Marion Tinsley is considered to be the greatest checkers player who ever lived. He lost only seven games in his entire 45-year career. Two of those losses were to the Chinook computer program in a match which he won 4–2 (with 33 draws). Lacking any real competition, he had retired in 1991, but came out of retirement in 1992 to play that unsanctioned man-vs-machine match, and was then granted the title of World Champion Emeritus.
In 1992, on 01 January, George H. W. Bush became the first U.S. President to address the Australian Parliament.
Although the first US postage stamps were issued in 1847, the term “street address” was not in use until about 1890. Before that, only the city was necessary, and the post office would find the recipient. The first stamps were in denominations of five and ten cents, which then had a value of $1.50 and $3.00.
On July 1, 1963, non-mandatory five-digit ZIP codes were introduced nationwide by the US Postal Service. Simultaneously, along with the introduction of the ZIP code, two-letter state abbreviations were introduced, which are generally written with both letters capitalized. The reason for the two-letter abbreviations is that it was thought that a long city name combined with a multi-letter state abbreviation (e.g.: Mass. for Massachusetts; Ca., Cal., or Calif. for California; Pa., Penn., or Penna. for Pennsylvania) would be too long for address labels used on magazines when the ZIP code was added.
Robert Moon, a postal inspector, is considered the father of the ZIP code. Moon submitted his proposal in 1944.
The postal abbreviation for Nunavut is NU.
In French, “Nu” also means “naked” (male).
The French president, currently Francois Hollande, is also the ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra, Grand Master of the Légion d’honneur and the Ordre national du Mérite, and honorary proto-canon of the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome.
Two separate postal systems have been established in Andorra. One affiliated with France and one with Spain, and they issue their own separate postage stamps, with each postal system requiring the use of their own stamps. Letters mailed to France or Spain go faster if mailed by poste or correio, but mail sent elsewhere, it doesn’t matter much which post office you go to.
In 1909 Writer Hilaire Belloc commented on Andorra: ‘In my time no wheeled vehicle had entered Andorra’. He found that ‘The Andorrans have all the vices and virtues of democracy … They are very well-to-do, a little hard, avaricious, courteous, fond of smuggling, and jealous of interference’. More memorably, he described in a poem “the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees, And the wine that tasted of tar”
Two places I have encountered incorrigible fleas are Tananarive, Madagascar, and Valparaiso, Chile. The fleas don’t bite badly, but are still annoying little buggers that infest beds and stuffed furniture and deny a good night’s sleep… When you leave, you take them with you, but they die off quickly elsewhere. For centuries, mariners have hated docking at Valparaiso, with their ship full of fleas when they set sail.
In the Harvard Lampoon parody, “Bored of the Rings,” most of the characters are named for trademarked products, except for the Bilbo Baggins analogue, who was called Dildo Bugger.
In 1636, two years before his death, clergyman John Harvard spoke an oral will to his wife. John Harvard was childless and had inherited a considerable fortune from his family. He bequeathed to a new school half his monetary estate, £780, and also his personal library. The school ordered its name changed to Harvard College.
Elihu Yale, the benefactor for whom Yale University was named, was drummed out of India for unusually cruel and corrupt practices as head of the British East India Company, and was invited to contribute his ill-gotten blood money for the startup university by Cotton Mather, the instigator and engineer of the Salem Witchcraft trials.
Elihu was a friend of Job of the Old Testament. Elihu is mentioned late in the book, in Chapter 32. Elihu was a descendant of Nahor. Elihu states that suffering may be decreed for the righteous as a protection against greater sin, for moral betterment and warning, and to elicit greater trust and dependence on a merciful, compassionate God in the midst of adversity.
Monster.com is one of the most visited job employment websites in the United States and one of the largest in the world. It is owned and operated by Monster Worldwide, Inc. In 2008, Monster had over a million job postings at any time and over 1 million resumes, in the database and over 63 million job seekers per month.
When Parliament is adjourned by motion of the two houses, the session is not ended. It resumes when Parliament is recalled by the Speakers. However, if the Crown prerogues Parliament, the session is ended and Parliament can only be recalled by the Crown, beginning a new session.
Parliament cigarettes make up 1.7% of Philip Morris sales, in contrast to the corporation’s leading seller, Marlboro, which represent 41.1% of Philip Morris sales. Actor Charlie Sheen appeared in ads for Parliament in the 1990s.
The British Parliament meets in the Palace of Westminster in London. The House of Commons benches are upholstered in green leather, while the House of Lords’s are red.
While all sons of an English peer (who sat in the House of Lords) were entitled to a higher style, in the 16th and 17th centuries the eldest sons of younger sons of such a Lord, along with their eldest sons in perpetuity, could use the title “Esquire.”
This style could also be used by the eldest sons of knights and their eldest sons in perpetuity; by the younger sons of the eldest sons of Barons; by certain legal officers including justices of the peace and barristers; by Esquires of the Body of the Sovereign (e.g. his Groom of the Stool); and by foreign noblemen, etc… A knight’s squire would use the style only if so constituted at the knight’s investitutre.
Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt is known to millions for “Morning Mood” which has been used in many commercials. While to many listeners it evokes a dewy sunrise in green meadows, in Grieg’s original opera the scene is set in the the Moroccan desert with this description by the composer: “A grove of palms and acacias at dawn. Peer Gynt is up a tree, protecting himself with a broken-off branch from a swarm of apes”
Winston Churchill refused a peerage because he wished to stay in the Commons, rather than become a peer in the House of Lords.
It has been suggested that the title proposed was to be Duke of London, to commemorate his role in the Blitz and the Battle of Britain. Instead, the Queen appointed him a Knight of the Garter, Britain’s highest chivalric order, rarely awarded to a person without any other titles.