Of the 195 countries in this Wikipedia list of sovereign states and dependencies by area, the two closest countries in size are Peru and Chad. Peru is slightly larger, by 0.094704%. China and the United States, the 3rd and 4th largest countries, are pretty close to each other. China is larger than the United States by 0.487400%, less than ½ of 1%.
Peru is larger than Chad when the tide is out, but smaller when it is in.
Area is deceptive. The same area on a mountainside in Peru is a considerably larger surface than the same area on a flat plane in Chad. Chad has an abundance of the most beautiful beaches in the world, but to its disadvantage, there is no ocean adjacent to them.
Interesting.
I did not include the page link, here it is: List of countries and dependencies by area - Wikipedia
The 2000 election in Florida introduced the concept of dangling chads to the world. Up to then, the term had been solely in the purview of those who dealt with computer punch cards.
As of the 2012 election there are some punch card voting machines still in use.
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They’re probably all in Florida.
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An ordinary Sys/360 punched-card object deck could be made IPL’able(*) by prefixing a six-card loader. If you didn’t need support for ‘REP’ cards nor an initial memory clear, a three-card loader would suffice.
(* - assuming of course that the object program was coded to function standalone.)
IBM, which makes the S/360, has had five of its employees win the Nobel Prize: Leo Esaki (for semiconductors); George Bednorz and Alex Bueller (superconductivity research); and Gerd Binning and Heinrich Rohrer (scanning tunneling microscope).
An LS-Compare Error was not detected on S/370 Model 145 until two cycles after the relevant microinstruction. The machine could nevertheless back up and retry execution from the relevant point.
Gisele Caroline Bündchen is a Brazilian fashion model, actress, and producer. She also acts and is a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Environment Program. She earned nearly $44 million in 2016, making her the highest-paid model for the year, and the 16th richest woman in the entertainment industry.
Muhammad Ali once set the world record for the most income earned in a lifetime from athletic performance. At the time, the previous record had been held by Sonja Henie, a Norwegian figure skater turned film actress, who always skated in her pictures. She earned up pto two million dollars a year, at a time when Babe Ruth’s salary was only $100,000.
Starlight Express on Ice, a reworking of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s railroad musical done on roller skates, but performed on ice skates, toured the United States from September to October 1997. This movement-heavy production featured figure- and stunt-skaters miming to a pre-recorded backing while performing complex routines. It failed to find its target audience and folded halfway through the scheduled tour.
One of the first practical uses of the airplane was stunt-flying, such as aerobatic formations and walking on the wings, to the delight of spectators. Some aircraft producers designed and manufactured planes exclusively for this purpose, such as the Pitts Special, the Extra 200 and 300, and the Sukhoi Su-26M and Sukhoi Su-29. This comes at the expense of general purpose use such as touring, or ease of non aerobatic handling such as landing.
Nicknamed “Slim”, or “The Lone Eagle”, or “Lucky Lindy”, Charles Lindbergh took his first airplane ride in 1922 when he was 20 years old. He started taking flying lessons a few day later. Born in Detroit and raised in Little Falls MN, Lindbergh first soloed at the age of 21 in Georgia. Lindbergh first started delivering mail by air in 1925 at the age of 23. Delivering mail by airplane was another early practical use of the airplane.
Elizabeth Cutter Morrow, born Elizabeth Reeve Cutter (1873 – January 24, 1955) was an American poet in the early 20th century, and became the first female head of Smith College, acting as college president from 1939 to 1940 (though she was never officially granted the title). She was the wife of U.S. Senator Dwight Morrow, and the mother of four children, which included Anne Morrow Lindbergh, distinguished American author and wife of aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh.
Charles Lindbergh is buried on the Hawaiian island of Maui, in the town of Hana and along the tourist-famed ‘Road to Hana’. It is 1.5 miles from the Pools at Ohe’o, a popular stopping point along the Road to Hana.
His grave can be seen in Google Maps, in the large rectangular area to the lower left of the pin marker for the church:
Palapala Ho‘omau Congregational Church: Google Maps
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April 2008, Reeve Lindbergh, Charles’s youngest child with his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh, published Forward From Here: Leaving Middle Age and Other Unexpected Adventures, a book of essays that includes her learning in late July 2003 the truth about her father’s three secret European families and writing in her personal journal on August 8, 2003, “This story reflects absolutely Byzantine layers of deception on the part of our shared father. These children did not even know who he was! He used a pseudonym with them (To protect them, perhaps? To protect himself, absolutely!)” A year later, she traveled to Europe to meet all seven of her half siblings and understand an expanded meaning of family.
Another famous man with a secret family was Jacques Cousteau, who fathered two children in his early 70s by his mistress, Francine Triplet. His grown son Jean Michel from his first marriage did not learn of his half siblings until Jacques married Triplet less than a year after his first wife’s death and openly acknowledged their young children (who were much younger than his grandchildren from his first marriage). Relations with the two families have not been civil: there was considerable litigation over his estate, not just for his assets but for control of his organization and use of his name.
Charles Lindbergh was a key figure in improving the performance of the P-38 Lockheed Lightning. Working as a civilian contractor in the South Pacific during WWII, he developed throttle settings and engine leaning techniques that significantly increased the range of the aircraft.
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