William I, Prince of Orange (1533 – 1584), also widely known as William the Silent, was the main leader of the Dutch revolt against the Spanish Habsburgs that set off the Eighty Years’ War and resulted in the formal independence of the United Provinces in 1648.
Switzerland has 26 cantons, or member states. The canton of Aargau, or Argovia, is in north-central Switzerland and just west of the canton of Zürich. Aar-gau means Aare province, and the canton is situated by the Aare River, the longest river beginning and ending in Switzerland. Habsburg Castle, or Schloss Habsburg, is in the canton of Aargau. The castle is the originating seat of the Habsburg dynasty.
Test only. Disregard. I’m having troubles logging in, related to the outage. I’m seeing if I can post.
Still in play (apparently):
If a flag has a canton it is in the upper left (hoist-side) corner. The canton of Hawai’i’s flag is the Union Jack.
The flags of Australia, New Zealand, Tuvalu and Fiji all contain the Union Jack. Canada’s flag is of course the Maple Leaf, but several Canadian provinces and territories include the Union Jack, including British Columbia, Manitoba, and Ontario.
The ‘1992 Flag Flap’, or the ‘1992 World Series Flag Flap’, was an embarrassing moment for US Marines when a Marine Corporal from the Marine Corps Color Guard in Atlanta GA carried the Canadian flag upside down before game 2 in Atlanta between the Atlanta Braves and the Toronto Blue Jays.
(Image & article) The Upside Down Canadian Flag at the 1992 World Series
To make matters a little worse, singer Tom Cochrane botched some lines of Canada’s National Anthem. Instead of singing the line “… from far and wide, O Canada, we stand on guard for thee …”, Cochrane instead sang a lyric that was in a previous version of the song: “… O Canada, we stand on guard, we stand on guard for thee …”. Not only did Cochrane substitute the archaic lyric, he also did not sing it correctly, as the lyric said “we stand on guard, O Canada, we stand on guard for thee” before it was changed.
When the World Series moved to Toronto for game 3, the Marine Corps Color Guard from Marine Corps Recruiting Station in Buffalo NY did the pre game honors along with Canadian Mounties from the RCMP. USMC Gunnery Sergeant John Wallace (Gunny Wallace), SNCOIC of the USMC Color Guard carrying Canada’s colors almost made yet another(!) serious breech of protocol when he almost dipped Canada’s flag to salute the American colors when the Star Spangled Banner was being played.
He was saved at the last instance when his Color Guard partner, Staff Sergeant Mickey Aviles reminded him.
Great story here from Gunny Wallace about that Game 2 Flag Flap and his Game 3 memories and the classy Canadian people: Memories from the 1992 World Series 'flag flap' - The Globe and Mail
Semper Fi,
Gunny Bullitt, SNCOIC of the Color Guard for 1st Battalion, 14th Marines at Treasure Island Naval Station, San Francisco
(from only a few decades ago)
The concept of the now-popular cryptogram puzzles in newspapers was introduced to American readers with the publication of Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “The Gold Bug”. The location of a hidden treasure is encoded in a manner that can be discovered by solving a cryptogram.
Martin Naydel is quite well known for his comics and comic strips, but also in 1954 he created a word game commonly seen in newspaper puzzle pages, Jumble. Jumble, originally called Scramble, appears in over 600 newspapers.
And I love that game!
It’s online, but only one game per day:
In play"
Missing play?
Originally the tennis ball consisted of rough cloth strips tightly bound together. Eventually the cloth strips became the core, wrapped in twine and covered by a finer cloth or felt hand-stitched around it
(Previous “In play” was in a quote box, which appers on my screen.)
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There is a pineapple on top of the Wimbledon tennis trophy. Nobody knows why for sure. One theory says it has to do with the tradition of British navy captains putting a pineapple atop their gateposts on returning home from sea.
Once harvested, pineapples don’t continue to ripen. That means that every single pineapple in the grocery store is as ripe as it will ever be so don’t buy one and save it for a week, thinking it will ripen. The difference in colors is mostly based on where the pineapples were grown.
A small and not very scientific study concluded that eating pineapple dramatically improves the taste and sweetness of seminal and vaginal fluids.
Cite: https://porkandgin.com/ingredients/the-pineapple-sex-test/
The last shipment of pineapples has sailed from Hawaii. Pineapples currently grown there will be sold only locally in Hawaiian markets. The pineapple plant is believed to have originated in the Iguazu Falls area, in South America.
Hawaii is the most isolated population center on the face of the earth. Hawaii is 2,390 miles from California; 3,850 miles from Japan; 4,900 miles from China; and 5,280 miles from the Philippines.
Hawaii was settled by Polynesian navigators from Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands; both of these island groups are over 2,000 miles away from Hawaii.
There are about 40 Polynesian languages.
The Hawaiian campus of Brigham Young University has a 42 acre section on which they have constructed living history reconstructions of traditional Polynesian villages from several different Polynesian cultures. The complex also includes a large museum and an IMAX.