San Marino is a small, independent republic that is about half the size of San Francisco, CA. San Marino lies wholly within Italy, about 75 miles east of Florence.
San Marino was founded in the year 301. San Marino is sometimes called the “Titanic Republic” because it is near Monte Titano. In the 19th century the government of San Marino made United States President Abraham Lincoln an honorary citizen. Lincoln wrote in reply, saying that the republic proved that “government founded on republican principles is capable of being so administered as to be secure and enduring.”
San Marino is the only country in the world where there are more vehicles than there are people. As of 2014, per 1,000 residents the leading countries in this category were:
In 1680 William Dockwra, an English merchant in London, and his partner Robert Murray established the London Penny Post, a mail system that delivered letters and small parcels inside the city of London for the sum of one penny. The postage for the mailed item was prepaid by the use of a hand-stamp to frank the mailed item, confirming payment of postage. Though this ‘stamp’ was applied to a letter instead of a separate piece of paper it is considered by many historians as the world’s first postage stamp.
Aldgate Station, on the Circle and Metropolitan Lines of the London Underground, is built on a massive plague pit, where more than 1,000 bodies are buried.
Nearby Aldgate East is a London Underground station in Whitechapel, Tower Hamlets.
Going back a few years, when the Tube still had Guards and Aldgate East marked the end of the line for the Hammersmith & City line, trains terminated there and the guard alighted to lock down the doors with the words (in a Cockney accent) “Algate East! All Get Out!”.
Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, were divorced in the High Court of Justice, Family Division, in London on July 15, 1996, fifteen years after marrying.
Charles Price has been the Senior Pastor of The Peoples Church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada since September 2001, with a congregation of 4000+ people. He has a weekly hour-long television program, Living Truth, which is broadcast coast to coast in Canada each week, as well as in the U.S.A, United Kingdom, Europe, India, Australia, New Zealand, Guyana, South Korea and Japan. He also has a daily 30 minute radio program which is broadcast in the U.S.A. and Canada.
Charles Babbage was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer. Along with Ada Lovelace, Babbage is best remembered for originating the concept of a programmable computer. Parts of Babbage’s uncompleted mechanisms are on display in the Science Museum in London.
In 1991, a perfectly functioning Difference Engine was constructed from Babbage’s original plans. Built to tolerances achievable in the 19th century, the success of the finished engine indicated that Babbage’s machine would have worked.
Babbage’s Difference Engine has been on display in Sunnyvale CA USA at the Computer History Museum.
During the movie “War Games”, David Lightman (played by Matthew Broderick), tried to hack an on-line games manufacturer by dialing every phone number in Sunnyvale, California.
During that movie, War Games (1983), the master computer password was ‘Joshua’ - the name of the computer creator’s son who died in childhood. Dabney Coleman and Ally Sheedy also starred in the movie. Michael Madsen and William H. Macy had small roles; Macy’s role was uncredited.
Macy’s was founded by Rowland Hussey Macy, who between 1843 and 1855 opened four retail dry goods stores, including the original Macy’s store in downtown Haverhill, Massachusetts, established in 1851 to serve the mill industry employees of the area. They all failed, but he learned from his mistakes. Macy moved to New York City in 1858 and established a new store named “R. H. Macy & Co.” on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, which was far north of where other dry goods stores were at the time. On the company’s first day of business on October 28, 1858 sales totaled $11.08, equal to $302.49 today. From the beginning, Macy’s logo has included a star, which comes from a tattoo that Macy got as a teenager when he worked on a Nantucket whaling ship, the Emily Morgan.
Montgomery Ward’s department stores were popular and common in the US during the 20th century. Founded in 1872, by 1904 the Ward’s catalog distribution was 3 million copies, each weighing 4 lbs.
The destroyer USS Ward fired the first American shot in World War II, when she engaged a Japanese two-man midget submarine just outside Pearl Harbor on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, and successfully sank it.
Two US Navy nuclear submarines have been lost throughout history. The USS Thresher (SSN 593) sunk on 10 April 1963 while on sea trials and the USS Scorpion (SSN 589) was lost on 27 May 1968 while coming from a deployment in the Mediterranean Sea.
Sea Scorpions are an extinct group of arthropods that are related to arachnids and include the largest known arthropods to have ever lived. The largest reached 8 ft in length, but most species were less than 8 in. They were formidable predators that thrived in warm shallow water, in both seas and lakes, from the mid Ordovician to late Permian (470 to 248 million years ago).
The only US president who has an entire province named after him in another country was Rutherford B. Hayes: Presidente Hayes province in Paraguay. In the US, the only thing named after Hayes is his presidential library.
San Francisco’s Western Addition section was developed in the 1850s to expand the city to the west of Van Ness Avenue. Michael Hayes, who, in 1856, was on the committee which named the streets of this development, may have been instrumental in naming Hayes Street for his brother, Thomas, a large landholder in the neighborhood who was then serving as county clerk. Hayes Valley was built out with many grand Victorian residences, as well as the smaller residences built to house the craftspeople at work on the mansions. Primary streets with big houses were named for influential local citizens (Hayes and Gough) and families (McAllister), while streets with the smaller houses carry botanical names such as Lily, Ivy, Linden, and Hickory.
Added: Hayes Valley south of McAllister Street was spared the fires that followed the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. During that fire, the wide north-south Van Ness Avenue served as a fire break and contained the fire. Almost all of San Francisco east of Van Ness Avenue was completely burned. The death toll remains the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster in California’s history and high in the lists of American urban disasters.