Lake Champlain briefly became the nation’s sixth Great Lake on March 6, 1998, when President Clinton signed Senate Bill 927. This bill, led by U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, contained a line declaring Lake Champlain to be a Great Lake. This status enabled Vermont and New York to apply for additional federal research and education funds allocated to these national resources. However, following a small uproar, the Great Lake status was rescinded on March 24. At 514 sq. miles, Champlain is less than 1/10th of the size of the smallest Great Lake, Lake Ontario, 7,340 sq. miles; Lake Superior, the largest, is 31,700 sq. miles.
Samuel de Champlain was the founder of New France and Quebec. He was the de facto Governor of the colony from 1610 to his death in 1635. He supported his local allies , the Huron, against the Iroquois in a short skirmish on the shores of Lake Champlain. His decision to take sides in the conflict is credited with putting New France and the Iroquois into a century long conflict.
Thales Alenia Space, the first and currently largest satellite manufacturer in Europe, is headquartered in Cannes, France. France was the third country to launch into space, with the satellite Astérix on 26 November 1965.
Zack Space, a Democrat, served as Congressman for Ohio’s 18th District from 2007-2011. He is of Greek ancestry.
According to Star Trek, Space is the final frontier.
In the book Frontier Town Then And Now, Walt Disney sent a camera crew to Frontier Town in North Hudson NY (built in 1952) to film a movie that was used as the inspiration for Disneyland’s Frontierland.
David Wartinger, a professor in the Department of Osteopathic Surgical Specialties, Michigan State University, discovered that riding Big Thunder Mountain, a roller coaster in Frontierland in Disneyland and Walt Disney World, helps patients pass kidney stones with nearly a 70 percent success rate.
“Basically, I had patients telling me that after riding a particular roller coaster at Walt Disney World, they were able to pass their kidney stone,” Wartinger said. “I even had one patient say he passed three different stones after riding multiple times.”
This resulted in Wartinger going out and testing the theory. Using a validated, synthetic 3D model of a hollow kidney complete with three kidney stones no larger than 4 millimeters inserted into the replica, he took the model in a backpack on Big Thunder Mountain at the theme park 20 times. His initial results verified patient reports.
“In the pilot study, sitting in the last car of the roller coaster showed about a 64 percent passage rate, while sitting in the first few cars only had a 16 percent success rate,” Wartinger said. The study also found that other Disney coasters, Space Mountain and Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith, failed to cause this result.
[I camped in the Adirondacks 12 years ago and drove by Frontier Town–very sad to see the abandoned park. An area that used to be thriving with tourism from NYC and Albany now looks very empty and economically struggling]
Michigan State University has had the following official names in it’s history.
February 12, 1855 – Agricultural College of the State of Michigan
March 15, 1861 – State Agricultural College
June 2, 1909 – Michigan Agricultural College
May 1, 1925 – Michigan State College of Agriculture and Applied Science
July 1, 1955 – Michigan State University of Agriculture and Applied Science
January 1, 1964 – Michigan State University
There have been three warships named USS Michigan to serve in the United States Navy, the most recent of which is an Ohio-class nuclear-powered submarine commissioned in 1982 as a ballistic missile submarine. She was converted into a guided missile submarine (SSGN) in 2007, and remains on active duty.
BRL, the Ballistic Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland was the center for the United States Army’s research efforts in ballistics (interior, exterior, and terminal) as well as vulnerability/lethality analysis. In field artillery, TFTs (Tabular Firing Tables) were thick books of statistical analyses for firing data determined at BRL, Aberdeen. These books were used in the 1980s and 1990s for if FDC (Fire Direction Control) computer systems were unavailable. BRL was disestablished in 1992 when its mission and facilities were incorporated into the new Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, Maryland.
In Have His Carcase, when Harriet unexpectedly follows Wimsey’s advice on a matter of clothing, he is described as “…disproportionately surprised and pleased as if he had picked up a sovereign in the streets of Aberdeen.”
Lt. Cmdr. Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, Chief Engineer of the USS Enterprise, once described himself in a Star Trek: The Original Series episode as “an old Aberdeen pub-crawler.”
Fittingly for an Aberdonian, Scotty is a piper, as shown at Spock’s funeral in Star Trek II.
Personally, I question his choice of “Amazing Grace”, as the more traditional tune for a funeral for someone in the service is “Flowers of the Forest”, but one presumes there was some Star Fleet Directive about using a tune which would be more familiar to 20th century audiences who were paying good money to participate in the funeral by video display. 
NM
The words to Amazing Grace were written in 1772. Its tune was written in 1829. The words and tune were brought together in 1835, some 28 years after the lyricist died.
U.S. Navy Adm. Grace Hopper, computer pioneer, has both a Navy destroyer and a college at Yale University named after her.
“It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.” — RADM Grace Hopper
Hedda Hopper was a gossip columnist, notorious for feuding with her arch-rival Louella Parsons. In 1913, she became the fifth wife of DeWolf Hopper, whose previous wives were named Ella, Ida, Edna and Nella. The similarity in names caused some friction, as he would sometimes call Elda by the name of one of his former wives. Consequently, Elda Hopper paid a numerologist $10 to tell her what name she should use, and the answer was “Hedda”.
Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated as President of the United States on March 4, 1913. Although he rose to political prominence as Governor of New Jersey, he was born in Virginia, and was the first Southerner elected President since the Civil War.
Much of the land of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) formerly belonged to the US Army’s Presidio base of San Francisco, which was fortified since September 17, 1776. US Representative Phillip Burton (D-CA) was instrumental in converting the Army base into a National Recreation Area, preserving the land for public enjoyment instead of it being developed for private housing. The land is some very prime real estate. The Army officially transferred the land to the National Park Service in October 1994, ending 219 years of military use.
The Phillip & Sala Burton High School was established in 1984 after Burton died in 1983 from an aneurysm. It is named for him and his wife. The school now occupies the campus of the former Woodrow Wilson High School.