There have been eight British warships named HMS Challenger, the most famous of which is arguably the fifth, for its oceanographic discoveries in the late 19th century. Challenger Deep, the Apollo 17 lunar module and a Space Shuttle were all named after her.
Nm - ninja’d.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used the character Prof. George Edward Challenger, a sleuth with a more dominant personality than Sherlock Holmes, in several novels and short stories, including The Lost World, The Poison Belt, The Land of Mist, When the World Screamed, and The Disintegration Machine.
Former NFL running back Edward Nathan George, Jr. (Eddie George) won the Heisman Trophy in 1995 when he attended Ohio State. In the NFL, George was only the second NFL running back to rush for 10,000 yards while never missing a start, joining Jim Brown. Only Walter Payton (170) started more consecutive regular-season games than George’s 130.
Bruce Harper, football running back and kick returner, is the all-time kick returner in New York Jets history with 5407 yards in kickoff returns.
Ross MacDonald’s most popular Lew Archer mystery novel was ***The Moving Target. *** When the book was adapted into a movie, the hero was renamed Lew Harper, and was played by Paul Newman (who reprised the role in The Drowning Pool).
Evan S. Connell’s novels Mr. Bridge and Mrs. Bridge were made into the movie Mr. & Mrs. Bridge starring real life husband and wife Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, with their son Douglas Bridge played by a young Robert Sean Leonard, later to go to fame as Dr. James Watson of House
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway (126,122 feet = 23.88 miles) is the longest continuous bridge passing over water, the waters of New Orleans’s Lake Pontchartrain to be exact. The bridge is so long that for 8 of its 24 miles, you can’t see land in any direction.
At 79,200 feet (= 15 miles), the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel is the 7th longest vehicle bridge in the world. Before this bridge-tunnel system was completed in 1964, motorists driving from Norfolk to the Delaware Valley would have to drive an additional 95 miles. 100 million drivers have crossed it since 1964 (including Bullitt! I did the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, too).
This, according to USA Today on 29 Apr 2013.
When Air Florida’s Flight 90 struck Washington DC’s 14th Street Bridge on January 13, 1982, it crushed seven occupied vehicles on the bridge and destroyed 97 feet of guard rail before it plunged through the ice into the Potomac River. The total death count was 70 airplane passengers, four crew members and four motorists on the bridge.
The East River in New York city is not actually a river. It’s a strait separating Long Island from Manhattan.
The big island of Hawaii is the largest island of the United States. Long Island is the 11th largest, and Manhattan is the 136th largest. Alaska has 23 of the 30 largest US islands.
Hawaii is the only US state that was formerly an independent monarchy. Texas and California had brief periods as independent republics (California’s is arguable).
According to 2012 GDP figures, if California were its own country its GDP would be in the top 10 of all the world’s countries, roughly equivalent to Italy, and the highest of all 50 states.
With 4.4% of the world’s population the US produced 22.3% of the world’s GDP in 2012. Not bad!
Some states and their GDP-equivalents:
CA - Italy
TX - Australia
NY - Mexico
FL - The Netherlands
MO - Finland
OR - Ireland
NV - Iraq
California’s state flag still reads “CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC.”
Vermont was also an independent republic before it joined the Union in 1791: Vermont Republic - Wikipedia
Republic Pictures was one of many low-budget B-movie studios on Hollywood’s “Poverty Row”, several of which were located on Gower Street. Others included Tiffany, Mascot, Darmour, Monogram, Grand National, Liberty, Majestic, and PRC. Columbia started there but worked their way up into respectability.
<opinion>
During the 1980s, cars in the USA sucked. There’s no other way to describe it. Car manufacturers scrambled to meet drastic improvements in emissions.
</opinion>
(continued) But in 1987, Buick produced an admirable car, the Buick Regal Grand National GNX. In a decade of poor cars, the GNX was a standout performance sedan that looked like a family car. Rumor has it that the FBI used the GNX.
Attorney General Robert Kennedy, at home for a meeting with aides while his brother was in Dallas on the afternoon of Nov. 22, 1963, got the news of the President’s shooting from, he later said, the noticeably unsympathetic FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
King Edgar the Peaceful was the father of King Ethelred the Unready.
Queen Elizabeth II cannot trace her heritage back to the first King of England* Athelstan since he died without issue but she can trace it back to Alfred the Great
*Yes I know she’s not the Queen of England
Alfred the Great
Edward the Elder
Edmund I
Edgar the Peaceful
Ethelred the Unready
Edmund Ironside
Edward the Exile
Margaret of Scotland
Matilda of Scotland
Empress Matilda (Queen Regnant)
King Henry II
King John
King Henry III
King Edward I
King Edward II
King Edward III
John of Gaunt
John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset
John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset
Lady Margaret Beaufort
Margaret Tudor, Queen consort of the Scots
James V, King of the Scots
Mary, Queen of the Scots
James VI and I
Elizabeth Stuart of Scotland
Sophia of Hanover
King George I
King George II
King George III
Prince Edward
Queen Victoria
King Edward VII
King George V
King George VI
Queen Elizabeth II
Mathilda Avenue in Sunnyvale California (about 40 miles south of San Francisco) is named after the daughter of William Post Taaffe and his wife, Elizabeth Yuba (nee Murphy) Taaffe. Elizabeth Taaffe lived from 1867 to 1919. Elizabeth Murphy was the first child of American emigrants born in California.