Velcro was invented by Georges de Mestral, a Swiss engineer. He observed burdock burrs, a type of seed with short, stiff bristles or hooks, sticking to his clothing and to his dogs fur after a mountain walk and used the principle in his invention.
Many people think NASA invented velcro. Many people also think NASA invented teflon, the space pen, and Tang also. Not true. NASA did, however, invent the fairing used by semi trucks, the smart phone camera, baby formula and a rose scent used by Zen perfume, from a rose grown in space.
All of the astronauts on NASA’s Ares III mission in the Matt Damon movie The Martian are American except for a single German scientist.
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are tenth cousins, once removed.
The Ancient Greeks had an ambivalent attitude towards the war god Ares, viewing him as dangerous. In the *Iliad * Zeus calls him “double -faced liar.
To me you are the most hateful of all gods who hold Olympus.
Forever quarrelling is dear to your heart, wars and battles.”
In contrast, in Roman mythology Mars was more respected as representing the warlike Roman ideal.
Ninja’d! Here’s a post to fix it
The Ancient Greeks had an ambivalent attitude towards the war god Ares, viewing him as dangerous. In the Iliad Zeus calls him “double -faced liar.
To me you are the most hateful of all gods who hold Olympus.
Forever quarrelling is dear to your heart, wars and battles.”
Instead one of the favorite legends of ancient Greece was the self-sacrificing friendship and spiritual brotherhood of Damon and Pythias.
The Hebrews called Mars Ma’adim, or “One who blushes.”
Mark Twain observed “Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”
Mark Cuban is an American businessman, investor, film producer, author, television personality and philanthropist. He is the owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, Landmark Theatres, and Magnolia Pictures, and is the chairman of the HDTV cable network AXS TV. Despite his name, he was born in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
Magnolia (called Nolie) is the female lead in the Kern/Hammerstein musical Show Boat, based on Edna Ferber’s novel.
Nm - ninja’d
American Beauty is a 1931 novel by American author Edna Ferber. Set in the Housatonic region of Connecticut, the story, spanning the years 1700 to 1930, relates the steady decline of the Oakes family and their property, as well as their tense relations with Polish immigrants.
The title comes from a line within the book. According to the story, Christopher Wren, who helped design the Oakes family mansion, said Connecticut has “a kind of American beauty,” resembling Kent but possessing larger and higher lands.
The book is not related to the 1999 movie of the same name, which was inspired by the media circus around the Amy Fisher case in 1992.
The Grateful Dead album American Beauty, featuring a rose on the cover, included “Truckin’” and “Friend of the Devil”. It followed their groundbreaking Workingman’s Dead, but had nothing to do with the Barbra Streisand song “I’m the Greatest Star” from Funny Girl other than the American Beauty Rose reference.
While attending the funeral for President Bill Clinton’s mother, Barbra Streisand heard a Church choir sing a song titled “On Holy Ground”. The song was written by the choir director, Geron Davis. Upon hearing it, she was so moved that she wanted to record it. The song appeared on her album “Higher Ground”.
The rules of the Highlander universe state that Immortal combat is strictly forbidden on Holy Ground, though in Endgame Jacob Kell beheaded multiple Immortals on holy ground without repercussions. In Highlander II: The Quickening, General Katana (Michael Ironside) states that the “Golden Rule” is that immortals must not *fight *on Holy Ground.
In response to the WWII bombing of Lübeck Germany in March 1942, Hitler was furious because the Lutheran Cathedral, now a World Heritage site, was hit in the bombing. Hitler ordered the Baedeker Blitz which targeted buildings of historical and architectural value and not necessarily military strategic value. This included cathedrals, or holy grounds. The aim was to hit every building marked with three stars in the Baedeker guidebooks. Targets included Exeter, Bath, Norwich, Canterbury and York. However, St Paul’s remaining unscathed was possibly a more technical matter. Its dome, in daytime, or when reflecting moonlight, was a convenient navigational aid to the Luftwaffe.
St. Paul’s, outside which Jane Darwell “fed the birds” in Mary Poppins in her final film role, was not unscathed. The cathedral survived the Blitz although struck by bombs on 10 October 1940 and 17 April 1941. The first strike destroyed the high altar, while the second strike on the north transept left a hole in the floor above the crypt. The latter bomb is believed to have detonated in the upper interior above the north transept and the force was sufficient to shift the entire dome laterally by a small amount.
On 12 September 1940 a time-delayed bomb that had struck the cathedral was successfully defused and removed by a bomb disposal detachment of Royal Engineers under the command of Temporary Lieutenant Robert Davies. Had this bomb detonated, it would have totally destroyed the cathedral; it left a 100-foot (30 m) crater when later remotely detonated in a secure location. As a result of this action, Davies and Sapper George Cameron Wylie were each awarded the George Cross. Davies’ George Cross and other medals are on display at the Imperial War Museum, London.
One of the best known images of London during the war was a photograph of St Paul’s taken on 29 December 1940 during the “Second Great Fire of London” by photographer Herbert Mason, from the roof of the Daily Mail in Tudor Street showing the cathedral shrouded in smoke.
Walter Cronkite described his most vivid memory of the blitz as involving an ancient butler. He had a room in what had once been a private mansion that had been turned into a residential hotel, and in the mansion-hotel was an ancient butler said to have been there when the place was a private residence, and there was a buzzer to summon him in each suite of rooms.
One morning Cronkite summoned him because he wanted some tea. Almost immediately afterwards there was the sound of aircraft and a bombing raid began; a bomb hit so close to the house that it shook and windows broke and plaster and roofing fell- it was majorly damaged. Cronkite took cover under a table until the bombing raid was over, at which point he heard footsteps outside and the door to his room open and the ancient butler entered. He was covered in dust and plaster and had bloodstains from some minor wounds on his face and shirt, but said very properly, “You rang, sir?”
For most of WWII, the headquarters of the USAAF Eighth Air Force was located in a former girls’ school in High Wycombe, England, codenamed “Pinetree”. For the first few days, the staff office was tormented all night by the ringing of bells, until an investigation revealed that the system had been installed for the use of girls wanting attention from a school staffer. The bedrooms each had a button labelled “Mistress Wanted”.
The Mighty Eighth Air Force museum is in Pooler, Georgia. Jimmy Doolittle was one of its many notable Commanding Officers (of the 8th Air Force, not the museum).