A Ferris wheel is a rotating upright wheel with multiple passenger-carrying components attached to the rim in such a way that as the wheel turns, they are kept upright, usually by gravity. The name comes from George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. who built the original Ferris Wheel for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
On June 20, 1893 Lizzie Borden was acquitted of murdering her parents in Fall River, Massachusetts on Thursday, August 4, 1892. The crime remains unsolved, but was memorialized in a popular skipping-rope rhyme sung to the tune of the then-popular song Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay:
Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.
Keira Knightley was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar in 2005 for playing Elizabeth “Lizzie” Bennet in a big-screen adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice.
In his column on the Borden murders, Cecil Adams cites Evan Hunter’s book Lizzie as a reference to the fact that the lady was a lesbian who killed her father and stepmother. Only one problem: Hunter’s book was clearly labeled as FICTION!
President John Quincy Adams’s wife Louisa was the first foreign-born First Lady; Donald Trump’s wife Melania is the second.
In piping, “seconds” is the term used to describe harmonies played by a second piper while the first piper plays the melody to a tune.
The “second line” in a New Orleans parade are the followers and hangers-on behind the first line (members of the club who have permits and the brass band). The second line typically does traditional dancing that includes twirling parasols and waving handkerchiefs.
This weekend is the Championships of NABBA, the North American Brass Band Association, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
I’m cheering for The Brass Band of Central Florida, several of whose concerts I’ve enjoyed.
Founded in 1836 by King Kamehameha III, the Royal Hawaiian Band is the second oldest and only full-time municipal band in the United States. In recent generations, unique brass band traditions have also developed in Tonga, Samoa, and other parts of Polynesia, as well as among the Māori of New Zealand. Some recordings are now available and these styles are beginning to be researched and promoted abroad through band tours.
“Aloha 'Oe” was written by Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii, in 1877 or 1878, when she was about 38 years old, before becoming Queen. She claimed that the melody was inspired by a hug she received from Colonel James Harbottle Boyd, of the Hawaiian Army, which set her to humming as she rode away.
Harbottle Castle is a ruined medieval castle situated at the west end of the village of Harbottle, Northumberland, England. The present castle was built about 1160 following the Norman Conquest, presumably as a defense against the Scots.
Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland, was a 14th century English nobleman. He supported Henry Bolingbroke in his rebellion against Richard II. When Bolingbroke became Henry IV, Northumberland and his son Henry Percy, also known as Hotspur, rebelled. Northumberland appears as a character in three of Shakespeare’s history plays:* Richard II* and Henry IV, Part 1 and part 2.
In 1923, John Glossinger, an employee of the Williamson Candy Co., announced that he was going to make the Oh Henry! bar a national best seller. Company officials said that it was impossible and denied him the funds for an advertising campaign. Glossinger went into the streets and pasted stickers onto automobile bumpers saying merely “Oh Henry!”. People became curious as to what an “Oh Henry!” was, and sales for the bar rose quickly.
The ‘bar’ symbol found on slot machines is actually an early version of the logo of the Bell-Fruit Gum Company and you can still see this symbol today on slot machines in online and land based casinos all over the world. The gum was dispensed as a prize on the first mechanical slot machines, which also gave us the ‘fruit’ symbols such as cherries found on slots.
The first registered trademark or logo was the red triangle of Bass Ale.
A pink triangle was the typical cloth designator in Nazi concentration camps for homosexual prisoners. It was later defiantly adopted as a symbol by the Gay Pride movement.
According to TV spokesman Lucky the Leprechaun, General Mills’ cereal Lucky Charms originally contained marshmallows in the shapes of pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers. The lineup has changed occasionally, beginning with the introduction of blue diamonds in 1975, followed by purple horseshoes in 1983, red balloons in 1989, green trees in 1991, rainbows in 1992, pots of gold in 1994, blue moons 1995, leprechaun hats in 1997 (temporarily replaced the green clovers), orange shooting stars and around the world charms in 1998 (added blue, green, yellow, purple, and red in 2011), a crystal ball in 2001, and an hourglass in 2008. In 2013, 6 new rainbow swirl moons and 2 new rainbow charms were introduced. From the original four marshmallows, the permanent roster as of 2013 includes eight marshmallows.
When he was inaugurated for a second term on Jan. 20, 2013, Barack Obama became the first Democratic President since FDR to win a majority of the popular vote two elections in a row.
George Washington had the shortest inaugural address at 135 words. However, when he was inaugurated, William H. Harrison’s clocked in at 8,445 words, the longest to date. The length of his speech plus the bad weather is also credited with Harrison becoming ill and dying 31 days into his term.
1841 and 1881 were both years in which three U.S. presidents served: the first, with Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, and the second, with Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield and Chester Arthur.