D’oh! Should be “the Spanish Empire,” obviously.
In play:
Reykjavík is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is the world’s northernmost capital of a sovereign state; roughly two-thirds of the Icelandic population live in or near it.
None of Iceland is north of the Arctic Circle, but you cannot determine that from Google Maps, which ignore all coordinates as if they were not geographical features… A Google Map search for /arctic circle/ yields a restaurant in Cedar City, Utah. Seven countries have territory north of the Arctic Circle, but Iceland is not one of them.
The Arctic Ocean’s ice sheet is four times as large as the state of Texas.
The Antarctic ice sheet contains over 21000 trillion tonnes of fresh water, a majority of the Earth’s fresh water. All the water in the world’s freshwater lakes and rivers adds up to less than a 100 trillion tonnes.
The coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth was minus 128.56 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 89.2 degrees Celsius), registered on July 21, 1983, at Antarctica’s Vostok station.
On July 21, 2001, at the conclusion of a fireworks display on Okura Beach in Akashi, Hyōgo, Japan, 11 people were killed and more than 120 injured when a pedestrian footbridge connecting the beach to JR Asagiri Station becomes overcrowded and people leaving the event fall down in a domino effect.
Bora Bora, in Tahiti, has one of the most popular beaches in the world at Matira Point. Bora Bora boasts the nickname the “Romantic Island,” a moniker easy to appreciate with its isolated beaches, intimate hotels, and quiet atmosphere.
“Point/Counterpoint” was a recurring segment in the early days of Saturday Night Live’s news spoof “Weekend Update,” in which Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd would insult one another while debating an issue of the day. Curtin usually went first, and Aykroyd would invariably begin his response by saying, “Jane, you ignorant slut.”
(Define “popular”, in juxtaposition with isloated, intimate and quiet.)
The lithological nature of Tora Bora, Afghanistan, is predominantly metamorphic gneiss and schist. It would make for an “unpopular” beach, even if it had an ocean.
Beautiful destination?
Playing off of Elendil’s Heir, looks like a ninja there: Jane Curtin is a cousin of actress Valerie Curtin. Jane Curtin disliked the drug culture that many of the Saturday Night Live cast participated in. Show writer Al Franken stated that she “was so steady. Had a really strong moral center, and as such was disgusted by much of the show and the people around it”.
Maybe there was more to it than the humor in the line, “Jane, you ignorant slut.”
Al Franken (D-Minn.) is the only former Saturday Night Live cast member to be elected to the United States Senate. He has been mentioned as a possible running mate for Hillary Clinton, the presumptive 2016 Democratic nominee for President.
No Presidents have come from Minnesota. Not yet. Two Vice Presidents hailed from Minnesota, Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale.
Frances Ethel Gumm was born in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, and entered vaudeville at a very young age performing with two older sisters as the Gumm Sisters. She changed her name, made films with a young actor who’d also changed his name, from Joseph Yule, Jr. Miss Gumm eventually played in over forty films. She never won an ordinary Oscar but she did win a Juvenile Oscar, three Grammys, a special Tony, and the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement. She was also nominated for awards several times, including for three Emmys.
The Gumm Sisters broke up by August 1935, when Suzanne Garland flew to Reno, Nevada and married musician Lee Kahn, a member of the Jimmy Davis orchestra playing at Cal-Neva Lodge, Lake Tahoe. The Cal-Neva Lodge straddles the state line between California and Nevada.
Anything Goes was a Cole Porter musical where Ethel Merman played Reno Sweeney, an evangelist turned nightclub singer. The plot originally was to be about a cruise ship being shipwrecked, but a disastrous fire on the Morro Castle had the writers reworking the plot to avoid the parallel. The musical introduced the Cole Porter classics “Anything Goes,” “You’re the Top,” and “I Get a Kick Out of You.” Later revivals found room for additional Porter songs.
Coleslaw, Cauliflower and Kohlrabi are all words that trace their origin back to Cabbage, but got various spelling in English accoding to when and from where the name of the vegetable wandered into English. Coleslaw comes from Dutch, Cauliflower from Italian, Kohlrabi from German.
Jakob Maria Mierscheid has been a fictitious German parliamentarian since 1979, mentioned in numerous official and otherwise-respectable publications.
Erich Maria Remarque, the author of “All Quiet on the Western Front”, assimed that middle name as an author. He was born Erich Paul Remark. He married and divorced the same woman twice. He was also involved in dalliances with Hedy Lamarr, Dolores del Río, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and Paulette Goddard.
But no one ever mentions Jane starting each sketch with “Dan, you pompous swine-ass.”
Los del Rio, “The People of the River”, hailing from Dos Hermanas, Spain, had their only international hit of a long career in 1994 with the dance sensation “Macarena”.
Hanya Yanagihara’s first novel was “The People in the Trees”. It was followed by her “A Little Life”, which was short-lesited for the 2015 Man Booker award and a finalist for the National Book Award.