Civil War Union General John Sedgwick is famous for saying: “Why are you dodging like this? They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance!” shortly before he was shot and killed by a Confederate sniper. Reports that he never actually finished his sentence are apocryphal.
Simo Häyhä of the Finnish Army is one of the most successful snipers in military history. Nicknamed the “White Death” for his totally white camouflage and eerie white mask he wore in combat, the Finnish marksman amassed at least 505 confirmed sniper kills during the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union. He recorded an additional 200 kills with a submachine gun. More amazingly, Häyhä recorded all of his sniper kills without using an optic - his Mosin–Nagant rifle was equipped only with iron sights. Häyhä died of old age in 2002, living to the age of 96.
The Winter War was followed, after a short-lived peace treaty, by the Continuation War, lasting through most of the rest of World War II. It finally resulted in Finland’s independence, although largely subjugated by the USSR anyway, and at the loss of the territory of Karelia.
Gilles Vigneault, a québécois singer-songwriter, wrote the song “Mon pays, ce n’est pas un pays, c’est l’hiver!” (“My country isn’t a country, it’s winter!”).
Which really does express Canadian/Québécois existentialist angst about our climate.
Samuel Francis Smith wrote the lyrics to “My Country, 'Tis of Thee”, also known as America, in 1831. It was performed in public on July the 4th of that year in Boston. The song now has 13 verses. On January 20, 2009, Aretha Franklin sang the song at the first inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Benjamin Franklin was one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Hospital in 1751, which was the first public hospital in the country. Before this, there was no public health system for the poor. The public hospital system that Americans know today is modeled after the Pennsylvania Hospital. Besides this, he is often credited with the first public library, the first mutual fire insurance company, and the first volunteer fire department in Philadelphia.
The Order of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem (Latin: Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), also known as Order of Saint John, Order of Hospitallers, Knights Hospitaller, and the Hospitallers, were among the most famous of the Roman Catholic military orders during the Middle Ages. The Hospitallers probably arose as a group of individuals who were associated with an Amalfitan hospital in the Muristan district of Jerusalem, which was dedicated to St John the Baptist and founded around 1023 by Blessed Gerard Thom to provide care for sick, poor or injured pilgrims coming to the Holy Land.
While it is stated in the Bible that John the Baptist ate “locust and honey,” vegetarians insist that “locust” is a mistranslation, and the John was a vegetarian who either ate St. John’s Bread (carob beans), locust beans, and/or pancakes, the Greek word for locusts being akris; the Greek word for pancakes being egkris.
I wonder if John ever went to an IHOP!
Three cities in Canada of over 100,000 are often confused, with names that are variations on St. John. Saint John New Brunswick, always spelled out, is distinct from St. John’s Newfoundland, always abbreviated in possessive case. English usage often uses St. Johns for the Quebec city of Saint-Jeam-Sur-Richelieu. When spoken, Saint John NB is stressed on the ‘saint’ while St. John’s NF is stressed on ‘john’s’.
Both New Brunswick Quebec and New Brunswick New Jersey were named for the city of Braunschweig, known in English as Brunswick, located in modern-day Lower Saxony in northern German.y Both towns were named to honor the reigning British monarch, George III, Braunschweig being the ancestral home of the British monarch George I and his successors (the House of Hanover).
Hanover College in Indiana was nearly destroyed by a tornado in 1974. On the banks of the Ohio River, it is the oldest private college in Indiana.
Thanks. Nothing there about the Detroit water system being “over 300 years old,” though.
In play:
Queen Victoria of Great Britain did not become queen of Hanover, as her Hanoverian predecessors had been king, because Hanover followed Salic Law and did not permit a woman to take the crown if there was a living male heir.
The Queen Victoria Building is a late nineteenth-century building designed by the architect George McRae in the central business district of Sydney, Australia. The Romanesque Revival building was constructed between 1893 and 1898 and is 98 ft wide by 620 ft long. it was used for a variety of other purposes, underwent remodelling and suffered decay until its restoration and return to its original use in the late twentieth century.
Out of play: I got to visit this building this past April, and it’s worth a look if life takes you to Sydney sometime (great city).
Little House on the Prairie’s Carrie Ingalls was played by twins Lindsay and Sidney Greenbush .
Huntington Ingalls Industries is a shipbuilding company in Newport News, Virginia, and Pascagoula, Mississippi. The company takes its name from the founders of its two main facilities: Collis Potter Huntington (Newport News) and Robert Ingalls (Pascagoula).
Formerly a division of Northrop Grumman, HII is the sole designer, builder, and refueler of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in the United States. It is one of two nuclear-powered submarine builders. 70 percent of the current, active US Navy fleet has been built by HII’s erstwhile units.
The Newport Folk Festival was founded in 1959 by George Wein, founder of the already-well-established Newport Jazz Festival, backed by its original board: Theodore Bikel, Oscar Brand, Pete Seeger and Albert Grossman. The festival, set in Newport, Rhoda Island is renowned for introducing to a national audience a number of performers who went on to become major stars, most notably Joan Baez by her appearance as an unannounced guest of Bob Gibson in 1959, and Bob Dylan, in turn a guest of Baez at the 1963 festival.
The US Naval Academy relocated from Annapolis, Maryland to Newport, Rhode Island during the Civil War, due to fear of Maryland coming under Confederate control.
The National Archives research wing for all primary documents for military matters other than the Revolutionary War and before is now located in College Park, Maryland. The Revolutionary primary documents are still in D.C…
For military personnel records, the National Personnel Records Center of NARA is located in St. Louis MO, and it’s address is #1 Archives Drive. Some, not all records are there. It is based on branch of service and years of service.
Phonograph records were made from a fragile shellac compound until the 1930s, when vinyl came into use for broadcast transcriptions. But vinyl was not used for records for home use until the V-discs were made, for distribution to US soldiers.