The largest Navy base in the world is located in Norfolk, Virginia, along with NATO’s Strategic Command headquarters. The city also has the corporate headquarters of Norfolk Southern Railway, one of North America’s principal Class I railroads, and Maersk Line, Limited, which manages the world’s largest fleet of US-flag vessels.
When the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (formerly the USS Merrimack) met in Hampton Roads, Va. on March 9, 1862, they fought to a draw. However, the Monitor succeeded in her mission of stopping the Virginia, while the Virginia failed to break the blockade or sink any more U.S. Navy warships.
Le Moniteur Universelle was a newspaper founded during the French Revolution. It quickly became a propaganda outlet for the Revolutionary government, a role which intensified under Napoleon.
C.S. Forester refers disparagingly to the The Moniteur in some of the Hornblower books.
Napoleon Bonaparte, who began his rise as a revolutionary and in time became a self-crowned monarch, is said to have whispered on his deathbed, “They wanted me to be another Washington.”
On July 29, 1834, the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, commemorating those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars, was formally inaugurated. In 1919, marking the end of hostilities in WWI, Charles Godefroy flew an airplane through it, with the event captured on newsreel.
The Paris Commune was a radical socialist and revolutionary government that ruled Paris from 18 March to 28 May 1870, following the defeat of Emperor Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian war and the subsequent collapse of the Second French Empire. It was subsequently destroyed by regular troops under the new Third Republic.
The French Navy has a single aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, which is the only nuclear-powered aircraft carrier other than in the United States Navy. Commissioned in 2001, the de Gaulle is expected to be out of service for most of this year and the next, being overhauled.
During the Paris Commune, some Communards found Pierre-Auguste Renoir painting on the banks of the River Seine, thought he was a spy and were about to throw him into the river when one of the most violent leaders of the Commune, Raoul Rigault, recognized Renoir as the man who had protected him on an earlier occasion. Rigault intervened and vouched for him. Renoir was thus saved to go on to become one of the giants of French Impressionism.
In 2012, Renoir’s Paysage Bords de Seine was offered for sale at auction but the painting was discovered to have been stolen from the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1951. The sale was cancelled.
This summer, OJ Simpson turns 70 years old, and also he will be eligible for prison release on parole from Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock NV. In 2012, Simpson argued to have his armed robbery and kidnapping case reopened and reexamined, but that effort failed in securing an earlier release date for him.
James** Lovelock** is an independent scientist, environmentalist and futurist who lives in Devon, England. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the Earth functions as a self-regulating system. He also claims to have invented the microwave oven, but this is disputed.
Lovelocks were a small lock of hair that cascaded from the crown of the head down over the left shoulder. They were longer than the rest of the hair and were treated as special features. Men, and some women, wore lovelocks curled into a long ringlet, braided, or tied at the end with a ribbon or rosette, a ribbon twisted into the shape of a rose.
Although lovelocks were considered quite fashionable, many people detested them, considering them unnecessary and extravagant. In 1628 a sixty-three page book denouncing lovelocks was published. The author, William Prynne, railed against the wearing of lovelocks as “Unlovely, Sinfull, Unlawfull, Fantastique, Disolute, Singular, Incendiary, Ruffianly, Graceless, Whorish, Ungodly, Horred [Horrid], Strange, Outlandish, Impudent, Pernicious, Offensive, Ridiculous, Foolish, Childish, Unchristian, Hatefull, Exorbitant, Contemptible, Sloathfull, Unmanly, Depraving, Vaine, and Unseemly”. Despite the strong opinions of those who did not wear them, love-locks persisted throughout the seventeenth century, especially among young men.
[Re. the query in #34691, yes, I was ninja’d, forgot to refresh before posting]
50¢ fine issued by the Kangaroo Court! 
Lovelock NV is the only incorporated city in Pershing County, a county of 6,067 mi². The county was named after US Army General John Joseph Pershing (1860–1948). In 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt promoted Pershing from Captain to Brigadier General (skipping 3 ranks(!) – Major, Lieutenant Colonel, and Colonel) and promoting him over 862 officers senior to him.
On June 26, 1918, the 26-day Battle of Belleau Wood near the Marne River in France ended with American forces finally clearing that forest of German troops. General Pershing—commander of the American Expeditionary Force—said,
US forces suffered 9,777 casualties, included 1,811 killed.
An interesting story: Paysage Bords de Seine - Wikipedia
In play:
Wilmer McLean, owner of the Appomattox home in which Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to U.S. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in April 1865, had much of his furniture “bought” from him by souvenir-seeking senior U.S. Army officers who ignored his protests that nothing was for sale, and threw or dropped cash there as they carted out their loot.
Wilmer McLean moved to Appomatox Court House after his original home was damaged during the Battle of Bull Run. He had hoped that moving further south would avoid being involved in any further battles.
The atrium of the old Cuyahoga County Court House in Cleveland, Ohio passed for a Stuttgart art museum in the 2012 superhero adventure movie The Avengers, directed by Joss Whedon.
Cuyahoga County is named after the Iroquoian word Cuyahoga, which means ‘crooked river’. The Cuyahoga River runs through the middle of the county, emptying into Lake Erie in Cleveland.
side note (Not in play): lived 11 years and graduated high school in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio
Of the five Great Lakes, four are divided between Canada and the States: Superior, Huron, Erie and Ontario. Only Michigan is located entirely in the States.
The largest lake wholly in California is a man made lake, the Salton Sea.