The name Endora is believed to have been taken from the Witch of Endor, who is visited by King Saul in disguise. At his request, she summons the ghost of Samuel who berates Saul for disobeying God and predicts that Saul and his army would perish the next day.
The Witch of Endor is described in 1 Samuel 28:7ff, in the Bible’s Old Testament. There are two books of Samuel in the OT, 1 and 2 Samuel. Samuel was a prophet who had served King Saul but had died. Saul, in a moment of his lack of faith in God, decides to consult the Witch of Endor for guidance. Saul dies soon after in the Battle of Gilboa. Samuel had prophesied that Saul would lose his kingdom. The kingdom would pass to King David.
Samuel Gompers (1850 – 1924) was an English-born American labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and served as the organization’s president from 1886 to 1894 and from 1895 until his death in 1924.
Gen. George Washington led the Continental Army throughout most of the American Revolution, from his appointment by the Second Continental Congress in June 1775 through the Treaty of Paris and his resignation in December 1783. King George III, told by the painter Benjamin West of Washington’s intention to resign, relinquish military power and return to his plantation, said, “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world!”
Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” is sometimes considered the first rap song, although it did not have rhyme or much rhythm. Scott-Heron first recorded it for his 1970 album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, on which he recited the lyrics, accompanied by congas and bongo drums. A re-recorded version, with a full band, was the B-side to Scott-Heron’s first single, “Home Is Where the Hatred Is”, from his album Pieces of a Man (1971). It was also included on his compilation album, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (1974). All these releases were issued on the Flying Dutchman Productions record label.
Baseball Hall of Famer shortstop Honus Wagner was a fast runner. He was of German descent, and his nickname was the Flying Dutchman even though it really should have been the Flying Deutschman.
A statue of Honus Wagner, one of the most famous and beloved of the early Pittsburgh Pirates, stands outside PNC Park in Pittsburgh.
Sir Francis Drake, vice admiral (1540 – 1596) was an English sea captain during the reign of Elizabeth I. While accomplishing many feats, such as the second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580, he was also considered a masterful pirate, especially by the Spanish, whose King, Philip II, was said to have offered a reward of 20,000 ducats or about $6,500,000 by modern standards, for his life.
I’ve been there! PNC Park is beautiful. A gem of a ballpark. If one goes, I recommend approaching from downtown and walking across the Roberto Clemente bridge to the park before the game, and then back across after the game. The bridge is closed to vehicle traffic at these times. So far I’ve been to games at 27 of the 30 MLB parks and PNC is the second nicest of them all. Second only to San Francisco’s AT&T Park, IMO.
In play: Sir Francis Drake tried and tried and tried to discover San Francisco Bay as the first European to find it, but he kept missing it. He kept hearing of its beauty but could never find it. He probably kept sailing past it while it was shrowded in fog (often more so in the summer). He finally found a nearby bay that is named after him, Drake’s Bay, just north of the Golden Gate.
Drake should have tried looking for it while on foot, as did its first European discovere, Gaspar de Portola, from Sweeny Ridge near present day city of Pacifica CA and Skyline Junior College. Bullitt’s AA degree is from Skyline.
The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia has 6,500,000 sq ft of floor space. At the time of its construction, it was the largest office building in the world.
Dude, you been ninja’d! 
[tying Bullitt’s and buddha_david’s posts both together]
Drake was from County Devon. One legend is that he was playing bowls on Plymouth Hoe in Devon when the Spanish Armada was sighted coming up the Channel, but he insisted on finishing his game, saying there was plenty of time before going off to beat the Spaniards. The legend was later used by Punch in a cartoon in the opening days of World War II, showing Churchill playing bowls and waiting to be summoned for service.
Another legend about Drake is that as he lay dying of dysentery in his ship off the coast of Panama, he instructed that his drum, which had gone around the world with him, be taken back to Plymouth. He is said to have remarked that if ever England was in peril, the English should beat his drum and he would come back, even from Heaven itself.
The legend is immortalized in the poem Drake’s Drum by Henry Newbolt, with the lines:
“Take my drum to England,
hang et by the shore,
Strike et when your powder’s runnin’ low;
If the Dons sight Devon
I’ll quit the port o’Heaven
An’ drum them up the Channel
As we drummed them long ago.”
It’s said that sometimes in great moments in English history, Drake’s drum will sound. One legend is that it was heard on HMS Royal Oak in 1918 when the German Imperial Fleet surrendered. Another legend is that it was heard when the British Army was being evacuated from Dunkirk.
Plymouth cars first appeared in 1928, and their sales were discontinued in 2001. The original Plymouth logo featured a rear view of the ship Mayflower which landed at Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts. However, the inspiration for the Plymouth brand name came from Plymouth binder twine, produced by the Plymouth Cordage Company, also of Plymouth. The name was chosen due to the popularity of the twine among farmers.
Livestock branding is a technique for marking livestock so as to identify the owner. Originally, livestock branding only referred to a hot brand for large stock, though the term is now also used to refer to other alternative techniques such as freeze branding. In the American West, branding evolved into a complex marking system still in use today.
Livestock brand logos are, ideally, succinct and unique for quick application and easy recognition.
Not like the Gary Larsen comic strip, The Far Side, that shows a cowboy sitting beside a campfire, heating his branding iron, and the cows behind him are wide-eyed with surprise. The logo is not short. It is not quick. The branding iron reads:
THIS COW BELONGS TO DARYL JONES SO HANDS OFF
Like as shown in the 4th post in this thread about branding cattle: http://goo.gl/EmqlKs
“Quick” originally meant “alive” or “lively.” Hence the phrase “the quick and the dead” originally meants “The living and the dead.” The usage is now archaic.
In humans the quick of your fingernails has the scientific name of hyponychium.
The quick of a dog’s nail is the pink area within the nail where the nerves and blood vessels are, similar to the area underneath the finger and toe nails of people. Care must be taken when clipping a dogs’ nails, to not trim too closely to the quick.
In gridiron football, clipping is the act of a “throwing the body across the back of the leg of an eligible receiver or charging or falling into the back of an opponent below the waist after approaching him from behind, provided the opponent is not a runner.”
It is also clipping to roll up on the legs of an opponent after a block. Clipping is usually illegal, but in the National Football League it is legal to clip above the knee in close-line play.[
In the NFL there is a difference between a chop block and a clip. According to NFL official Jerry Markbreit, Clipping, as defined in the NFL rulebook, is as follows: There shall be no clipping from behind, below the waist against a non-runner. This does not apply to offensive blocking in close-line play, where it is legal to clip above the knees, but it is illegal to clip at or below the knees. Close-line play is that which occurs in an area extending laterally to the position ordinarily occupied by the offensive tackles and longitudinally three yards on either side of the line of scrimmage. In close-line play, if an offensive player’s block, legal or illegal, is followed by a block rolling up the back of the legs of the defender, the action is illegal and is considered unnecessary roughness.
A chop block is a foul by the offense, in which one offensive player blocks a defensive player in the area of the thigh or lower, while another offensive player blocks the same defensive player high or above the waist. Both clipping and chop blocks are personal fouls and carry a 15-yard penalty. The rule is very tough in this situation because these blocks can cause serious injury.