The bicentennial of the birth of Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas, a Virginian who remained loyal to the United States at the outbreak of the Civil War, commanded the Army of the Cumberland and went on to earn the deathless nickname “the Rock of Chickamauga,” is this Sunday.
The Chickamauga Campaign in southeastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia was fought in August and September 1863. At the Battle of Chickamauga the Confederates held a numerical advantage over the Union Army. The Confederates failed to earn a decisive victory.
Chickamauga and Chattanooga State Military Park was founded by Union veteran Henry Van Ness Boynton.
“Chattanooga Choo Choo” is a 1941 song by Harry Warren and Mack Gordon. It was originally recorded as a big-band tune by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra and featured in the 1941 movie Sun Valley Serenade. The Glenn Miller recording became the #1 song across the United States on December 7, 1941, and remained at #1 for nine weeks on the Billboard Best Sellers chart. The flip side of the single was the far less popular “I Know Why (And So Do You)”, the A side, which peaked at #18 on the charts for 1 week.
Sonja Henie, the Norwegian figure skater, has won more Olympic and World skating titles than any other woman. When band leader Glenn Miller made his first movie, Sun Valley Serenade in 1941, it was with Sonja Henie.
One of the favorite exclamations of the late Tom Magliozzi (Click of Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers) on NPR’s “Car Talk” was “Sonja Henie’s tutu!”
When Muhammed Ali’s lifetime earnings through athletic performance set an all time record, it was Sonja Henie’s mark that he eclipsed. She had earned $40-million during her career as a figure skater.
Ali ibn Abi Talib ( 601- 661) was the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad (PBUH), ruling over the Islamic caliphate from 656 to 661. Ali was the only person born in the sacred sanctuary of the Kaaba in Mecca, the holiest place in Islam, according to many Shia sources.
The Arabic phrase ʿalayhi as-salām is a phrase called a ṣalawāt that is attached to the names of the prophets in Islam. In English the phrase is often abbreviated PBUH or pbuh, for Peace Be Upon Him.
U.S. President Richard Nixon used the V hand gesture to signal victory in the Vietnam War, an act which became one of his best-known trademarks. He also used it on his departure from public office following his resignation in 1974.
Protesters against the Vietnam War (and subsequent anti-war protests) and counterculture activists adopted the gesture as a sign of peace. Because the hippies of the day often flashed this sign (palm out) while saying “Peace”, it became popularly known (through association) as the peace sign.
The peace symbol is now internationally recognized. It was first used in 1958 London for a nuclear disarmament march starting from Trafalgar Square. It was designed by an artist and designer to represent the overlayed images of the semaphore signals for N and D - Nuclear Disarmament.
In semaphore the letter “N” is formed by a person holding two flags in an inverted “V”, and the letter “D” is formed by holding one flag pointed straight up and the other pointed straight down. Superimposing these two signs forms the shape of the centre of the peace symbol.
The Straight Dope on the peace symbol.
During the 1960s in the USA, activists against the Vietnam War and in subsequent anti-war protests adopted the two-fingered “V” gesture as a sign of peace. It had recently been used to symbolize V for Victory in WWII.
Even Winston Churchill got into the act in using the V-sign: V sign - Wikipedia
In July 1941 BBC radio launched ‘V for Victory’, a propaganda campaign that encouraged listeners across Nazi-occupied Europe to show their support for the Allies.
The idea was inspired by Victor de Laveleye, a Belgian working at the BBC, who told his countrymen to use the letter V as a “rallying emblem” since it is the first letter of the French word for victory (victoire), the Flemish word for freedom (vrijheid) and, of course, the English word victory, making it a multinational symbol of solidarity.
Not long after the July broadcast, Douglas Ritchie, the 36-year-old news editor who went by the on-air pseudonym of Colonel Britton, realised that the three staccato notes and one long note at the start of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony echoed the Morse code for the letter V (dot-dot-dot-dash). Ritchie made it the theme song for his radio programme and listeners began to replicate the sound any way they could as a symbol of resistance.
Making the V for Victory or peace sign the palm facing inwards is often compared to the offensive gesture known as “the finger”. The “two-fingered salute”, (also “the forks” in Australia) is commonly performed by flicking the V upwards from wrist or elbow. The V sign, with the palm is facing toward the person giving the sign, has long been an insulting gesture in England,and later in the rest of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, India, Pakistan and New Zealand.
While touring Australia in 1992, George W Bush attempted to give a “peace sign” to a group of farmers in Canberra—who were protesting about U.S. farm subsidies—and instead gave the insulting V sign.
George W. Bush was honorably discharged from the Air Force Reserve on November 21, 1974.
That is George H W Bush. Not W.
George H W Bush piloted the Grumman TBF Avenger in WWII. At his Presidential Library on the Texas A&M campus, one is suspended from the ceiling on display.
Texas A&M was originally known as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas under the provisions of the Morrill Land-Grant Acts. Originally, the college taught no classes in agriculture, instead concentrating on classical studies, languages, literature, and applied mathematics.
The official greeting of Texas A&M University is howdy.