In 1964, Louis Armstrong recorded his biggest-selling record, “Hello, Dolly!”, a song by Jerry Herman, originally sung by Carol Channing. Armstrong’s version remained on the Hot 100 for 22 weeks, longer than any other record produced that year, and went to No. 1 making him, at 62 years, 9 months and 5 days, the oldest person ever to accomplish that feat. In the process, he dislodged the Beatles from the No. 1 position they had occupied for 14 consecutive weeks with three different songs.
At the height of Armstrong’s ability, he could blow 200 high C notes in a row.
In 1943, Louis Armstrong and his wife, Lucille (a Cotton Club dancer) settled in a modest house in Corona, Queens, where they lived for the remainder of their lives. No one has lived in the house since the Armstrongs, and the house and its furnishings remain very much as they were during Louis and Lucille’s lifetime. Today, the Louis Armstrong House Museum is open to the public, offering guided tours of Louis’s longtime home. On the tour, audio clips from Louis’s homemade recordings are played, and visitors hear Louis practicing his trumpet, enjoying a meal, or talking with his friends; a number of jazz musicians lived in the neighborhood. Visitors also get to enjoy an exhibit on Louis’s life and legacy, and the Armstrongs’ beautiful Japanese-inspired garden.
The Cotton Club was a New York City night club located first in the Harlem neighborhood on 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue from 1923 to 1935 and then for a brief period from 1936 to 1940 in the midtown Theater District. The club operated most notably during America’s Prohibition Era. The club was a whites-only establishment, even though it featured many of the most popular black entertainers of the era.
The 142nd Kentucky Derby was run earlier this year.
There is no answer to the equation φ(x) = 142, making 142 a nontotient. There are 142 planar graphs with 6 unlabeled vertices.
Graph paper is becoming less common, since computer software, such as spreadsheets and plotting software, has supplanted many of its former uses.
An early user of graph paper was Thomas Jefferson. Prior to 1784, when he arrived in France, most of his architectural drawings were made in ink. In Paris, Jefferson began to use pencil for drawing, and adopted the use of “coordinate” or graph, paper. He treasured the coordinate paper that he brought back to the United States with him and used it sparingly over the course of many years. He gave a few sheets to his good friend David Rittenhouse, the astronomer and inventor
A set of French curves is (or, was) used with graph paper to draw smooth formula curves with pencil or other writing instruments.
Back in the olden days of mine it was, anyway.
Lee Newman patented a felt-tipped marking pen in 1910, and in 1926 Benjamin Paskach ipatented a “fountain paintbrush” which consisted of a sponge-tipped handle containing various paint colors. Markers of this sort began to be popularized with the sale of Sidney Rosenthal’s Magic Marker in 1953, which consisted of a glass tube of ink with a felt wick
Former FBI Deputy Director Mark Felt was eventually revealed to have been “Deep Throat”, the informant for Woodward and Bernstein’s Watergate stories in the Washington Post.
A throat, or throat halyard, is a sailing line that raises a gaff at the mast.
In naval tradition, a mast is a non-judicial punishment disciplinary hearing under which a commanding officer studies and disposes of cases involving those in his command.
A Captain’s mast or Admiral’s mast is a procedure whereby the commanding officer must:
- Make inquiry into the facts surrounding minor offenses allegedly committed by a member of the command;
- Afford the accused a hearing as to such offenses; and
- Dispose of such charges by dismissing the charges, imposing punishment under the provisions of military law or referring the case to a court-martial.
A mast is one of the few occasions in which it is proper for US Navy personnel to render a salute indoors, but only for the defendant. The US Army does not observe the not-indoors tradition.
A Meritorious Mast is a formal and ceremonial acknowlegment recognizing an enlisted person being awarded a Letter of Appreciation, Certificate of Commendation, or a personal decoration whenever personal performance is considered noteworthy or commendable beyond the usual requirements of duty by a demonstration of exceptional industry, judgment, or initiative.
In French, the word for personal property is “meuble” (“movable”).
The word for real estate is “immeuble” (“immovable”).
The difference between “meuble” and “immeuble” in spoken French is extremely difficult for the average Anglo to catch, with frequent confusion.
The French like it that way.
France played a key role in the American Revolutionary War, 1775–1783. The French were motivated by a long-term rivalry with Britain and by revenge for its territorial losses during the French and Indian War, France began secretly sending supplies to the American colonies in 1775. In 1778, France recognized the United States of America as a sovereign nation, signed a military alliance, and went to war with Britain. France sent a navy that prevented the second British army from escaping from Yorktown in 1781. This Battle of Yorktown was the decisive victory over the British - the war was essentially over, the revolution won.
Admiral François Joseph Paul de Grasse was the commander of the French fleet that prevented the British from relieving Yorktown in 1781. There is a monument commemorating Admiral de Grasse and the sailors who helped the United States achieve its independence from the British Crown at the Cape Henry Memorial in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Despite his last name, General Hermann Von François was an officer in the German Army in WWI.
Stationed in the East, he commanded The German Eighth Army in one of the first battles of WWI, against the Russian First Army commanded by Paul Von Rennenkampf, who despit his last name was Russian.
Poet and author Robert Graves (best known today for I, Claudius) spent many summers of his boyhood in Germany, visiting Laufzorn, the estate of his mother’s family, the von Rankes. His great-uncle was the eminent historian Leopold von Ranke.
During World War I, Graves’s misery in the trenches, described in his autobiography Goodbye to All That, was compounded by his knowledge that many of his cousins were fighting opposite him in the German army and several of them were killed.
After Mercutio is fatally stabbed during the sword fight between Romeo and Tybalt, he is led away making his last jest: “Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man.”