The Associated Press (AP) is an American multinational nonprofit news agency headquartered in New York City. The AP is owned by its contributing newspapers and radio and television stations in the United States, all of which contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists. It began in May 1846 with five daily newspapers in New York City who formed it to share the cost of transmitting news of the Mexican–American War by boat, horse express and telegraph.
Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan’s horse Rienzi, named after an early Civil War victory of his, was stuffed and mounted after its death, and is now on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
General Sheridan was a relentless and brutal Indian fighter, carrying over his ‘scorched earth’ policy of the Civil War into the campaign against the plains Indians. His troops routinely confiscated all of the villages food and goods, killed all who resisted and drove the rest onto reservations. Sheridan was a proponent of slaughtering or even exterminating the vast buffalo herds in order to starve the Indian population into submission or even extinction. When buffalo hunters trespassed onto Indian land and killed over four million of the animals, Sheridan was quoted as saying: “Let them kill, skin and sell until the buffalo is exterminated”. The man was a ruthless, murdering son of a bitch.
According to the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) there are currently 15,000 wild, free-range bison (AKA American buffalo) not primarily confined by fencing. About 500,000 bison currently exist on private lands and around 30,000 on public lands which includes environmental and government preserves. Recent genetic studies of privately owned herds of bison show that many of them include animals with genes from domestic cattle.
Between 1980 and 1999, more than three times as many people in Yellowstone National Park were injured by bison (79 people) than by bears (24 people).
But you have to admit he knew how to wear a hat: https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/find-a-grave-prod/photos/2001/222/sheridanphiliphbio.jpg
In play:
Cable TV magnate and media mogul Ted Turner owns the largest private herd of bison on his vast Montana ranch. His restaurant in downtown Atlanta serves BBQ bison.
The magnates of Poland and Lithuania were an aristocracy of nobility that existed in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. To be counted among the magnates, one should have a large estate, and political influence at least on the scale of a province, if not national. The estates being much larger in the east, where the wealthier magnates were also much more likely to have their own private armies
The King Ranch in Texas is the largest ranch in the United States, covering 825,000 acres, most of Kleberg County, and parts of five other counties. It is a designated National Landmark.
A few miles outside Santiago de Compostela is Mount Joy, or Monte do Gozo in Galician. Pilgrims on their way to Compostela would climb the “mount” (actually a large hill) for the first view of the cathedral and its spires. The first to reach the top of the hill and catch sight of the cathedral would call out “Mon Joie!” (French for “my joy”) and would receive the title of “King” of that group of pilgrims for the rest of the pilgrimage, including the return home. Some bearers of the surnames King, LeRoy, Rey or other European language equivalents received the name because of this custom.
King George III, confined at Windsor Castle, elderly, bedraggled and quite mad, appears in Susanna Clarke’s bestselling novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, about the return of magic to Regency England.
Geoffrey Latta was a computer graphics/production artist known as one of the finest close-up card and coin workers from New York City. He was one of the founding members of the New York Coin Magic Seminar Group with Michael Rubinstein.
In 1984, he was filmed in what was to become known as “The Pink Purse Tape”, creating a record of his card and coin work at that time.
He passed away on August 19, 2008, at the age of 51, from the effects of alcoholism.
Geoff was one of my closest friends and coworkers while I lived in NYC. He is greatly missed.
The official flag of New York City, adopted in 1915, includes the following symbols:
Bald eagle: The symbol of the United States
Native American: The original inhabitants of the area
Seaman: The colonizers of the area
Beaver: The Dutch West India Company, which was the first company in New York (originally known as Nieuw Amsterdam). Also the official animal of New York State.
Windmill: Recalls the Dutch history of the city and the prosperous industry of milling flour.
Flour barrels: In the 17th century, New York had been granted a short-lived monopoly on milling, which established the fledgling colony as a commercial powerhouse
1625: Originally 1664, the year was later changed to honor the establishment of New Amsterdam, which was actually settled in 1624. The 1625 date has been described as “arbitrary” by the public historian at the New-York Historical Society and “simply wrong” by Michael Miscione, the Manhattan borough historian.
Not busy enough! More cowbell!
On the other hand, the New Mexico flag is a model of simplicity and symbolism: Flag of New Mexico.
The state flag of Ohio is a bit more complicated, and is the only non-rectangular American state flag, perhaps based on Civil War- or Spanish-American War-era cavalry pennants: Flag of Ohio - Wikipedia
One of the songs of The Ohio State University is “Round on the End, High in the Middle” [O-HI-O]. The song actually has its roots on Broadway. In 1922, Frances White introduced the song in the show called The Hotel Mouse, which had a short eleven week run at the Schubert Theater. The song was composed by Canadian born Alfred Bryan, who is noted for composing such songs as Peg o’ My Heart (1913), Brown Eyes, Why Are You Blue (1924) and Japansy (1928). The lyrics of the song were composed by Ned Halon, a vaudeville artist. His most notable lyrics came on the collaboration of writing M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I. In the 1920s, this song achieved its Ohio connection when it was sung, by the Republican Glee Club of Columbus, at the White House.
Franz Schubert died on 19 November, 1828, aged 31, at his brother Ferdinand’s house in Vienna. Many believe he died from syphilis, but others argue that perhaps it was typhoid fever, typhus, salmonella, or some other infection; another possibility is mercury poisoning from the treatments for syphilis. Although syphilis was prevalent in Vienna at that time, the secondary effects of the disease were so stigmatizing that after his death, Schubert’s friends burnt his letters and diaries so that the true nature of his illness could never be officially recorded.
He wrote 600 songs, 9 symphonies as well as operas and chamber pieces during his brief lifetime, totalling around 1000 works, but only a small portion of his output (around 100 songs) was published before his death.
John F. Kennedy’s Secret Service codename on November 22, 1963 was LANCER. I had the chance to hear from Paul Landis, one of the USSS agents protecting him, not along ago: Meeting one of JFK's Secret Service agents - Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share - Straight Dope Message Board
The Musical Ride of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is derived from the mounted lancer drills of English cavalry.
Before joining the band *** Police***, Andy Summers played with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
In 1846, after only a dozen public performances and barely four years old, the New York Philharmonic organized a concert to raise funds to build a new music hall. The centerpiece was the American premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. About 400 instrumental and vocal performers gathered for this premiere, which was conducted by George Loder. The chorals were translated into what would be the first English performance anywhere in the world. But the $2.00 ticket price proved to be too exhorbitant for most people, and the new hall would have to wait.
125 years later, members of the New York Philharmonic string section were heard on the 1971 John Lennon album Imagine, credited as '“The Flux Fiddlers”.
After Laura Bush had several miscarriages and was told she would never carry a child to term, she and her husband, former President George W. Bush, arranged to adopt a friend’s foster child. However, before the adoption could be formalized, Laura found out she was pregnant. The Bushes put the adoption on hold, agreeing to go through with it only if she miscarried again. She spent the remainder of her pregnancy resting in bed, and gave birth to twin daughters Barbara and Jenna.
What became of the rejected foster child is unknown.