The retired space shuttle *Atlantis *is on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors’ Complex (an amazing presentation, too - makes the others look pathetic). *Endeavour *is at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, *Discovery *is at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Washington Dulles Airport (in the spot formerly occupied by Enterprise), and *Enterprise *is at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York. Debris from *Challenger *and Columbia are also at KSC, but only a few fragments are on display.
USS Discovery was the American interplanetary exploratory spacecraft shown in Stanley Kubrick’s science fiction epic 2001: A Space Odyssey.
John Glenn, Colonel, USMC, Retired, was 77 years old when he flew into space in the Space Shuttle Discovery (OV-103) in 1998.
USMC Col. Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, of “Baa Baa Black Sheep” fame, was held in the same secret Japanese POW camp for high-value prisoners as Lt. Louie Zamperini (you *must *read or see “Unbroken”). In his own memoirs, Boyington related how Zamperini would lift the prisoners’ morale with his detailed descriptions of how his Italian mother would prepare and serve dinner - a method Zamperini had found effective on his fellow survivors in their long life-raft trip. Boyington was amazed that they all actually felt full by just listening to Louie’s soliloquies.
Louie Zamperini died just a year ago, on 02 July 2014 at the ripe old age of 97. Prior to WWII he was a distance runner with Olympic aspirations. When he was 17 he set a world interscholastic record for the mile (at 4:21). And in the 5,000 meters, at 19 years and 178 days, Zamperini is still the youngest American Olympic qualifier ever (1936 Olympics). At that Olympics, Adolf Hitler was so impressed with Zamperini’s run that he insisted on a personal meeting. As Zamperini told the story, Hitler shook his hand, and said simply "Ah, you’re the boy with the fast finish.[URL=“Louis Zamperini - Wikipedia”]
Yes, Elvis, a great book and a highly-recommended read. The back of the book, after Zamperini tells his story, describes the atrocities of captured POWs. The treatment of POWs by the Japanese is compared and contrasted with that of the Germans. The differences are (or, were) remarkable.
Haven’t seen the move. Not yet.
In 1945, when he was presumed dead, the Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America track meet at Madison Square Garden named its invitational mile the Louis Zamperini Memorial Mile in his honor. A year later he attended the event in person, as the honorary starter. For the rest of his life, Zamperini treasured the condolence letter President Roosevelt had sent his parents.
The current Madison Square Garden, sometimes called Madison Square Garden IV, opened in 1968. It was constructed by Robert E. McKee of El Paso TX. The original Madison Square was located at what is now Madison Square Park, bounded by 26th and 23rd Streets to the north and south, and by Madison Avenue to the east, and 5th Avenue and Broadway to the west. It was named after James Madison, our 4th President.
The tequila-based drink, the Margarita, was allegedly invented in the El Paso-Juárez region at Tommy’s Place Bar on July 4, 1945, by Francisco “Pancho” Morales.
In 1971, entrepreneur Mariano Martinez adapted a soft serve ice cream machine to making margaritas and dubbed it “The World’s First Frozen Margarita Machine”.
Thank you, Mariano.
The name for the martini is derived from various forms of “Martinez” – either a town, bartender, or a bottle of spirits with that name. The original martinis were sweet cocktails with sweet vermouth, but as time went on, a dry vermouth version was introduced as a “Dry Martini,” which eventually became the standard recipe.
According to this bonappetit.com article the fifth largest international liquor distributor is Bacardi. In 1993, Bacardi merged with Martini & Rossi.
The logo for Bacardi is a bat.
The bat is a heraldic symbol associated with the Crown of Aragon and as a consequence appears on the coat of arms of several Spanish cities - such as Valencia, Palma de Mallorca and Fraga - and also on the badges of several Spanish football clubs - such as Albacete Balompié, CD Alcoyano, Levante UD and Valencia CF.
45,000 year old bat guano was excavated from Carlsbad Cavern in New Mexico and trucked westward to California’s Central Valley to fertilize the soil. Much of America is fed by the valley’s crops.
The rugged landscape of the Carlsbad Caverns National Park conceals 117 known caves, including vast underground chambers. Carlsbad Cavern includes a large cave chamber, the Big Room, a natural limestone chamber that is almost 4,000 feet (1,220 m) long, 625 feet (191 m) wide, and 255 feet (78 m) high at the highest point. It is the fifth largest chamber in North America and the twenty-eighth largest in the world.
Lechuguilla Cave is well known for its delicate speleothems and pristine underground environment. Guano mining occurred in the pit below the entrance in the 1910s. After gaining permission from the national park managers to dig into a rubble pile where wind whistled between the rocks when the weather changed, cavers broke through into a room in 1986. Over 120 miles (190 km) of cave passage has been explored and mapped. It has been mapped to a depth of 1,600 feet (490 m), making it the deepest limestone cave in the U.S. To protect the fragile environment, access is limited to permitted scientific expeditions only
The Cosquer cave in France contains many cave paintings and carvings dating back to the Upper Paleolithic. You won’t find it easy to visit, though, since sea level change means the entrance is now 37 m underwater and you’d then have to swim along a 175 m submerged tunnel to get to the main chamber.
Slaughter Canyon Cave at Carlsbad Caverns is an unimproved cave that can be toured by reservation. While the main caves at Carlsbad are very ‘touristy,’ with paved walkways and handrails that impart the sense of a pedestrian highway, Slaughter Canyon Cave is much more rustic. Once inside the cave entrance, as you enter and are walking down into the main area, you walk through a valley dug down into heavy mud walls that stand high, to about 8’ high. The “mud” you are passing is not mud, but bat guano, built high over thousands of years of bats producing it a few drops at a time.
No, it doesn’t smell.
Keenan Wynn (son of Ed Wynn) played USAF Col. “Bat” Guano in * Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb*. He tells Group Captain Mandrake " I think you’re some kind of deviated prevert. I think General Ripper found out about your preversion, and that you were organizing some kind of mutiny of preverts. Now MOVE!"
During WWII, USAF Colonel Robert E. Hogan was captured by the Germans and held in a concentration camp, Stalag 13. He was well cared for by the Stalag 13 commander, Colonel Wilhelm Klink, and the guard sergeant, Sergeant Hans Schultz.
The main German military personnel in the cast of “Hogan’s Heroes” were all played by Jews - Werner Klemperer as Klink, John Banner (once a matinee idol in his native Austria) as Schultz, Leon Askin as Gen. Burkhalter. Additionally, Robert Clary (LeBeau), another Jew, had actually been interned in Buchenwald in his youth - he is the only surviving main cast member.