The state of Arkansas derives its name similarly as does Kansas. The Native American tribe of the Kansa people is closely associated with the Sioux, and the state names are associated with the words for “land of downriver people” and “people of the south wind.”
The eastern border of Arkansas is mostly defined by the Mississippi River. To the state’s northeast, where it meets the bootheel of Missouri, the border is defined by the St. Francis River. The Arkansas River runs laterally through the state as it flows from west to east / southeast and ends as a major tributary to the Mississippi River.
The silent second “S” in Arkansas was made official in 1881 by a state legislative act.
The Mississippi River watershed is the fourth largest in the world, extending from the Allegheny Mountains in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west. The watershed includes all or parts of 31 states and 2 Canadian Provinces. The watershed measures approximately 1.2 million square miles, covering about 40% of the lower 48 states.
The only three river watersheds (also called drainage basins) larger are the Amazon, the Congo and the Nile River basins.
The Congo Free State was created and run as the private property of Leopold II, King of the Belgians, as the result of his diplomatic machinations to get little Belgium a colony of its own. International revulsion at Leopold’s use of slave labor and casual cruelty to extract rubber and ivory from his colony led the Belgian government to take it over from him. Former Congo River steamboat officer Joseph Conrad’s depiction of it in Heart of Darkness is considered realistic by historians, who have been able to identify several models for his character Kurtz.
Leopold II owed his existence to the death of Princess Charlotte of Wales in childbirth in 1817. His father, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, was married to Charlotte. If Charlotte had survived, Leopold the elder would never have married Louise of Orléans and sired Leopold the younger.
Leopold and Loeb committed a ‘thrill killing’ of a 14 yr old to demonstrate their intellectual superiority. (They were SUPERmen!)
The two were witnessed driving before they picked up their victim with one sitting in the backseat. Leopold dropped his eyeglasses with an unusual hinge mechanism where they dumped the body. They failed to destroy the typewriter used for the fake ransom notes. And they botched a lame and easily refutable alibi. Then the two rolled on each other, saying the other actually killed the kid.
Ironic for a crime to *demonstrate their intellectual superiority. *
Ring Lardner coined the term “Alibi Ike” – someone who always had a ready excuse – in a story by that name published in 1915. In the story, Ike, a baseball player, not only had an excuse for anything he did wrong, but also had an excuse about anything he was praised for, saying he should have done better.
The 1935 movie, Alibi Ike, starred Olivia de Havilland as the main love interest of the title character. Jim Thorpe made a cameo appearance in the movie, and one of the costars was William Frawley, better known for playing Fred Mertz in I Love Lucy.
Joe E. Brown, the star of the Movie Alibi Ike, was a well-known actor and comedian, remembered for his amiable screen persona, comic timing, and enormous elastic-mouth smile.[e was one of the most popular American comedians in the 1930s and 1940s, but is perhaps most remembered now for his bit role in the comedy *Some Like It Hot,/I] where he uttered the famous punchline “Well, nobody’s perfect.”, after Jack Lemmon revealed he was not a woman.
During his film career, Jack Lemmon worked with actresses Marilyn Monroe, Natalie Wood, Betty Grable, Janet Leigh, Shirley MacLaine, Lee Remick, Romy Schneider, Doris Day, Kim Novak, Judy Holliday, Rita Hayworth, June Allyson, Virna Lisi, Ann-Margret and Sophia Loren. With Walter Mathau, Lemon made eleven films.
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the USA. It ran from 1959 through 1963 and put six American astronauts into space.
The 1st American astronaut into space was on 1961-05-05: Alan Shepard in Freedom 7.
The 2nd American astronaut into space was on 1961-07-21: Gus Grissom in Liberty Bell 7.
The 3rd American astronaut into space was on 1962-02-20: John Glenn, USMC in Friendship 7.
The 4th American astronaut into space was on 1962-05-24: Scott Carpenter in Aurora 7.
