Ivan Lins, one of Brazil’s most popular singers and composers for 30 years, has a degree in industrial chemical engineering. He lived in the US when his father was working on an advanced degree in naval engineering at MIT.
Ivan the Gorilla was a the star attraction of the B&I Department store in Tacoma, Washington, int eh 1970’s and 80’s. He became Tacoma’s most famous non-human resident and over the next two decades, he is visited by thousands of friends and fans. Eventually Ivan, who was captured as an infant, lived the balance of his life at the Atlanta Zoo, where he died in 2012.
One of the most accessible of Leo Tolstoy’s major works is his 1886 novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich. It is sometimes assigned as reading for medical students, as a caution against the complacency and indifference shown by the supposedly expert physicians in the story.
Tolstoy’s marriage to Sophia Andreevna Behrs, 16 years his junior, was marked from the outset by sexual passion and emotional insensitivity. On the eve of their marriage, Tolstoy gave her his diaries detailing his extensive sexual past.
On December 27, 537, the landmark in Istanbul now known as the Hagia Sophia was established. Originally built as a church, it became a mosque in 1453 and then a museum in 1935.
Across the street from The New Bedford Whaling Museum in New Bedford, MA is The Seaman’s Bethel, a small chapel in which Herman Melville is reported to have once attended services. The pew marked as the one in which he sat is near the back corner of the building, to the left as one enters the front door.
Our modern political terms “right” and “left” date to the French Revolution, when the most radical deputies sat to the left of the rostrum in the National Assembly and the most reactionary monarchists sat to to the right.
Right Whales were named by whalers who identified them as the “right”, or preferred, whale to kill on a hunt due to the plentiful oil and baleen they could provide. There are three species of closely-related Right Whales, found in different oceanic regions.
The narwhal (or narwhale) is the only whale to have a long spiral “tusk”, which is an outgrowth from a protruding canine tooth. In medieval times it was thought that these tusks were the horns of unicorns and had magical powers, such as counteracting poison. They were sold to gullible Europeans by northern traders such as the Vikings for huge amounts of money.
American actress Helen Hunt was married to Hank Azaria, perhaps best known for the many voices he provides on The Simpsons, in 1999-2000.
When it first broadcast in 1975, Space:1999 was the most expensive British TV series ever produced.
Space: 1999 was available on French CBC, but I thought that the translation left something to be desired. “Cosmos: Mille Neuf Cent Quatre-Vingt-Dix-Neuf” just wasn’t as punchy.
French 75 is an alcoholic punch that combines cognac and champagne. It also contains simple syrup and lemon juice. Some recipes, such as the one linked, use gin as the base.
While Eli Whitney gets credit for inventing the cotton gin, it was actually a very simple devise nearly every cotton worker had thought of, Whitney was just the first to build and patent one. He then lost all his profits because the machine was so simple, everyone infringed on his patents.
Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up? is a novel published in 1975 by author John R. Powers. It was subsequently adapted into a Broadway musical and a screenplay. It involves the 1950s Catholic education of eight Chicago children, following them from the start of elementary school through the senior prom and beyond. Along the way it touches on such topics as first confessions, puppy love, patron saints, teacher’s pets, sex education classes, and the importance of not wearing patent leather shoes as they could reflect up under the school uniform’s plaid pleated skirts.
Forever Plaid opened Off-Broadway in 1989 and was later successful with regional theater groups. It is a revue based on the close-harmony “guy groups” popular during the 1950s. Personifying the clean-cut genre is a quartet of high school friends, the Plaids. Their dreams of recording an album ended in death in a collision with a bus filled with Catholic schoolgirls on their way to see the Beatles’ American debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. The revue begins with the Plaids returning from the afterlife for one final chance at musical glory.
The first double-decker bus was manufactured in 1847 in the U.K. It was horse drawn (typically by three horses) with an open upper deck that did not have a roof. The upper deck was half the price of the lower, covered deck.
The first US postage stamps were issued in 1847, seven years after England issued their first stamps. There was a 5-cent stamp with Franklin and a 10-cent stamp with Washington on it, and over 3 million of the 5c were printed. They can be bought today for about $100 in average condition. Five cents at that time had the purchasing power of about two dollars, the cost of mailing a letter. They had to be cut apart on the sheet with scissors, so most surviving copies were carelessly cut and the margins are not entire.
Each of the two first U.S. postage stamps was hand engraved in what is believed to be steel, and laid out in sheets of 200 stamps. The 5-cent stamp is often found today with very poor impressions because the type of ink used contained small pieces of quartz that wore down the steel plates used to print the stamp. On the other hand, most 10-cent stamps are of strong impressions. A fresh and brilliantly printed 5-cent stamp is prized by collectors.
Some of the most interesting collectible stamps are those issued by states that no longer exist, known as “dead countries” by philatelists. Collecting dead country stamps has emerged as a hobby in its own right, combining traditional philately with a larger study of world history and geography.
Stamps from bygone states such as the Kingdom of Hawaii, former colonies in North America and Africa, and the Confederate States of America are highly prized.