German immigrant, Oscar F. Mayer (1859–1955), born in Germany, began working at a meat market in Detroit, Michigan, and later in Chicago, Illinois. In 1883, Oscar and his brother Gottfried, leased the Kolling Meat Market on the near-northside of Chicago. For nearly a century after that, Oscar Mayer remained an independent company owned primarily by descendants of the Mayer brotherst. In 1981, Oscar Mayer stockholders elected to sell the company to General Foods. Four years later, Philip Morris acquired General Foods, and in 1989 merged General Foods with the newly acquired Kraft Foods Inc.
In The Shawshank Redemption, the mug shot of a young Morgan Freeman as Ellis Boyd ‘Red’ Redding is not a picture of Morgan Freeman. It is a picture of his son, Alfonso Freeman.
Pic: morgan freeman son shawshank redemption - Google Search
Ninja’d. Still in play by The Stainless Steel Rat:
In June, 2007, a Wienermobile with the Wisconsin license plate of YUMMY made headlines after being stopped by an Arizona Department of Public Safety officer for having an allegedly stolen license plate. Officer K. Lankow had observed the Wienermobile slowing traffic and checked the license plate to determine if the vehicle was street legal. The license plate came back as being stolen out of Columbia, Missouri, so the officer stopped the Wienermobile and detained the driver. Oscar Mayer had not notified police that they had obtained a replacement plate after the previous one was stolen, and that it should be considered stolen only if not on a Wienermobile. The Wienermobile was released soon after the error was discovered.
There are 199 five-letter words with two duplicated letters, but only six of them, e.g. slyly, xylyl, yummy, have two 'Y’s.
The stencil duplicator or mimeograph machine is a low-cost duplicating machine that works by forcing ink through a stencil onto paper. The ink, an oil in water emulsion, commonly used Turkey-Red Oil (Sulfated Castor Oil) which gives it a distinctive and heavy scent.
(The last time I used a mimeograph machine was in 1988 but I still remember the odd purplish ink and the strange smell)
It was Isaac Newton who first observed that by placing purple between red and violet, hues could be placed into a color wheel.
By the Statute of Winchester of 1285, 13 Edw. I cc. 1 and 4, it was provided that anyone, either a constable or a private citizen, who witnessed a crime shall make hue and cry, and that the hue and cry must be kept up against the fleeing criminal from town to town and from county to county, until the felon is apprehended and delivered to the sheriff. All able-bodied men, upon hearing the shouts, were obliged to assist in the pursuit of the criminal. Hue is derived from “a shouting,” mid-13c., from Old French hue “outcry, noise, war or hunting cry,”
“Crying in the Rain” is the only collaboration between successful songwriters Howard Greenfield and Carole King, both of whom worked for Aldon Music at the time. On a whim, two Aldon songwriting partnerships decided to switch partners for a day – Gerry Goffin (who normally worked with King) partnered with Greenfield’s frequent writing partner Jack Keller, leaving King and Greenfield to pair up for the day. Despite the success of their collaboration (the song, performed by the Everly Brothers, peaked at #6 on the charts), King and Greenfield never wrote another song together.
Jack Ketch was a notably inept executioner during the time of Charles II and James II. It took him several blows with an axe to chop off Lord Russell’s head, and a similar lengthy process when executing Charles’ bastard son, the Duke of Monmouth a few years later.
Monmouth County in central New Jersey is the northernmost county of the Jersey Shore. This land was first spotted by Europeans by Henry Hudson.
Fort Monmouth is a former installation of the Department of the Army in Monmouth County, New Jersey. The fort officially closed on September 15, 2011. However, it was temporarily reopened on December 2, 2012 as a haven for the evacuation of the borough of Paulsboro’s residents following a freight train derailment on November 30, 2012.
Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, written in 1135, purports to be a translation of a work in Welsh, previously unknown to the twelfth century, before it fell into Geoffrey’s hands. However, some contemporaries accused Geoffrey of having made up the materials, including his story of King Arthur and Merlin.
The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Latin: Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum), written by the Venerable Bede in the 8th century, is a history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict between the pre-Schism Roman Rite and Celtic Christianity.
A prehistoric species of grass, known as Forked three-awned grass or unofficially as “Ice Age Grass,” has been found on Christian Island, Ontario, in Lake Huron. Christian Island’s soil is mainly sand, remnants of Glacial Lake Algonquin.
Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario features a museum on the history of logging. Managed industrial logging is still allowed in the park despite calls to end it.
(ElvisL1ves, I was just looking at excerpts from the Venerable Bede (the story of Caedmon’s Hymn) yesterday. Synchronicity!)
Prior to being selected as the capital of Canada, Ottawa was primarily a logging town, known as Bytown after Colonel By, the English military engineer responsible for building the Rideau Canal. The name Ottawa is from the Odawa First Nation, who speak an Algonquin language.
The smallest National Capital in the world is King Edward Point on South Georgia, which has a population between 9 and 18. It is only a science station, but the capital listing is to establish British claims to South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The smallest permanently occupied national capital is Adamstown on Pitcairn Island, where the entire national population of around 50 lives.
31 ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Swallow. The HMS Swallow built in 1766 is the ship from Europe that first spotted the Pitcairn Islands. The lad who first spotted them was a 15-year old kid who was named Robert Pitcairn.
A third of the male population of Pitcairn Island, including mayor Steve Christian, were convicted of multiple rape charges in 2004, stemming from an island custom of “initiating” their pubescent females. The Pitcairn Supreme Court, consisting entirely of New Zealand judges, which had been created just for the trial, rejected defence claims that the UK lacked jurisdiction.
acob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, the President of South Africa and current president of the governing political party, the African National Congress (ANC), was charged with rape in the Johannesburg High Court on 6 December 2005. The accuser, Zuma’s deceased friend’s daughter, was known by Zuma to be HIV positive. On 8 May 2006, the Court dismissed the charges, agreeing that the sexual act in question was consensual. During the trial, Zuma admitted to having unprotected sex with his accuser but claimed that he took a shower afterwards to cut the risk of contracting HIV. This statement has been condemned by the judge, health experts, AIDS activists and the public in general.