According to ww1facts.net, 9.7 million military personnel died in WWI. Russia and Germany had the most casualties, 1.7M each, followed by France with 1.3M and Austria with 1.2M. Turkey, with 325,000 military casualties, had more than twice the US military casualties of 126,000.
The Battle of the Somme was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British and French Empires against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the upper reaches of the River Somme in France. The battle was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies and was the largest battle of the First World War on the Western Front. More than one million men were wounded or killed, making it one of the bloodiest battles in human history.
In the February 1862 Battle of Roanoke Island, N.C., some 13,000 U.S. troops squared off against about 2,500 Confederate troops. You can probably guess the outcome.
The Late Glacial Maximum, the beginning of the end of the last major ice age, began about 13,000 years ago. As the ice retreated, humans began moving north into Europe and possibly across the Bering Strait.
As that Late Glacial Maximum ended, the Bretz Floods were several cataclysmic floodwater releases as the ice dams repeatedly failed as the weather warmed. Cycles of freezing and thawing created massive lakes that would then be violently emptied, only to form again behind a new ice dam as temperatures dropped. Water greater than the volume of all five present-day Great Lakes emptied to the Pacific Ocean in a very brief matter of days. The resulting repeated water deluges scoured the Pacific Northwest of the US with some very unique geological features we can see today, including the beautiful Columbia River Valley, the Willamette Valley, and the Grand Coulee.
Evidence has been found of at least 25 cataclysmic floods, and the largest discharge was 13x that of the Amazon River output.
Columbia Pacific University (CPU) was an unaccredited nontraditional distance learning school in California, closed by court order in 2000.
A 1995 review of CPU by the Council for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education listed numerous violations of academic standards, including:
“One master’s-degree student was given credit for “a learning contract describing how he would continue taking dance lessons and watch dance demonstrations in order to improve his skills as a Country Western dancer.””
“A Ph.D. dissertation written in Spanish was approved by four faculty who cannot speak the language.”
“One dissertation “had no hypothesis, no data collection, and no statistical analysis. A member of the visiting committee characterized the work as more like a project paper at the college freshman level.” The dissertation, The Complete Guide to Glass Collecting, was 61 pages long.” (a typical dissertation length is 150 pages)
The oldest chartered university in California is University of the Pacific in Stockton CA. UOP also was the first co-ed university campus in California. UOP alumni include rock singer Chris Isaak, and Super Bowl-winning head coach Tom Flores.
Homo floresiensis is the name for a proposed hominid species, whose remains have been found on the island of Flores in Indonesia. Skeletal remains indicate that the hominids were small in stature, around 1 metre or so, leading to them being nicknamed “hobbits”. It is unclear if they were a separate species of hominids, or a sub-variant of other hominids, such as homo erectus. It is speculated that their small size is an example of insular dwarfism, where a population living on an island with limited resources gradually shrinks in size over generations.
Wee Man from the tv series Jackass has what is labelled as ‘dwarfism’.
Jackass Flats is a shallow alluvial basin located in the southwest portion of the Nevada National Security Site in Nye County, Nevada. The area lies east of Yucca Mountain, south of the Calico Hills and Shoshone Mountain and northwest of Skull Mountain.
The Nevada Test Site was the primary testing location of American nuclear devices from 1951 to 1992; 928 announced nuclear tests occurred there. Of those, 828 were underground.
The Nevada Test Site is 100 miles NW of Las Vegas NV, 75 miles N of Pahrump NV, 70 miles NE of Death Valley National Park, 200 miles W of St. George UT, and 350 miles SE of Lovelock NV (OJ Simpson’s current home).
At times the mushroom clouds from the tests became a tourist attraction.
People living downwind from the test site, the "downwinders’, experienced greater levels of cancer due to the fallout. St. George UT received the brunt of the fallout. Winds routinely carried the fallout of these tests directly through St. George and southern Utah.
Tests were conducted there from 1951 to 1992.
O J. Simpson’s amiable persona and natural charisma landed him numerous endorsement deals. Starting in 1975, Simpson appeared in television commercials for Hertz rental car company, where he was depicted running through airports, serving as an embodiment of speed .
Hertz Rent-a-Car was founded by Walter L. Jacobs in 1918, who started a car rental operation in Chicago with a dozen Model T Ford cars. In 1923, Jacobs sold it to John D. Hertz who made it a subsidiary of his Yellow Truck and Coach Manufacturing Company and renamed it “Hertz Drive-Ur-Self System”.
The city of Ur, in southern Iraq, is noted in recorded history from 46 centuries ago, probably existed as a city 58 centuries ago, and was inhabited for three thousand yeas before that. It was a seaport then, for importation of wealth into Mesopotamia. Now, it is 150 miles inland.
According to news reports, the Rio Olympic golf course is teeming with 4 foot long, 150 pound mutant rodents called capybaras.
Michel Miguel Elias Temer Lulia has been Vice President of Brazil since January 2011. On May 12, 2016, he became Acting President of Brazil following the suspension of President Dilma Rousseff during her impeachment trial before the Brazilian Federal Senate. In that capacity, Temer opened the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro this week and, perhaps not surprisingly, was booed by many of his fellow citizens in attendance.
About 11,000 athletes will be competing in these Olympic games. The US is sending 554 athletes, and China 416.
WarGames is a 1983 American Cold War science-fiction film written by Lawrence Lasker and Walter F. Parkes and directed by John Badham. The film follows David Lightman, a young hacker who unwittingly accesses WOPR (War Operation Plan Response), a United States military supercomputer originally programmed to predict possible outcomes of nuclear war. Lightman gets WOPR to run a nuclear war simulation, originally believing it to be a computer game. The computer, now tied into the nuclear weapons control system, and unable to tell the difference between simulation and reality, attempts to start World War III.
Prince William was visiting China a while ago. Prince George asked his mum where Daddy was. She said “He’s in China.” Prince George toddled over to the China cabinet, looked in, then said "No he’s not. "
Charles Lamb, one of the great English essayists, was admired for his charm and sense of humor, evident in his well known essays “Dream-Children” and “Old China”. Lamb’s life, however, was often troubled by drink, depression, and tragedy. In 1796 his sister, Mary, stabbed their mother to death in a bout of insanity. Charles spent the rest of his life caring for his sister, foregoing marriage to ensure that she would not have to be confined indefinitely to an asylum.