The name “California” comes from a fictional island, inhabited only by black women and ruled by Queen Calafia, in the novel Las Sergas de Esplandián (The Adventures of Esplandián), the fifth book in a series of Spanish chivalric romance novels by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo, published in Seville in 1510.
Gerechtigkeitsspirale is a relief carving of a poem at the pilgrimage church of St. Valentin in Kiedrich, in Hesse, Germany. The text is the earliest known shape poem in the German language, created in 1510 by the master carpenter Erhart Falckener.
Medieval Blackletter or Gothic script, sometimes called Fraktur, was used for German well into the 20th century, although it was obsolete elsewhere. It was invented in the 12th century as a faster method of writing than Carolingian minuscule.
The Carolingian Empire (800–924) was the final stage in the history of the early medieval realm of the Franks, ruled by the Carolingian dynasty. With its division in 843, it also represents the earliest stage in the history of the Kingdom of France and the Kingdom of Germany, which were the predecessors of the modern nations of France and Germany.
Germany, as a nation, did not come into existence until 1871. Prussia occupied the territory from Latvia to the Rhine, and became Germany when it unified all German-speaking lands to the south except Austria.
Whodat? I know NFL pretty well but that doesn’t ring a bell.
In play: Dating from 1191, the flag of Austria is one of the oldest of the current national flags.
According to legend, the Flag of Denmark dates from the 1219 Battle of Lyndanisse. The Danes were on a failing crusade in Estonia, but after praying to God a flag fell from the sky, and the battle was won.
The first American flags were made out of hemp. Its canton is called the union and has 50 white stars (mullets) on a blue field. The term mullet or molet refers to a star with straight sides, typically having five or six points, but may have any number of points specified in the blazon.
The mullet is a hairstyle that is short at the front and sides and long in the back. In the sixth century, Byzantine scholar Procopius wrote that some factions of young males wore their hair long at the back and cut it short over the forehead. This non-Roman style was termed the ‘Hunnic’ look.
The high and tight haircut is a military variant of the crew cut. It is a very short hairstyle worn by men in the armed forces of the U.S. It is also popular with law enforcement officers and other public safety personnel.
In Colorado, he term “Front Range” has two confusing meanings. Geographically, the Front Range is a mountain range that, as a part of the Rocky Mountains, extends through the center of Colorado. But the term Front Range is also used to describe the urban zone occupying the flatlands just east of the mountains, including cities from Cheyenne to Pueblo.
The mountains of the western United States were formed during the Nevada orogeny, the Sevier orogeny and the Laramide orogeny - in chronological order. The Rockies were formed during the later Laramide orogeny, while California’s Sierra Nevadas were formed during the earlier Nevada orogeny.
Orogeny refers to forces and events leading to a large structural deformation of the Earth’s crust due to the interaction between tectonic plates. Orogens or orogenic belts develop when a continental plate is crumpled and is pushed upwards to form mountain ranges, and involve a great range of geological processes collectively called orogenesis.
The theory of recapitulation, also called the biogenetic law or embryological parallelism— often expressed in Ernst Haeckel’s phrase “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”—is a largely discredited biological hypothesis that in developing from embryo to adult, animals go through stages resembling or representing successive stages in the evolution of their remote ancestors.
At Cambridge University, Charles Darwin joined the “Gourmet Club,” which met once a week to eat animals not often found in menus, like hawk and bittern (a type of wading bird in the heron family). His zeal for weird food, however, broke down when he tried an old brown owl, which he found “indescribable.”
An old Massachusetts recipe for cooking Murre, a kind of sea bird related to Puffin: “Nail the murre to a board and boil it for a few days. Discard the bird and eat the board.” However, Mure (locally called Turre) is eaten in Newfoundland, and is quite good.
Frying a turkey is 5-6 times faster than roasting. It’s about 20mins/pound for roasting, and 3-4 for frying. Just be sure the turkey is as dry as possible before lowering it slowly into the fryer, or the water will instantaneously boil and create air bubbles that can raise the oil level. If the oil level over rises the pot, it can spill down to the heat source and start a bad fire! Search YouTube for that and it’s impressive.
The Great Chicago Fire started in a barn at 137 Dekoven Street owned by the O’Leary family, leading to the story that it was caused my Mrs. O’Leary’s cow – a bit of dark humor as to the origin. The fire was probably the most famous in US history, but it wasn’t the worst in terms of death and damage; indeed, it wasn’t even the worst fire that day. The Pestigo Fire in Wisconsin – which started at about the same time – was far more devastating.
The Chicago Cubs have the longest current drought of World Series championships of any team. Their last championship was in 1908, for a 107 season drought.
The next longest drought is 67 seasons for the Cleveland Indians, who last won it in 1948.
Here are some others, listed by last championship and # of seasons:
1908 107 Chicago Cubs
1948 067 Cleveland Indians
0000 055 Texas Rangers - never, since their franchise began in 1961
0000 054 Houston Astros - never, since their franchise began in 1962
0000 047 Milwaukee Brewers - never, since their franchise began in 1969
0000 047 San Diego Padres - never, since their franchise began in 1969
0000 047 Washington Nationals - never, since their franchise began in 1969
0000 039 Seattle Mariners - never, since their franchise began in 1977
1979 036 Pittsburgh Pirates
1983 032 Baltimore Orioles
1984 031 Detroit Tigers
1986 029 New York Mets
1988 027 Los Angeles Dodgers
The Dodgers… 1988… a 27 year drought. Oh how my Orange and Black SF Giants heart bleeds.
Although the San Diego Padres, who took their name from the pre-expansion Pacific Coast League franchise, have played since 1969, no pitcher has ever thrown a no-hitter for them. The New York Mets, who have played since 1962, have had only one - Johan Santana in 2012.
It’s a, I say, it’s a joke, son!
In play:
The term “EXCOMM” or Executive Committee, for the group of senior advisors who helped President John F. Kennedy during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, was not used at the time, but coined later.