The 5th American astronaut into space was on 1962-10-03: Wally Schirra in Sigma 7.
The 6th American astronaut into space was on 1963-05-15: Gordo Cooper in Faith 7.
But the very first American mammal in space was on 1961-01-31: the chimpanzee Ham, on a suborbital flight.
Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the USA. It ran from 1959 through 1963 and put six American astronauts into space.
The 1st American astronaut into space was on 1961-05-05: Alan Shepard in Freedom 7.
The 2nd American astronaut into space was on 1961-07-21: Gus Grissom in Liberty Bell 7.
The 3rd American astronaut into space was on 1962-02-20: John Glenn, USMC in Friendship 7.
The 4th American astronaut into space was on 1962-05-24: Scott Carpenter in Aurora 7.
The 5th American astronaut into space was on 1962-10-03: Wally Schirra in Sigma 7.
The 6th American astronaut into space was on 1963-05-15: Gordo Cooper, USMC, in Faith 7.
But the very first American mammal in space was on 1961-01-31: the chimpanzee Ham, on a suborbital flight.
Wally Schirra was the only astronaut to fly in Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. Shepard was medically grounded for Gemini, Grissom died on the pad in Apollo 1, Glenn was unofficially grounded until the Shuttle program, Carpenter and Cooper fell out of favor with NASA.
The seventh Mercury astronaut, Donald Kent “Deke” Slayton, was scheduled to fly the fourth manned mission into space, but was permanently grounded after NASA doctors discovered he had an irregular heartbeat. As consolation, he was appointed Chief Coordinator of Astronaut Activities, making him responsible for selecting the flight crews on all future missions, among other responsibilities. He was restored to flight status in the early 70’s and finally flew into space during the joint Apollo/Soyuz mission of 1975.
Slayton died of brain cancer in 1993 at the age of 69, his heart strong up 'til the end.
Deke Slayton flew the B-25 Mitchell bomber during WWII with the 340th Bombardment Group in Europe. Slayton flew 56 combat missions in the B-25, and then 7 combat missions in the Douglas A-26 Invader over Japan. He later became a B-25 instructor pilot. Later, Slayton flew the “Century Series” jets as a test pilot at Edwards.
At Edwards AFB’s west gate there is “Century Circle” - the F-100 Super Sabre, F-101 Voodoo, F-102 Delta Dagger, F-104 Starfighter, F-105 Thunderchief and F-106 Delta Dart all parked near the west visitor’s parking lot.
Google maps’ satellite view shows these jets: Google Maps
There is no F-19 in the numerical series that was implemented in 1964. Folklore has it that the F-117 Nighthawk “stealth fighter” (actually a specialized ground attack plane) would have had that name, but the bogus F-117 name used for radio secrecy at Edwards (extending a long-time practice there) became public too fast for USAF to adopt the planned designation.
The F-117 Nighthawk’s maiden flight was in 1981 and it achieved initial operating capability status in 1983. It maintained secrecy until it was revealed in 1988. The Nighthawk was initially based in Tonopah, Nevada.
Titanic’s sister ships in the Olympic class were RMS Olympic and HMHS Britannic. Olympic served White Star’s transatlantic routes for many years, and was the largest British-built liner until the launching of RMS Queen Mary. Britannic was sunk by a mine off Greece in WW1 while serving as a hospital ship.
At the age of 47, John Jacob Astor IV married 18-year-old socialite Madeleine Talmage Force. The couple took an extended honeymoon in Europe and Egypt to wait for the gossip to calm down. Among the few Americans who did not spurn him at this time was Margaret Brown, later fictionalized as The Unsinkable Molly Brown. She accompanied the Astors to Egypt and France and, by coincidence, was called home to the U.S. at the same time the Astors also found it necessary to abbreviate their touring. While traveling, Madeleine became pregnant, and wanting the child born in the U.S., the Astors boarded the RMS Titanic on her maiden voyage to New York. The ship hit the iceberg, and while Madeleine was saved, Astor drown.