The flag of Greece, officially recognised by Greece as one of its national symbols, is based on nine equal horizontal stripes of blue alternating with white. There is a blue canton in the upper hoist-side corner bearing a white cross; the cross symbolises Eastern Orthodox Christianity, the established religion of the Greek people of Greece and Cyprus.
picture: http://www.flagsinformation.com/greece-country-flag.html
Before Swiss confederation in 1848, the cantons of Switzerland were each sovereign nations, rising from eight in the 14th century to 13 that formed Switzerland. Now there are 26, having added the newest one when Jura seceded from Bern in 1979.
Guangzhou, formerly known as Canton, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong Province in southeastern China. It has long been one of China’s major trading centers, having been the terminus of the Silk Route and one of the few ports open to foreign ships in Imperial times.
Two major cities in China have lent their names to towns in more than half the US states. Twenty four states have a Canton, including Canton, Ohio, the site of the founding of the National Football League. There are also seven towns named Pekin, including Paducah, Kentucky, originally settled as Pekin, which was then the usual English spelling of Beijing… There is a Shanghai in Virginia and West Virginia, possibly the only place name that occurs on both those states.
Shanghai is also known as the Pearl of the Orient and Paris of the East. Manila, Philippines used to be called the Pearl of the Orient. There is a residential skyscraper (all 42 above-ground stories of it, at 551’ high) in Manila called the Pearl of the Orient Tower. And in Shanghai the Oriental Pearl Tower towers 1,535’ high.
Beirut was known as “Paris of the Middle East” until civil war broke out in the mid 1970s.
Beirut, on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, is 80 miles north of Haifa and 40 miles south of Tripoli. Actor Keanu Reeves was born in Beirut - yo dude, that’s righteous.
Mount Carmel in Haifa is the site of three landmarks of religious significance. The oldest is the cave of the prophet Elijah, from Biblical times. From the medieval era is Stella Maris monastery, original site of the Roman Catholic Carmelite order. The most recent is the Baha’i Shrine of the Bab.
On a personal note I last saw Haifa in 1977 but remember it clearly as the most beautiful city in Israel.
The Carmel Formation is a geologic formation in the San Rafael Group that is spread across the US states of Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, north east Arizona and New Mexico.
The rare San Rafael cactus grows only in the San Rafael Swell, a large geologic feature in south-central Utah. The San Rafael Swell is about 30 miles west of Green River UT, and has many rare native plants and a high rate of endemism.
John Wesley Powell led the first expedition to transit the Grand Canyon. The nine-man expedition began when they launched four boats into the Green River in Wyoming. The Green River’s confluence with Colorado River is near Moab, UT.
Powell was remarkable in many ways, not the least of which was his ability to lead a brutal expedition and to explore the sheer cliffs of the Canyon, even though he had lost most of his right arm in the Civil War.
Steve Canyon was a very successful comic strip by Milton Caniff, which he created after he left his first big success, Terry and the Pirates. Canyon was originally the owner of an air transport business, but he rejoined the air force during the Korean War and was set as a military officer thereafter.
Bill Terry was the last National League player to bat .400, finishing the 1930 season with a .401 average for the New York Giants. Only Ted Williams, playing in the American League, has done since, topping the .400 mark in 1941. Like Babe Ruth, Terry started his baseball career as a very good pitcher, and switched to an every-day player because of his hitting skills.
Pitcher plants are carnivorous plants that feed on insects trapped in a tube-like structure filled with liquid that digests the prey. Some pitcher plants rely on mutualistic insect larvae that live inside the tube, and digest the captured prey, releasing excreta that is absorbed by the pitcher plant. Other pitcher plants attract tree shrews who consume nectar and defacate into the tube, nourishing the plant.
Pitcher Santiago Casilla of the San Francisco Giants committed a very rare gaffe, a walk-off balk to [del]end[/del] lose the game (39-sec video link). In all of MLB recorded history there have been about 21 walk off balks. To compare, there have been 295 no-hitters and 23 perfect games.
Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees that the English and French minorities in each province are entitled to publicly funding education for their children in their own language.
Napoleon’s French chef on St. Helena was considered one of the finest chefs in Rome and was handpicked and sent by his sister and mother, but he could not take the isolation and climate of the island and left, as did other cooks employed by Napoleon who either left or were discharged. In the final years of his life Napoleon’s primary cooks were Chinese, as often were the cuisine they prepared. (Approximately 600 of the island’s approximately 4,500 residents were Chinese; Africans were the majority population, followed by white settlers and soldiers.)
St. Helena was the consort of the Roman Emperor Constantius Chlorus and the mother of Emperor Constantine the Great. She is an important figure in the history of Christianity and the world due to her major influence on her son and her own contribution in placing Christianity at the heart of Western Civilization. She is traditionally credited with a pilgrimage to Syria Palaestina, during which she is claimed to have discovered the True Cross.
St. Helena Parish is one of nine parishes in Louisiana beginning with “Saint”, Only eight of them appear on the calendar of Roman Catholic saints. Saint Tammany was a Native American who, after a lifetime of peace-making with European settlers, was still revered a century after his death in 1701. He was also the namesake of Tammany Hall.
A Tammany monument to New York troops who fought, suffered and died in the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg stands on the battlefield to this day: Monument to the 42nd New York at Gettysburg