In the aftermath of the Springhill (Nova Scotia) coal mine disaster in 1956, Georgia Governor Marvin Griffin thought of promoting Jekyll Island as a tourist destination by offering the survivors a free vacation there. Only too late did he learn that the biggest media darling of them, Maurice Ruddick (who was chosen as Canada’s “Citizen of the Year” for his heroism), was black. Ruddick agreed to segregated accommodations so that the other miners’ vacations would not be ruined, but he and his family stayed in a trailer apart from his colleagues. The media publicity surrounding that embarrassment may have helped to some degree in ending Jim Crow in the US.
An episode of All in the Family (and one of my personal favorites) titled Archie in the Hospital was released on 06 Jan 1973. Archie Bunker the bigot hurt his back and ended up in a hospital room. For privacy, a curtain separated Archie from his hospital roommate, a French man. Archie and the French man strike up a conversation and eventually become friendly.
Unbeknownst to Archie, the French man was black.
François Bigot was the last Intendant of New France. The intendant was a civil administrative officer, appointed directly by the King and with financial powers independent of the Governor.
Bigot was in office from 1748 to the fall of New France in 1760. Although very competent in office, he developed a reputation for personal corruption. After the fall of New France, he and some of his associates were tried and convicted on corruption charges.
He was imprisoned in the Bastille for close to a year, before managing to make his way to Switzerland where he lived in exile for the rest of his life.
The Bastille, known formally as the Bastille Saint-Antoine, stood until its destruction in 1790 during the French Revolution. A square is there now, the Place de la Bastille. The July Column (Colonne de Juillet) stands at the center of the square, and the Bastille Opera, the Bastille subway station and a section of the Canal Saint Martin are also there. Today the Place de la Bastille is a popular place for political gatherings.
St Martin was a Roman soldier who gave half his cloak to a beggar in the cold. Martin later became a Christian and his half cloak a relic. The word for a cloak was “cappa” in Medieval Latin and evolved into the word “chapel”, originally a place where relics like Martin’s cloak were kept.
Good trivia - my mother-in-law’s maiden name is Chapel. I’ll have to share this with her and all of her brothers and sisters.
In play:
The priest who cared for the relic of St. Martin’s cloak was called a cappellanu, and ultimately all priests who served the military were called cappellani. The French translation is chapelains, from which the English word chaplain is derived.
Continuation, a corollary to Northern Piper’s play:
The word for little cloak is capella, and this is what the small temporary churches built for the relic were called. Eventually, such small churches lost their association with the cloak, and all small churches began to be referred to as “chapels”.
(Shamelessly pasted almost verbatim from Wikipedia)
A cappella (Italian for “in the manner of the chapel”) music is specifically group or solo singing without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It contrasts with cantata, which is accompanied singing. It increased in popularity in the US recently due to the success of the TV series “Glee” and reality talent shows.
Barbershop Quartet groups are a uniquely American form of a cappella singing. According to the Barbershop Harmony Society, “Barbershop music features songs with understandable lyrics and easily singable melodies, whose tones clearly define a tonal center and imply major and minor chords and barbershop (dominant and secondary dominant) seventh chords that resolve primarily around the circle of fifths, while making frequent use of other resolutions.”
The barbershop quartet The Buffalo Bills played the school board in the movie version of The Music Man.
Homer Simpson and friends form a barbershop quartet in an early episode of The Simpsons, and have a hit with their song “Baby On Board.”
Homer, Alaska is named after Homer Pennock, a gold mining promoter who built several buildings at the beginning of the 20th century. Gold mining was never profitable in the area, but coal was and isplentiful there. The city’s motto is “Where the road ends and the sea begins.” Homer is a 3,300 mile drive from San Francisco. Long known as The “Halibut Fishing Capital of the World.” Homer is also nicknamed “the end of the road,” and more recently, “the cosmic hamlet by the sea.”
The three founding members of the Legion of Superheroes were Lightning Lad (Lightning Boy in the first appearance), Saturn Girl, and Cosmic Boy.
For most of the existence of General Motors’s Saturn subsidiary, the vehicles were all manufactured at a single factory in Spring Hill, Tenn., not far from the town’s Civil War battlefield.
The Spring Hill Battlefield saw a conflict between John Bell Hood of the Confederate States and John M. Schofield of the Union Army on 29 November 1864. Schofield, born in Gerry NY (south of Buffalo) and from St. Louis MO, served after the Civil War as interim Secretary of War. During his term he nominated himself for, and was awarded, the Medal of Honor for action in 1861. Schofield is the namesake for Schofield Barracks in Hawaii.
Missed the edit window to revise: Schofield recommended himself for the Medal of Honor. Not nominated.
The impeachment of President Andrew Johnson was precipitated by his attempt to replace Edwin Stanton with Ulysses Grant as Secretary of War, in violation of the Tenure of Office Act (later ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court).
Andrew Johnson is one of just two U.S. Presidents to be impeached (that is, accused by the House). Both he and Bill Clinton were later acquitted in their trials before the U.S. Senate, with the Chief Justice of the United States (Salmon P. Chase for Johnson, William H. Rehnquist for Clinton) presiding. President Richard Nixon resigned before the House impeached him.
The salmon run is the time when salmon, which have migrated from the ocean, swim to the upper reaches of rivers where they spawn on gravel beds. After spawning, all Pacific salmon and most Atlantic salmon die, and the salmon life cycle starts over again. The annual run can be a major event for grizzly bears, bald eagles and sport fishermen. Most salmon species migrate during the fall (September through November).
Baseball outfielder Tim Salmon of the California Angels played his entire career with that team, from 1992 to 2006. He is one of the few Angels to have played their entire MLB career with the Angels and when the Angels were called by these three names:
1966-1996: California Angels
1997-2004: Anaheim Angels
2005-now: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Prior to that they were:
1961-1965: Los Angeles Angels
Thomas Paul Salmon, a Democrat, served as the 75th Governor of Vermont from 1973-1977. He endorsed Gov. Michael S. Dukakis for the presidential nomination in 1988.