Corn pone is a type of cornbread made from a thick, malleable cornmeal dough (which is usually egg-less and milk-less) and cooked in a specific type of iron pan over an open fire (such as a frontiersman would use), using butter, margarine, Crisco (shortening), or cooking oil.
“Swiftwater” Bill Gates was known to be at the gold fields of Nome, Alaska at the same time as William H Gates I, grandfather of the Microsoft founder. However, despite the similarity in name and each being considered a frontiersman, there is no apparent family relationship between “Swiftwater Bill” and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
About Bert and Ernie, I found it on the internet. It must be true. :eek:
About Salmon, that was mistyped. Thanks for the correction.
In play: Actress Gates McFadden, most commonly known for her role as the ship’s doctor in Star Trek: The Next Generation, was in a small speaking role in The Hunt for Red October. She was on screen for less than five seconds at the very beginning, while the opening credits were still rolling.
Bill Gates, the philanthropist and wealthiest living person, is 4th cousin 6 times removed of John Brown, the Martyr of Harper’s Ferry.
Harpers Ferry lies at West Virginia’s easternmost point. It sits at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, where West Virginia, Maryland, and Virginia meet at a point about 30 miles south of the Pennsylvania state line. Upstream of Harpers Ferry, the Potomac River separates West Virginia and Maryland, and the Shenandoah River separates West Virginia and Virginia.
Harper’s Ferry is a town (of 286, according to the 2010 census) named for Robert Harper, who in 1761 established a ferry across the Potomac River. This enabled settlers to move into the Shenandoah Valley, and to points west.
In 1783, Thomas Jefferson, after serving as the second Governor of Virginia, visited Harper’s Ferry and viewed the passage of the Potomac through the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Appalachians. He stood on a rock that offered a commanding view and said, “this scene is worth a voyage across the Atlantic”, and he called it “perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in nature.” That rock is now called Jefferson Rock.
Harpers Ferry, West Virginia lies in Jefferson County. The town name originally had an apostrophe, but that has been dropped. Some references still have the apostrophe, however.
Jeannie C. Riley’s 1968 song “Harper Valley PTA”, written by Tom T. Hall and exploring the hypocritical moralizing endemic in a small town, was turned into a film and TV series, both starring Barbara “I Dream of Jeannie” Eden. The song made Riley the first woman to top both the Billboard Hot 100 and the U.S. Hot Country Singles charts with the same song, a feat that would go unrepeated until Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” in 1981.
The Life of Riley, with William Bendix in the title role, is a popular American radio situation comedy series of the 1940s that was adapted into a 1949 feature film, and then a 1950s television series (originally with Jackie Gleason as Riley for one truncated season, then with Bendix for the remaining six seasons). It cast Bendix as blundering Chester A. Riley, a wing riveter at the fictional Cunningham Aircraft plant in California. His frequent exclamation of indignation—“What a revoltin’ development this is!”—became one of the most famous catchphrases of the 1940s.
A famous movie quote from the 1940s is from Gilda (1946):
Glenn Ford as Johnny - “Are you decent?”
Rita Hayworth as Gilda - “Me? (pause) Sure, I’m decent.”
The Legion of Decency, formed in 1933 to identify and combat “objectionable” content in films shown in the US, condemned a number of notable films, including “Spartacus” (for homosexual innuendo), “Psycho” (for violence and a scene showing an unmarried couple on a bed, the woman wearing a bra and no other top) and “A Clockwork Orange”.
According to an estimate by Outsports magazine, a record number of at least 47 publicly out athletes are competing in the Rio Olympics, more than double the number of London 2012, as well as three coaches.
I raise a glass and my good thoughts go out to the great Greg Lougainis, the only male and the second diver in Olympic history to sweep the diving events in consecutive Olympic Games. Lougainis accomplished this feat at the 1984 Los Angeles and the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympic games.
The British ocean liner RMS Olympic, a sister ship of RMS Titanic, was scrapped in 1937, having completed 257 round trips across the Atlantic, transporting 430,000 passengers and travelling 1.8 million miles.
MS Harmony of the Seas of Royal Caribbean International, launched in May 2016, is currently the largest ocean liner. She is 1,188’ long and has a GT (gross tonnage) of 226,963.
To compare some selected ships, sorted by GT or GRT (gross register tonnage):
GT or GRT / Length / Launched / Ship
226,963 GT / 1,188’ / 2016 / MS Harmony of the Seas
225,282 GT / 1,187’ / 2010 / MS Allure of the Seas (previously the largest)
148,528 GT / 1,132’ / 2003 / RMS Queen Mary 2
129,690 GT / 1,114’ / 2010 / Disney Dream
114,147 GT / 952’ / 2005 / Costa Concordia
83,338 GT / 964’ / 1997 / Disney Magic
81,237 GRT / 1,019’ / 1934 / RMS Queen Mary
46,328 GRT / 882’ / 1911 / RMS Titanic
45,324 GRT / 882’ / 1910 / RMS Olympic
31,550 GRT / 787’ / 1906 / RMS Lusitania
29,083 GRT / 701’ / 1951 / SS Andrea Doria
26,454 GRT / 722’ / 1939 / SS America
25,022 GRT / 638’ / 1968 / TS Hamburg (used in the film Juggernaut (1974))
The MV Barzan is a container ship that is currently the longest ship in service, at 400 Meters (1,300 feet). Several supertankers were longer, but have been taken out of service and broken up. The ship can carry up to 18,800 TEU’s (Twenty Foot Equivalent) containers.
The two largest U.S. Navy hospital ships now in commission, USNS Mercy and Comfort, were converted from supertankers.
“May God have mercy on your soul” was the traditional closing of a death sentence passed by English judges.
Since 1973, 153 people have been exonerated from death row. Many of these individuals were convicted based on flawed evidence or testimony. Some were convicted based on forced confessions given under duress. Many were the victims of prosecutorial misconduct. On average, it took more than 11 years after these 153 people were sentenced to death before they were exonerated. 10 of the exonerations since 2013 occurred 30 or more years after the wrongful conviction.
Of the countries considered to be industrialized, just five countries continue to perform capital punishment: the United States, Japan, Singapore, St. Kitts & Nevis, and Taiwan. In South Korea, there is a moratorium.
The European Union holds a strong position against the death penalty; its abolition is a key objective for the Union’s human rights policy. Abolition is also a pre-condition for entry into the Union. In Europe, only Belarus continues to execute people.
Venezuela was the first nation in the world to abolish capital punishment, in 1863. In Europe the first to abolish it were San Marino (1865), Iceland (1928), Italy (1948) and Germany (1949)
The original members of the United Nations in 1945 were: France, the Republic of China, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the United States of America, Argentina, Australia, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Liberia, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay, Venezuela and Yugoslavia.
The Paraguayan War was a South American war fought from 1864 to 1870 between Paraguay and the Triple Alliance of Argentina, the Empire of Brazil, and Uruguay. With an estimated 400,000 deaths, the war was the deadliest and bloodiest in Latin America’s history. It particularly devastated Paraguay, which suffered catastrophic losses in population - almost 70% of its adult male population died, according to some counts - and was forced to cede territory to Argentina and Brazil. According to some estimates, Paraguay’s pre-war population of 525,000 was reduced to 221,000 of which only 28,000 were men.