Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bank is not, despite legend, named for the main branch’s location at the corner of Fifth and Third. It was formed by the June 1, 1908, merger of Third National Bank and Fifth National Bank.
On October 8, 1974, Franklin National Bank collapsed due to fraud and mismanagement. At the time it was the largest bank failure in US history. The collapse occurred in obscure circumstances alleged to involve Michele Sindona, a renowned Mafia banker. The Italian lawyer and liquidator of Sindona’s Italian financial empire, Giorgio Ambrosoli, provided the US Justice Department with evidence to convict Sindona for his role in the collapse of the Franklin Bank—of which Sindona had acquired a controlling interest. Ambrosoli was allegedly killed by a Mafia hitman commissioned by Sindona in July 1979.
Franklin National Bank was founded in Franklin Square, Long Island, NY in 1926; at the time that Michele Sindona acquired it in 1972, the suburban town had a large Italian-American community. Under the leadership of its previous president, Arthur T. Roth, Franklin National Bank introduced many banking innovations, such as:
-Junior savings accounts (1947)
-The drive up teller window (1950)
-The bank credit card (1951)
-A no-smoking policy on banking floors (1958)
-outdoor teller machines at branch banks (1968)
-Franklin Savings Bond which later developed into the Certificate of Deposit. (1969)
The first flight of a liquid-propellant rocket took place on March 16, 1926 at Auburn, Massachusetts, when American professor Dr. Robert H. Goddard launched a vehicle using liquid oxygen and gasoline as propellants. The rocket rose just 41 feet during a 2.5-second flight that ended in a cabbage field.
Mount Auburn Cemetery in Massachusetts was created in the 1830s as an alternative to crowded church graveyards, an artful wilderness with winding avenues and paths and a tower on top of Mount Auburn for a panoramic view of Boston. It was the first rural cemetery in America, an arboretum and an experimental garden.
At a time when public parks weren’t part of the American landscape, Mount Auburn Cemetery quickly became a 19th century tourist attraction; in the 1840s it was one of the top destinations, along with Niagara Falls and Mount Vernon.
Arguably the greatest designer of public parks, and the father of landscape architecture, was Frederick Law Olmsted. Among others, he designed Central Park, Golden Gate Park, and many university campuses, including Berkeley and Stanford and dozens of other projects. In addition, he was hired as the landscape architect for the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.
The largest park in San Francisco is Golden Gate Park. The second largest is McLaren Park, near Visitacion Valley. There is a statue of John McLaren in Golden Gate Park. McLaren was a key designer of Golden Gate Park, as well as a Superintendent of the park.
The first recorded observation of the Golden Gate strait occurred nearly two hundred years later than the earliest European explorations of the coast, in 1769. And it was discovered by a land-based party, not from the sea. It wasn’t until 1775 that a Spanish ship actually sailed through the strait.
The place where Gaspar de Portola first spotted San Francisco Bay was from land in 1769. The place is on Sweeney Ridge, and on Google Maps is called the Portola Discovery Site, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Sweeney Ridge Trail, Pacifica, CA 94044. It is adjacent to the Skyline College campus.
Starfleet Academy, seen in several versions of the Star Trek franchise, overlooks San Francisco Bay. James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard are just two of many notable graduates of the school.
In Riverside IA, only 15 miles south of I-80 and Iowa City, you can visit the future birthplace of James T. Kirk.
Picture of site: Riverside, Iowa - Wikipedia
Map: Google Maps
My daughter has visited. I have not.
Yet.
In the book and film Field of Dreams, daughter Karen says “Daddy, we don’t have to sell the farm.” Her uncle Mark tries to silence her, but Ray stops him. She says, “People will come.” Ray asks, “What people, sweetheart?” Karen explains, “From all over. They’ll just decide to take a vacation, see, and they’ll come to Iowa City. They’ll think it’s really boring, so they’ll drive up and want to pay us — like buying a ticket.” Mark is incredulous: “You’re not seriously listening to all this, are you?” Annie answers: “Yes.” Mark says, “Wait a minute, why would anybody pay money to come here?”
Again, Karen answers: “To watch the games. It’ll be just like when they were little kids along time ago, and they’ll watch the game and remember what it was like…. People will come.”
Field of Dreams Way, in Dyersville IA, is 99 miles from James T. Kirk’s birthplace.
Map: Google Maps
Terence Mann: “People will come Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom.”
Comment: A great movie. It’s also on my list of Things To Do, Places To Go, People To See!
Most of the details of James T. Kirk’s early Starfleet career were unknown before the recent J.J. Abrams movie reboot, although it had been stated that he served aboard both the USS Republic and the Farragut before his assignment to command the Enterprise.
In the novel Shoeless Joe, on which the movie Field of Dreams was based, Ray travels to Massachusetts and tracks down JD Salinger and drags him to a baseball game. Also, Moonlight Graham was a real person, whose stats were true to life.
(EL: Not sure that counts since it’s an alternate timeline …)
Using a then-current word referring to Confederate mining of the Mobile, Alabama harbor that the US Navy was attempting to capture, Admiral David Farragut memorably said “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!”. Although a Union ironclad was sunk by a “torpedo”, Farragut’s fleet did get past the minefield, silenced the defending rebel ironclad and three forts, and captured Mobile Bay, completing the “Anaconda Plan” blockade of the CSA.
Many years later, WP Kinsella wrote The Iowa Baseball Confederacy, about another ballgame set in an Iowa time warp.
“Dudu” is an Israeli nickname for David. When David “Dudu” Fisher was giving concerts in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, he explained it was a good time for him to do so, joining Puppetry of the Penis and The Vagina Monologues, and later Urinetown.
The Icelandic Phallological Museum, located in Reykjavík, Iceland, houses the world’s largest display of penises and penile parts. The collection of 280 specimens from 93 species of animals includes 55 penises taken from whales, 36 from seals and 118 from land mammals. It recieved it’s first human penis for exhibit in 2011.
The late U.S. President Richard Nixon, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and an interpreter are the human beings chosen by Wikipedia to illustrate its article on mammals.
Second row, second picture: Mammal - Wikipedia
The orders Rodentia, Chiroptera, and Soricomorpha together comprise over 70% of mammal species.
