A truncated icosahedron is an Archimedean solid whose faces are comprised of two or more types of regular polygons. It has 12 regular pentagonal faces, 20 regular hexagonal faces, 60 vertices and 90 edges. A Buckminsterfullerene (C[sub]60[/sub]) is one such truncated icosahedron and is also known as a buckeyball, and has a Carbon atom at each of the 60 vertices and a bond along each of the 90 edges. The study of buckeyballs has led to a field of chemistry called fullerenes.
Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, was a heavy smoker and drinker for most of his life and succumbed to heart disease in 1964 at the age of 56
That’s way too young. In play: Ian Fleming’s middle name was Lancaster, and Lancaster CA is a city near Edwards Air Force Base, about 30 miles southwest of the base. Lancaster CA is in the Antelope Valley of the state. Antelope Valley is the western tip of the Mojave Desert and originally the home of the Paiute Indians. Like many cities and towns in central California, Lancaster’s beginnings start with it being a station house along the Southern Pacific Railroad. The origin of the city’s name is unclear and may come from either the surname of a railroad station clerk, the moniker given by railroad officials, or the former Pennsylvania home (Lancaster PA) of unknown settlers.
Lancaster, California is pronounced LAN-caster, while Lancaster, PA is pronounced LANK-ester.
The Avro Lancaster was a 4-engined WWII bomber for the British RAF. During WWII, US bombers dropped 623,000 tons of bombs on Germany, and RAF bombers dropped 965,000 tons.
The Wars of the Roses were a series of wars for control of the throne of England in the 1400s. They were fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet, the Houses of Lancaster (represented by the red rose) and York (the white rose).
York Peppermint Patties were first produced in York PA in 1940. A singular candy is called a Pattie, not a Patty. They are now produced and sold by Hershey.
York Peppermint Patties are made with the controversial ingredient PGPR (Polyglycerol polyricinoleate) which is used as a replacement for cocoa butter. The FDA has determined it to be “safe for humans as long as you restrict your intake to 7.5 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. Otherwise you’d be open to reversible liver enlargement at higher intakes.”
Get the sensation.
The full name of Peppermint Patty, from Charles Schultz’s Peanuts, is Patricia Reichardt.
Lucy’s full name is Lucille G. Van Pelt. The middle initial was inscribed on a trophy she once won, naming her Hennepin County Fussbudget of the Year.
Hennepin County MN is named after Father Louis Hennepin, a Franciscan priest and missionary who lived from 1626-1705. On his expeditions Hennepin brought attention of two key waterfalls to the world: Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, and Niagara Falls on the boundary between New York and Ontario. Saint Anthony Falls is the only waterfalls on the Mississippi River, and Niagara Falls has the most water flowing over it than any other in North America.
Most places named Saint Louis are named after Louis IX, king of France in the 13th century. A notable exception is San Luis Obispo, California, which was named for Saint Louis of Toulouse, consecrated bishop in 1297, and lived only six months before he died of typhoid at the age of 23.
The Battle of Toulouse in 1814 was one of the final battles of the Napoleonic Wars, occuring four days after Napoleon’s surrender of the French Empire to the nations of the Sixth Coalition. One British and two Spanish divisions were badly mauled in bloody fighting on 10 April, with Allied losses exceeding French casualties by 1,400.
In France, yet to this day, if you owned a pig, you are not legally allowed to name it Napoleon.
Actors who have voiced Napoleon the hog in adaptations of George Orwell’s Animal Farm include Maurice Denham and Patrick Stewart.
BigBud 747, the Largest Farm Tractor ever built, is 28½ feet long, 14 feet high, 21 feet wide and has a wheel base of 16½ feet; it weighs in at 45 tons with a full tank. It was originally designed for the Rossi Brothers, cotton farmers in Bakersfield, California. The Rossi Brothers used the tractor for deep ripping.
There have been seven warships in the U.S. Navy named the USS California, the most recent of which is a Virginia-class nuclear fast-attack submarine commissioned in 2011 and still in service.
Battleship Row in Pearl Harbor on Sunday 07 December 1941 had eight battleships moored east of Ford Island in Pearl Harbor. From northeast to southwest they were: USS Nevada, USS Arizona, then USS Tennessee and USS West Virginia side by side, then USS Maryland ans USS Oklahoma side by side, USS California close to Ford Island, and USS Pennsylvania in dry dock. Ford Island was to the northwest of the battleships.
The Arizona, California, Oklahoma and West Virginia were sunk that morning.
My father’s uncle, Patrocinio Pablo, was aboard Arizona in the attack. When I was a child he showed me his congratulatory letter from FDR, recognizing him as a Pearl Harbor survivor. He told me he got on deck and dove into the water and swam underneath the burning oil on the surface, to Ford Island. To breathe, he said he surfaced, clear the burning oil, take his breath, and continued underwater to the island.
He is listed on this nps.gov page of USS Arizona survivors, Patrocinio Pablo, OS1c.
ETA: As kids growing up, we called him “Lolo Enyong.” He lived in San Jose CA.
The Sand Pebbles is a 1966 American DeLuxe Color period war film in Panavision directed by Robert Wise. It tells the story of an independent, rebellious U.S. Navy machinist’s mate, first class aboard the fictional gunboat USS San Pablo in 1920s China.
The film features Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, Richard Crenna, Candice Bergen, Mako, Simon Oakland, Larry Gates, and Marayat Andriane (later known as a writer of erotic fiction under the nom de plume Emmanuelle Arsan). Robert Anderson adapted the screenplay from the 1962 novel of the same name by Richard McKenna.
The USS San Pablo (AVP-30) was a seaplane tender in WWII. She served as an embarkation ship for Marines in New Caledonia. To date she is the only US Navy ship to be named for San Pablo Bay, an extension of San Francisco Bay.
The US Navy’s first aircraft carrier, USS Langley, was sunk in WWII while serving as a seaplane tender.