveland Museum of Art charges no admission fee except occasionally for special exhibits. The new atrium of the Museum was used as the SHIELD HQ lobby in the movie Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
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The Cleveland Indians have won the World Series twice. In 1920 they defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers to win their first champioship, and in 1948 they defeated the Boston Braves to win their last. In the 1948 Series, their superstar and Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller did not win either of his two starts. Feller was the losing pitcher in game 5 of that series, a game that saw Satchel Paige take the mound for Cleveland. It was the first-ever time an African American (black) pitcher took the mound in a World Series. At age 42 in 1948, Paige was the oldest major league rookie while playing for the Cleveland Indians.
A tell, or tel is a type of archaeological mound created by human occupation and abandonment of a geographical site over many centuries. A classic tell looks like a low, truncated cone with a flat top and sloping sides. The term is mainly used of sites in the Middle East, where it often forms part of the local place name.
Cahokia Mounds, directly across the Misdissippi River from St. Louis, is the largest prehistoric earthen construction in the Americas north of Mexico. It is a National Historic Landmark and one of only 22 UNESCO World Heritage Sites within the United States.