Saratoga Springs, NY, was renowned for its mineral water, turning it into a resort city. The water (with natural carbonation) is known now to contain trace amounts of radium, so that there are warnings as to not drink too much of it.
Saratoga Water, BTW, is not drawn from the mineral springs and is safe.
The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with self-luminous paint at the United States Radium factory in Orange, New Jersey, around 1917. The women, who had been told the paint was harmless, ingested deadly amounts of radium by licking their paintbrushes to give them a fine point; some also painted their fingernails and teeth with the glowing substance. Five of the women challenged their employer in a case that established the right of individual workers who contract occupational diseases to sue their employers.
Saratoga, California is near San Jose and on the western edge of Silicon Valley. In 2010 Bloomberg Businessweek named Saratoga the most expensive suburb in California. Saratoga CA was settled when William Campbell, founder of nearby Campbell CA, built a sawmill in present-day Saratoga in 1847. In the 1850s Jud Caldwell discovered springs which were called Pacific Congress Springs because the water had a mineral content similar to Congress Springs, in Saratoga Springs NY. In 1865 the town received its final name, Saratoga, after the city in New York.
Having grown up 25 miles from Saratoga Springs, NY, I now live 15 miles from Saratoga, CA (and cannot afford to live there).
ETA: Ninja’d! Elvis’ post is in play:
Orange, California is located on land formerly known as Rancho San Antonio and owned by José Antonio Yorba. Rancho San Antonio includes land where the current cities of Olive, Orange, Villa Park, Santa Ana, Tustin, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach stand today.
Viewers of the annual Tournament of Roses in Pasadena (it’s the only thing on worth watching on New Year’s morning) know of the intricacies of the 100-degree right turn from north on Orange Grove Boulevard to east on Colorado Boulevard. The parade moves at an even speed of 2.5 miles per hour, making for a tiring outing for the marching bands over the 5.5 mile route.
The Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons only votes if there is an even division on a motion. The convention is that the Speaker will vote in favour of a motion in the interim stages, to allow debate to continue, but will vote against a motion on the final stage of a bill, because the Speaker’s neutrality would be compromised if a government measure only passed with the Speaker’s support.
Even divisions are rare. The last time the Speaker had to vote was on an interim stage of the budget of the Martin government in 2005. Since it was an interim stage, the Speaker voted in favour of the motion. The net effect was that the government was not defeated on a confidence matter, and so could stay in office.
Aviation pioneer Glenn Luther Martin founded his own aircraft company in 1912 which today through several mergers is amalgamated into the Lockheed Martin company.
Martin’s donations to the University of Maryland, College Park, created the Glenn L. Martin Institute of Technology, which includes the School of Engineering. The University’s wind tunnel also bears Martin’s name.
Martin attended the Kansas Wesleyan business college in Salina, Kansas. Kansas Wesleyan University is home of the Glenn L. Martin stadium.
The longest tunnel in the world is the Delaware Aqueduct. It is 137 km long and 4.1 m wide.
It carries approximately half of the New York City water supply of 4,900,000 m[sup]3[/sup] per day. It leaks about 140,000 m[sup]3[/sup] per day.
The New York horse racing circuit consists of three tracks: Aqueduct Racetrack, which runs from late fall to early spring; Belmont Racetrack, which runs in spring through mid-July, and again from Labor Day until late fall; and Saratoga, which runs for six weeks in July and August.
The greatest daily rainfall recorded in Sydney occurred on 6 August 1986, when 327.6 mm were recorded.
It was a very wet day.
Republicans lost control of the U.S. Senate in the 1986 midterm elections for the first time in six years, despite a very popular President Ronald Reagan, Republican of California, campaigning vigorously for GOP candidates. The Iran-Contra Affair broke soon afterwards.
CONTROL is the name of the counter-intelligence agency for which Maxwell Smart (‘Agent 86’) works in the television series Get Smart.
Actor Don Adams, who played Maxwell Smart, is a Marine. During World War II, he joined the United States Marine Corps and participated in the Battle of Guadalcanal in the Pacific Theater of Operations. His combat service was short-lived; he was shot and contracted blackwater fever, a serious complication of malaria, known for a 90% rate of fatality. He was evacuated and then hospitalized for more than a year at a Navy hospital in Wellington, New Zealand. After his recovery, he served as a Marine drill instructor in the United States.
Canberra in Australia and Wellington in New Zealand share the title of ‘most remote capital’ i.e. capital of a sovereign nation furthest from the next closest sovereign nation’s capital. The two cities are 2,326 km apart.
The most remote city with a population in excess of one million, from another city of at least that population is Auckland, New Zealand. The nearest city of comparable size or greater is Sydney, Australia, 2,168.9 kilometres (1,347.7 mi) away. Coming in a close second at 2,139 kilometres (air travel distance) is Perth, Australia. Its nearest city of at least one million population is Adelaide, Australia.
The Auckland suburb of Otahuru straddles the narrowest part of New Zealand, an isthmus where the country is only 1,200 m wide.
The two main islands that make up New Zealand are at the closest just over 16 miles apart. Using Arapawa Island as part of the south island, it is right around 14 miles.
Patrick Stewart, well known for his role as Captain Picard in Star Trek, played the part of Mr Thornton in the 1975 television adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel North and South.
1975 saw the first Cricket World Cup in England. The tournament lasted barely 15 days and was considered mostly an exhibition. It was also not even supposed to be called a World Cup, rather the “Prudential Cup” after its sponsors.
At some universities and schools in the UK an ‘exhibition’ is a financial award or grant to an individual student, normally on grounds of merit (at Oxford and Cambridge, for example, it is typical to be awarded an exhibition for first class performance in examinations).
An ‘exhibitioner’ is a student who has been awarded an exhibition.