Death Valley is one hot ass place!
The thaler was a silver coin used throughout Europe for almost four hundred years. Its name lives on in the many currencies called dollar and until recently, also the Slovenian tolar.
The name “thaler” was an abbreviation of “Joachimsthaler”, a coin type from the town of Joachimsthal in the Kingdom of Bohemia, where silver mines were opened and the first such coins minted in 1518. The original Czech thaler carried a lion, the Czech coat of arms (of the Kingdom of Bohemia)
Etymologically, Thal is German for “valley” and a “thaler” is a person or a thing “from the valley”. The Czech spelling was tolar; many varieties of the term are used in different languages.
Richard Thaler wrote about behavioral economics and advocated companies auto-enrolling their employees into automatic 401(k) payroll deductions, with an opt out option. In the 2015 movie, The Big Short, Thaler made a brief cameo appearance as himself.
Cameo jewelry such as brooches and necklace pendants has been popular in Italy since Ancient Roman times. It is now sold in local Italian workshops (especially in Torre del Greco, Naples) as well as in tourist stores (where the cameos may be made in China)
There is a Naples Creek south of San Francisco CA, in San Mateo County, that drains from the Santa Cruz Mountains down into the Pacific Ocean at Half Moon Bay. There is also a Naples TX, near the northeasternmost corner of the state (near Arkansas and Louisiana, not in the panhandle). Naples TX hosts their annual Watermelon Festival at the end of July.
Neapolitan ice cream (Chocolate, vanilla and strawberry in layers) is from the demonym meaning “person or thing from Naples”. Italians call the city Napoli.
Half Moon Street in London was a fashionable address during the 18th century. It took its name from a public house which once stood on the spot.
A half moon can be waxing or waning, depending on if it is getting larger or smaller, respectively. When the moon is between half moon and new moon (not visible), it is a crescent moon. The crescent moon can also be waxing or waning. When the moon is between half moon and full moon, it is a gibbous moon. Likewise, a gibbous moon can be waxing or waning. The word gibbous comes from the Latin for humped or hunched. A gibbous moon has a convex shape. A crescent moon has a concave shape. A gibbous moon is a moon phase that is on either side of the full moon. A crescent moon is a moon phase that is on either side of the new moon.
A sharia committee overseeing a rebel-held area of Aleppo, Hayaa al-Sharia, banned Syrians from consuming croissants in 2013. The committee announced that the crescent moon-shaped pastry “celebrates European victory over Muslims,” Al Arabiya reported.
The ban on croissants likely stems from the legend that the pastry was invented in Budapest to celebrate repelling a Turkish invasion. Many food historians have debunked the veracity of the legend.
The three witches in Macbeth put a curse on a plumb young matron because she didn’t share her snack of chestnuts. The curse was to strike her husband, who had sailed to Aleppo in command of a merchant ship called the Tiger, and presumably cause his shipwreck in a storm.
Most scholars agree that the speech where the witch Hecate scolds the three unnamed witches, in Act 3 Scene 5 of Macbeth, was not written by Shakespeare. A possible author is Thomas Middleton, who wrote a play called The Witch.
The Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, when she was younger, her school nickname was “Squeak”. One of her nicknames for her husband, Prince William, is “Big Willie.”
No comment.
Prince George, Duke of Cambridge, grandson of King George III and cousin to Queen Victoria, married his mistress while she was pregnant with their third son. Since he had not obtained the permission of Her Majesty under the Royal Marriages Act, none of his three sons were considered legitimate and could not inherit his title, which lapsed on his death.
The last time the figure on Canadian coins was changed was when Elizabeth II took the throne after the death of her father George VI in 1952!
It was Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin who informed Edward VIII that he could not marry a divorced woman, Wallis Simpson, and remain king. I imagine there were others. Edward abdicated, and younger brother Albert ascended the throne as George VI. Stanley Baldwin is the only Prime Minister to have served under three monarchs, George V, Edward VIII, and George VI.
There is a place in the United States where traffic drives on the left. The US Virgin Islands drive on the same side of the road as in the British Virgin Islands, although most VI drivers own vehicles with the steering wheel on the left side of the car.
There are peculiar lane markings at the middle of the Friendship Bridge at Myawaddy, Myanmar, where cars and trucks driving on the left switch to the right and vice versa. Much of the traffic is pedestrian, though many foot travellers avoid the delays at the passport controls at each end of the bridge by just boating or wading across the Moei River.
There are very few places in the world where a significant amount of road traffic has to switch sides when crossing a border. Thailand/Cambodia might be the busiest such border, which I crossed a few months ago. Many of the switch borders are places where there is very little international traffic, or a ferry crossing is required, obviating a lane-crossing. I’ve also crossed such land-switch borders going Thailand/Laos and Uganda/Rwanda.
A “flipper” bridge between China and Hong Kong transfers drivers from one side of the road to the other when crossing the border.
In the 1960s TV show “Flipper”, the title role of Flipper, a male, was usually portrayed by five different female dolphins. The most commonly used ones were named “Kathy” and “Susie.” Female dolphins were chosen because they are less aggressive than males and their skins (unlike the skins of male dolphins) are usually free from scars and other marks acquired in altercations with other dolphins.