Joshua Abraham Norton was an eccentric citizen of San Francisco, a nut, who squandered his inheritance of $1.5M (in today’s dollars) in the 1850s. Formerly rich but now basically broke, he wandered the streets of San Francisco and declared himself to be Emperor of These United States, and Protector of Mexico. He had zany ideas for the mid-19th century, invluding a bridge spaiining San Francisco Bay.
When the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was redesigned between Treasure Island and Oakland and opened in 2013, many in the area wanted it named the Emperor Norton Bridge.
The word “thesaurus” is derived from the Greek word for Treasure.
Thge oldest known treasure map is a copper scroll found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, dating back 2,000 years, and describing he location of 63 caches of treasure. None have been found.
The origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were written between 150 B.C. and 70 A.D., remains the subject of scholarly debate to this day. According to the prevailing theory, they are the work of a Jewish population that inhabited Qumran until Roman troops destroyed the settlement around 70 A.D. These Jews are thought to have belonged to a devout, ascetic and communal sect called the Essenes, one of four distinct Jewish groups living in Judaea before and during the Roman era. Proponents of this hypothesis note similarities between the traditions outlined in the Community Rule—a scroll detailing the laws of an unnamed Jewish sect—and the Roman historian Flavius Josephus’ description of Essene rituals. Archaeological evidence from Qumran, including the ruins of Jewish ritual baths, also suggests the site was once home to observant Jews. Some scholars have credited other groups with producing the scrolls, including early Christians and Jews from Jerusalem who passed through Qumran while fleeing the Romans.
In the 2000 performance of Jesus Christ Superstar at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Tony Vincent’s one song as Simon Zealot was the total highlight of the show, and he is considered the best Simon ever.
David Seville (Ross Bagdasarian) performed the voices of Simon, Theodore, and ALVINNN! in several hit songs by “The Chipmunks”, starting with “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas, Don’t Be Late)”.
Carly Simon is the daughter of Richard L. Simon, co-founder of Simon & Schuster, and the siter of Lucy Simon, composer of the musicals Secret Garden and Dr. Zhivago.
Unlike the 1910 Frances Hodgson Burnett book which inspired it, the musical The Secret Garden includes the ghosts of Mary Lennox’s parents, British officers and their wives, and Indian servants who died in the cholera epidemic which left the little girl an orphan.
Dr. John Snow proved that cholera was spread by contaminated water by removing the handle of the Broad Street pump in Soho, London in its 1854 epidemic. Infection rates in the area quickly dropped dramatically.
In 1854, Physician John Snow came to prominence with his theory that cholera was not spread by “miasma” and bad air but instead from tainted water. He traced a London epidemic to a water pump at 1854 Broad Street by showing that the victims all drank from that pump. This was before germ theory was postulated, so he did not come up with the cause, but his results are considered a landmark in the development of epidemiology.
ETA. Well, I guess that does match the previous entry pretty well.
The oldest stave churches existing are all in Norway, dating to the 1100’s. The name “stave church” derives from the buildings’ structure of post and lintel construction, a type of timber framing where the load-bearing posts are called *stafr *in Old Norse and *stav *in modern Norwegian.
The Episcopal Church is the American offshoot of the Church of England, formed after the American Revolution. The Episcopal Church recognizes the Archbishop of Canterbury, the top British bishop, as the head of the Anglican Communion (comprised of all churches worldwide with roots in the Church of England). He does not have direct authority over the Episcopal Church, however; its members elect their own Presiding Bishop.
Aspen trees are attached to each other through a common network of roots, and the trees above ground are all part of one unified colony, hence a single very old plant manifested by a many acres of above-ground trunks. One is known to be over 80,000 years old.
Sequoia National Park is a national park in the southern Sierra Nevada east of Visalia, California, in the United States. It was established on September 25, 1890. The park spans 404,064 acres, or631.35 sq mi. The park contains among its natural resources the highest point in the contiguous 48 United States, Mount Whitney, at 14,505 feet (4,421 m) above sea level. The park is famous for its giant sequoia trees, including the General Sherman tree, one of the largest trees on Earth. The General Sherman tree grows in the Giant Forest, which contains five out of the ten largest trees in the world.
Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman debuted as a feature in the 1959 cartoon series “Rocky and his Friends”, later re-branded as “The Bullwinkle Show”. Mr. Peabody was an intelledtual dog with a bespectacled boy sidekick who explored “improbably history”. The characters were created by Ted Key, alrady a the well-known cartoonist of “Hazel”.
Pinky and the Brain was the first animated television series to be presented in Dolby Surround and the fourth collaboration of Steven Spielberg with his production company, Amblin Entertainment, and produced by Warner Bros. Animation. The characters first appeared in 1993 as a recurring segment on Animaniacs. It was later picked up as a series due to its popularity, with 65 episodes produced. Later, they appeared in the series, Steven Spielberg Presents Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain.
