Malaria Dreams, by Stuart Stevens, recounts a road trip through Nigeria and Chad in the 80s. A very amusing read.
Benito Mussolini ordered the draining of the Pontine marshes in the 1930s, greatly reducing the number of malaria cases in Italy. In 1943 The Nazis tried to halt the advance of British and American troops through Italy by re-flooding the marshes and unleashing malaria-carrying mosquitoes in what is believed to be the only biological warfare attack in WW II Europe.
When U.S. Army Medical Corps researchers were trying to figure out how to reduce deaths from malaria and yellow fever in Panama in the early 1900s, just before the U.S. canal construction project geared up, they conducted a random-sampling census of mosquitoes in the country. One man counted 53 on a single doorpane in Colon.
Ottawa is the capital of Canada because of the Rideau Canal. The British built the canal after the War of 1812 to provide interior lines of communication between Kingston and Montreal, in case the Americans in a future war managed to control the upper St Lawrence and cut off access to the Great Lakes.
When the time came to choose a permanent capital for the Province of Canada, Ottawa was high on the list because it is not close to the US border and benefits from the interior lines of communication, in case of an American invasion.
The Canadian government punted the choice of a capital to Queen Victoria, because the claims made by Quebec, Montreal, Kingston and Toronto made it too difficult for the Canadian government to make a choice. Her Majesty chose Ottawa, on the advice of the British government.
Victoria is the only city name that occurs in Canada, the USA and Mexicol. Only the one in Canada is named for the Queen. Victoria, Texas, and Ciudad VIctoria, Tamaulipas, were named for Guadelupe Victoria, the first president of non-colonial Mexico. At the time of its settlement and naming, Victoria Texas, was in Mexico.
Victoria, aka ‘White Cat’, is a principal role in Cats the Musical. She is named after the character of the same name in T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, where she is named after T. S. Eliot’s favorite monarch, Queen Victoria.
On February 5, 1869, prospectors in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia, discovered the largest alluvial gold nugget ever found, known as the “Welcome Stranger.”
Jenna Coleman was 30 years old when she left Doctor Who to play the 18 year old Queen Victoria on the ITV series. From Blackpool in northern England, Coleman says she had some difficulty “getting the cut glass accent absolutely right”. She also learned to waltz, to speak a bit of French, play some Beethoven on the piano, and master side-saddle riding while wearing a corset.
On February29, 1504 Christopher Columbus used his knowledge of a lunar eclipse that night to convince Native Americans to provide him with supplies.
In 1504, Michelangelo’s statue of David was erected (ahem) in Florence
Florence Henderson, the youngest of 10 children, was born on Valentine’s Day, 1934,[in Dale, Indiana, a small town in the southwestern part of the state. She is best known for playing Carol Anne Tyler Martin Brady.
John Tyler was one of six men to serve as President of the United States in the span of just two years. The others were Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison (both, with Tyler, in 1841), and Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield and Chester Arthur (all in 1881).
Canada’s Prime Minister Paul Martin acquired the nickname “Mr Dithers” because he had so many “top priorities” that he kept switching back and forth and did not really achieve any.
Singer and actor Dean Paul Martin married actress Olivia Hussey in 1971; they had one child, Alexander, and divorced in 1978. He married Olympic gold medalist ice skater Dorothy Hamill in 1982, and they divorced in 1984. He died in 1987 when his Air National Guard F-4 Phantom jet fighter departed March Air Force Base and crashed in California’s San Bernardino Mountains during a snowstorm.
Phantom of the Paradise is a rock musical which parodies The Phantom of the Opera. Released in 1974, it stars Paul Williams and Jessica Harper.
On March 9, 1842, Nabucco, an opera by Italian Romantic composer Giuseppe Verdi that established his reputation as a composer, premiered at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. The “Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves” is the best known music from the opera, and the premiere was 100 years to the day before my sister’s birthday.
Nabucco (1842, originally titled Nabucodonosor, in English Nebuchadnezzar) was Verdi’s first highly successful opera, in contrast with his very first opera, Oberto, 1839, a modest success with 13 performances.
The first performance of Falstaff, Verdi’s final opera, took place at La Scala on 9 February 1893. For the first night, official ticket prices were thirty times higher than usual. Royalty, aristocracy, critics and leading figures from the arts all over Europe were present. The performance was a huge success; numbers were encored, and the final applause for Verdi and the cast lasted an hour.
Falstaff’s final encounter with Prince Hal is after the coronation. Falstaff is expecting to profit mightily from his friendship with the new King.
Instead, Hal looks at him and cuts him: “I know thee not, old man.”
Prince Hal was by that time, of course, King Henry V of England. He would go on to great military glory at the October 1415 Battle of Agincourt, defeating a much larger (historians dispute how much larger) French army. Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Branagh and Tom Hiddleston have all played the King in Shakespeare’s very patriotic Henry V.
This quotation from Wikipedia strikes me as commendable in its nuanced view of Henry V: