The International Crane Foundation, headquartered in Baraboo, Wisconsin, combines research, captive breeding and reintroduction, landscape restoration, and education to safeguard the world’s 15 crane species. Operation Migration takes whooping crane chicks to Baraboo to train them to follow ultralight aircraft, which then guide them to nesting grounds on the Florida Gulf Coast.
Disney’s Dumbo was its most financially successful film in the 1940s; it was simply made to avoid the expense overruns of Pinocchio and Fantasia. Its title character is a bullied baby elephant in a circus in Florida who finds out that he can fly.
In December 1941, the editors of Time had already chosen Dumbo as their “Mammal of the Year” before the Pearl Harbor attack, but quickly changed it to Franklin Delano Roosevelt afterward (and before it was published). Dumbo would have been the first non-human choice “of the year” for Time; a non-human was not chosen again until 1982 when “The Computer” became its “Machine of the Year”.
Dumbo is the only title character of a Disney film who did not speak.
Grimpoteuthis, also called the Dumbo Octopus, is a genus of pelagic umbrella octopus that live in the deep sea. These octopuses earned their nickname"Dumbo octopuses" or due to how the ear-like fins protruding from the top of their head-like bodies resemble the ears of Walt Disney’s flying elephant Dumbo.
J.R.R. Tolkien hated early Disney films for their sentimentality and anthropomorphism; he wrote in private correspondence in the 1930s that he would never agree to sell the rights to his books to the Walt Disney Corp.
Pauline Baynes illustrated several books by J.R.R.Tolkien and all of the Narnia books of C.S. Lewis, including maps of Middle-earth and Narnia. She had acquired her map-making skills when working at Britain’s Ministry of Defence.
The iconic London Underground map was first made by Harry Beck, an Underground employee, in 1931 and released to the public in 1933. Beck was paid only ten Guineas for his work. Beck continued to update the maps until 1960.
Beck Weathers (Seaborn Beck Weathers) was one of eight client, paying climbers on Rob Hall’s Adventure Consultants expedition to summit Mt. Everest in May 1996. On 10 May expedition teams were high on Mt. Everest when a storm trapped them. Eight climbers died that day, including two expedition leaders, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, and all told twelve died that climbing season of 1996, making it the deadliest day and season on Everest to date.
Died on 10-11 May:
Andrew “Harold” Harris (Guide)
Doug Hansen (Client)
Rob Hall (Guide/Expedition Leader)
Yasuko Namba (Client)
Scott Fischer (Guide/Expedition Leader)
Subedar Tsewang Samanla
Lance Naik Dorje Morup
Head Constable Tsewang Paljor
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On April 10, 1858, the bell in the Palace of Westminster’s clock tower in London was cast after the original bell had cracked during testing. Officially known as “the Great Bell,” it is the largest bell in the tower, making up part of the Great Clock of Westminster. The bell is better known by the nickname Big Ben in honor of Sir Benjamin Hall, whose name is inscribed on it.
The Liberty Bell was formerly located in the tower of the Pennsylvania State House (renamed Independence Hall). “Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof,” a Biblical reference from the Book of Leviticus (25:10). The bell cracked shortly after arrival, but was repaired twice. It cracked again sometime in the early 1800s, and was taken down from the tower and placed in a display on the grounds of the Liberty Bell Center in what is now Independence National Historical Park.
The Whitechapel Bell Foundry, which at the time of its closing (only this month) was the oldest manufacturing company in Great Britain, made the Liberty Bell, Big Ben, the Olympic Bell, the Royal Jubilee Bells, and the bells for many churches and cathedrals.
Part of the traditional Spider-Man origin story is that Peter Parker could have stopped a hoodlum from escaping but shrugged his shoulders, thinking “None of my business”.
The hoodlum later shot Peter’s Uncle Ben, his only father figure. Peter’s guilt pushed him towards the motto, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
According to brand owner Mars Inc., Uncle Ben was an African-American rice grower known for the quality of his rice. Gordon L. Harwell, an entrepreneur who had supplied rice to the armed forces in World War II, chose the name Uncle Ben’s as a means to expand his marketing efforts to the general public. “Uncle” was a common appellation used in the Southern United States to refer to older male Black slaves or servants. The face in the brand logo is said to have been that of a Chicago maître d’hôtel named Frank Brown.
At the beginning of the American version of House of Cards, Francis “Frank” Underwood (Kevin Spacey) is a conservative Democratic Congressman from South Carolina, and the House Majority Whip. There is actually no Democratic member of the House from South Carolina currently.
The University of South Carolina was founded as South Carolina College on December 19, 1801. The college was spared from destruction during the American Civil War by General Sherman’s Union forces because of its use as a hospital. A bill to establish the College as the University of South Carolina was passed by the General Assembly on December 19, 1865.
The Caroline Islands are a Pacific island archipelago of over 500 small coral islands north of New Guinea and east of the Philippines. They were called Las Carolinas by Spanish explorer Lezcano in 1686, in honor of King Carlos II of Spain. After the Spanish–American War of 1898, Spain sold the Carolines and Marianas to Germany, which governed the islands as the Karolinen until Japan invaded and occupied the islands in 1914, during World War I. During World War II, Japan had a large base set up, used for expansion into the southeastern Pacific. In the latter years of the war, during the Japanese withdrawal to the Japanese home islands, the Allies effectively neutralized the base in Operation Hailstone.
Operation Hailstone, 16-17 Feb 1944, was a surprise Allied Forces attack on Truk Lagoon (also Chuuk Lagoon) in the Caroline Islands. Five fleet carriers (Enterprise, Yorktown, Essex, Intrepid, and Bunker Hill) and four light carriers (Belleau Wood, Cabot, Monterey, and Cowpens) formed the core of the attacking forces.
Truk was a major Japanese logistical base as well as the operating “home” base for the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Combined Fleet. Some have described it as the Japanese equivalent of the U.S. Navy’s Pearl Harbor.
The Battle of Cowpens was an battle during the American Revolution between Patriot forces under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan and British forces under Sir Banastre Tarleton fought on January 17, 1781. The result was an overwhelming victory for the Americans and helped lead to the moves that eventually led Cornwallis to his surrender at Yorktown.
Cowpens SC is 100 miles NW of Lexington SC, 65 miles SW of Charlotte NC, 80 miles SE of Asheville NC, 270 miles E of Chattanooga TN, and 9 miles NE of Spartanburg SC.
Cowpens apparently got its name because of pens for cattle that were near the original site of the town.