“The Mighty Hercules” is a Canadian/American low-budget animated series featuring Hercules, the legendary hero, who dwells on Mount Olympus. When villains threaten the people of ancient Greece, often in the fictional kingdom of Caledon, Hercules comes to the rescue of the Kingdom or whomever may be in trouble. When in serious danger, Hercules puts on his magic ring from which he gets his superpowers. Once wearing the ring and raising his fist, the ring is struck by flashes of lightning (referred to as the Thunder of Zeus in several episodes). Hercules is then endowed with super-strength, and goes forth for several brief episodes to do battle with nemeses such as Daedalus, an evil wizard who is the chief villain (sometimes accompanied by his pet cat Dydo); as well as others such as Wilhemine the Sea Witch (accompanied by her pet bird Elvira); and Murtis (aka The Mask of Vulcan), who was invulnerable due to his wearing of an iron helmet, itself known as the Mask of Vulcan.
Greece has over 1,000 islands. The estimated total number of islands is between roughly 1,200 and 6,000 islands. Of these, somewhere between 166 and 227 of them are inhabited.
The Philippines has about 7,500 islands, and 2,000 of them are inhabited. About 5,000 islands have yet to be named.
Thousand Island dressing is a salad dressing and condiment based on mayonnaise and can include olive oil, lemon juice, orange juice, paprika, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, vinegar, cream, chili sauce, tomato purée, ketchup, or Tabasco sauce. It also typically contains finely chopped ingredients, which can include pickles, onions, bell peppers, green olives, hard-boiled egg, parsley, pimento, chives, garlic, or chopped nuts (such as walnuts or chestnuts). It originated in the Thousand Island region on the St. Lawrence River, between New York state and Ontario, where it was put on the menu at Boldt Castle, a summer home of Waldorf Astoria proprietor George Boldt.
To count as one of the Thousand Islands, emergent land within the St. Lawrence River channel must have at least one square foot of land above water level year-round, and support at least two living trees.
The Saint Lawrence Seaway is a system of locks, canals and channels in Canada and the United States that permit ocean-going vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, as far inland as the western end of Lake Superior. The seaway opened in 1959 and cost C$470 million, $336.2 million of which was paid by the Canadian government. Queen Elizabeth II and President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally opened the Seaway with a short cruise aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia after addressing crowds in Saint-Lambert, Quebec.
Camp David, the Presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains of Catoctin Mountain Park about 70 miles north-northwest of Washington, DC, used to be called Hi-Catoctin. FDR renamed it to Shangri-La, and then Eisenhower called it Camp David after his father and his grandson who were both named David.
The park maps of Catoctin Mountain Park do not show the Camp David location, for security reasons, but it is easily seen on Google Maps: Google Maps. As a military installation, Camp David is staffed by the US Navy and US Marines.
The Navy personnel at Camp David are the ubiquitous Seabees, who provide maintenance and grounds upkeep. There may be other, more lethal types there, but these are the ones I know about and which won’t result in a knock at my door.
The US Navy’s Construction Battalion, or “CB”, hence “Seabees”, date to just before WWII. In December 1941, just before the Pearl Harbor attack, the idea for a Construction Battalion was floated (no pun intended) by Rear Admiral Ben Moreell. After Pearl, his idea was approved and funded. The earliest Seabees were recruited from the civilian construction trades and were placed under the leadership of the Navy’s Civil Engineer Corps. Because of the emphasis on experience and skill rather than physical standards, the average age of Seabees during World War II was 37.
In the Pacific Island-Hopping campaign, Seabees landed soon after Marines to build airstrips, bridges, roads, gasoline storage tanks, and Quonset huts for warehouses, hospitals, and housing.
The Seabee motto is “Construimus Batuimus”, translated as “We build, we fight.” This is not an empty motto, as Seabees have long been trained in defensive combat to protect what they’ve built. A Seabee battalion inventory contains a full complement of squad and crew-served weapons along with its construction inventory. Battalions, of which there are presently five, deploy wherever needed, with normal peace-time rotations being to places like Guam, Rota (Spain), Diego Garcia, and Okinawa, with detachments sent to other military bases as needed. Homeport training always includes defensive combat tactics, taught by Marine advisors, with full-on field exercises and range qualification.
Another unofficial motto of the Seebees is “The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer.” During the Watergate Scandal, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger joked that the Nixon White House’s motto ought to be “The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.”
The music-loving parents of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were both educators, and named her after a musical term, con
dolcezza, which means to play “with sweetness.”
Walter Jerry Payton (1954 – 1999) was an American football running back who played for the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL) for thirteen seasons. Payton was known around the NFL as “Sweetness”. He was a nine-time Pro Bowl selectee, and once held the league’s record for most career rushing yards, touchdowns, carries, yards from scrimmage, all-purpose yards, and many other categories.
In the Wodehouse canon, Uncle Fred, 5th Earl of Ickenham, views it as his mission to spread sweetness and light wherever possible. His detractors (for such people do exist, we regret to say) characterise his activities more as spreading chaos and disorder.
George Orwell, among others, stuck up for P.G. Wodehouse when the humorist was accused of being a Nazi sympathizer while interned by the Germans in occupied France during World War II.
In the 1930s the Nazis utilized Protestant Martin Luther in their propaganda. They publicly displayed an original of Luther’s On the Jews and their Lies during the annual Nuremberg rallies. The Nazis endorsed the pro-Nazi Protestant German Christians organization.
Martin Luther King, jr. was actually born with the name of Michael King, jr. His father was Michael King, Sr., when the boy was born. But in 1931 after a trip to Germany when the younger was just two years old, Michael King, Sr. changed his own name to Martin Luther King in homage to the theologian. He also changed the name of his son, so the Sr. and Jr. relationship remained intact.
Michael King, Sr. most likely farted while on that trip, but if he did, that has been lost to history.
“Fart Proudly” (also called “A Letter to a Royal Academy”, and “To the Royal Academy of Farting”) is the popular name of a “notorious essay” about flatulence written by Benjamin Franklin c. 1781 while he was living abroad as United States Ambassador to France. Franklin believed that the various academic societies in Europe were increasingly pretentious and concerned with the impractical. Revealing his “bawdy, scurrilous side,” Franklin responded with an essay suggesting that research and practical reasoning be undertaken into methods of improving the odor of human flatulence.
The farting scene in Blazing Saddles (1974) was hysterical, and historical. It was the first ever flatulence gag to be featured in a major motion picture. Producer Mel Brooks was certain the scene would cause the audience to laugh loudly so he made sure the farts were loud enough.