It is suspected that Neanderthals had the power of speech, but that may never be known for sure. Neanderthals flourished about a half a million years ago, and it is thought that human speech dates back about twice that far. Neanderthals left traces of the kinds of collective technology that might be possible only with communication of ideas.
The words “Neanderthal” and “dollar” are etymologically connected. “Dollar” is derived from “Joacimsthaler”. “Thal” in both that word and “Neandethal” is derived from “tal” meaning “valley”, cognate to the English word, “dale”.
On stubHub.com you can get a Standing Room Only ticket for tonight’s Game 7 of the World Series in Cleveland OH for $890 US dollars. Tonight’s will be the 37th Game 7 in World Series history. History will be written tonight, ending one of the two currently longest championship droughts in baseball.
**The Indians haven’t won a World Series since 1948, a championship drought of 68 years.
And the Cubs haven’t won a World Series since 1908, a championship drought of 108 years.**
Baseball history will be written tonight, in America’s pasttime!
Okay. So 2016 will go down in history because:
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Hillary Clinton is running for President, which anyone could have predicted. Hillary Clinton is running for President against Donald Trump, which absolutely nobody could have predicted.
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Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for literature.
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The 37th Game 7 in World Series history will be ending one of the two currently longest championship droughts in baseball: The Indians haven’t won a World Series since 1948, a championship drought of 68 years, and the Cubs haven’t won a World Series since 1908, a championship drought of 108 years.
Who woulda thunk it?
A Republican, Theodore Roosevelt, was President of the United States in 1908 when the Cubs last won the World Series, while a Democrat, Harry Truman, was President when the Indians did in 1948. Roosevelt did not run for reelection that year; Truman did, and won, surprising just about everyone.
The third World Series, in 1906, featured the two Chicago teams, Cubs and White Sox. That was the last time there was a series in which both teams were making their first appearance. Every series since has involved at least one team that had been there before.
The Subway Series is a series of baseball rivalry games played between the Major League teams based in New York City. It used to occur only in the World Series, and featured the Yankees, Giants and Dodgers. Since 1962 the Subway series has been the Yankees and the Mets.
When George Pickett was interviewed after the Civil War he was invariably asked what he accredited to the failure of the infamous and disastrous charge that bore his name. After a time he got tired of the question and simply began answering “Ultimately I feel the Yankees were responsible for its failure” (or other words to those effect).
In reality he blamed Yankees than a southern icon: he despised Robert E. Lee for the poor judgment that led to the massacre of Pickett’s troops, and he told him so to his face before Lee’s 1870 death. However, it was next to impossible to be a success in any field in the postbellum South if you publicly trashed Robert E. Lee.
In tonight’s Game 7 of the World Series when the Cubs face the Indians, neither team has a George or a Robert on its roster. But there is one Jorge (George), and there is one Roberto (Robert):
Jorge Soler, Outfielder for the Chicago Cubs.
Roberto Perez, Catcher for the Cleveland Indians.
On October 17, 1989, a 6.9 moment magnitude earthquake struck California’s San Francisco Bay Area, killing 63 people, injuring 3,757, and leaving at least 8,000 homeless. The quake came just as American TV network ABC began its pre-game show at 5:00 PST, preliminary to scheduled baseball game 3 of the 1989 World Series between the Oakland Athletics and the San Francisco Giants—the first cross-town World Series since 1956. Television viewers saw the video signal begin to break up, heard sportscaster Tim McCarver repeat a sentence as the shaking distracted him, and heard McCarver’s colleague Al Michaels exclaim, “I’ll tell you what, we’re having an earth—.” At that moment, the signal from Candlestick Park was lost. It took several days for power and transmission links at Candlestick Park to be repaired. After ten days (the longest delay in World Series history), Game 3 was held in San Francisco. [Not in play: if this is a blimp, it is in the spirit of innovation.]
There have been seven USS Californias in the U.S. Navy over the years, the most recent of which is a Virginia-class nuclear fast attack submarine commissioned in 2011 and still on active duty.
Recent genealogical find: in 1827, the same year that the state of Virginia renewed the rights of Sally Hemings’ sons to continue living as free men of color, they granted farmer William Lynch the privilege of “no taxation of any kind” on his property or his income in recognition of the fact that he was the father of 34 children and his (fourth) wife was young enough to “gives him every assurance of an increase of his numerous progeny”.
Virginia is a state for purposes of Federal law but, like Kentucky, Virginia and Massachusetts, styles itself a commonwealth.
Pennsylvania also styles itself to be a “Commonwealth.”
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania native and resident Fred Rogers named the mailman in his “neighborhood” Mr. McFeely after his maternal grandfather (McFeely was also Rogers’s middle name) and the Queen of the Land of Make Believe was Sara after Mrs. Rogers, the former Sara Byrd (who still lives in Pittsburgh).
On July 2, 1962, the first Walmart store opened in Rogers, Arkansas.
Daffy Duck first appeared as “Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century” in a Warner Brothers cartoon in 1953. It was a spoof of the popular serials starring Buster Crabbe as Buck Rogers, which were based on a book written in 1928 titled “Armageddon 2419 A.D”.
(Not in play: I have a copy, not of the original 1928, but published later)
(Not in play: The original cartoon: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1ym9b7_daffy-duck-ep-70-duck-dodgers-in-the-24½th-century_fun )
On October 6, 1927, The Jazz Singer opened, the first talking movie. Warner Brothers got a special Academy Award for its role as the production studio.
D’oh! Yes. I meant to write that.
In play:
Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis used the Neil Diamond song “Coming to America,” from the remake of The Jazz Singer, as a theme song during his 1988 campaign.
The term “candidate” traces back to the Latin word “candidare” (to make white or shine) because individuals standing for office in the Roman Republic would wear white togas.