The Indian Navy has a single aircraft carrier in active service, the INS Vikramaditya, which serves as flagship of the fleet. The warship, formerly the Admiral Gorshkov, is a modified Kiev-class aircraft carrier bought for $2.3 billion from Russia in December 2013. The ship’s name is Sanskrit for “brave as the Sun.”
Although Kiev is located in Ukraine, it is often cited as the cradle of Russian culture and identity.
The origins of chicken Kiev, a fried chicken cutlet filled with butter, are disputed, but it has been popular in Kiev for generations. Since the beginning of the 1950s, chicken Kiev became a standard fare in Soviet high class restaurants, in particular in the Intourist hotel chain serving foreign tourists. Tourist booklets warned the diners of the danger the melted butter presented to their clothing.
(I haven’t had chicken Kiev for ages, and need to find out where I can get some. A family friend, dead for years now, used to serve it on special occasions.)
In the center of town in Gainesville, Georgia stands small park and a statue of a chicken, commemorating Gainesville’s status as “Chicken Capital of the World.” In Gainesville, it is illegal to eat fried chicken with anything but your fingers.
After his novel Dr. Zhivago was rejected for publication by the Soviet authorities, Boris Pasternak sent several copies of the manuscript in Russian to friends in the West. In 1957, Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli arranged for the novel to be smuggled out of the Soviet Union by Sergio D’Angelo. Upon handing his manuscript over, Pasternak quipped, “You are hereby invited to watch me face the firing squad.” Despite desperate efforts by the Union of Soviet Writers to prevent its publication, Feltrinelli published an Italian translation of the book in November 1957. So great was the demand for Doctor Zhivago that Feltrinelli was able to license translation rights into eighteen different languages well in advance of the novel’s actual publication.
Sorry for your pain, Northern Piper. “… for we are fans. We are never satisfied…” A quote from Bullitt.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders were founded in 1910 as the Regina Rugby Club. They are the third-oldest professional gridiron football team in existence today (only the Arizona Cardinals and Toronto Argonauts are older), and are the oldest in North America to continuously have been based west of St. Louis MO USA.
The Riders led that 2009 Grey Cup game by 27-11 with less than 7 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter when Les Alouettes de Montréal rejected their destiny desired by Riders fans and began their improbable comeback to score the last 17 points of that game.
But in 2013 the Roughriders won the Grey Cup, their 4th Championship in franchise history, by beating the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 45-23. The Saskatchewan Roughriders have won the Grey Cup in 1966, 1989, 2007, and 2013.
Dan Quayle, Republican of Indiana, was inaugurated for his first and only term as Vice President on Jan. 20, 1989. He ran for President in 2000 but fell short and ended up endorsing George W. Bush, the son of the former President with whom he had served, George H.W. Bush.
Dan Quayle was the inspiration for the book “Bland Ambition” a collection of biographies of all of the Vice-Presidents. It is well worth a read.
ETA: this will no doubt come as a shock to you, Bullitt, but I was in the stands for the 2013 Grey Cup. 
The Blond Ambition World Tour, in 1990, was the third concert tour by American singer-songwriter Madonna. The tour was launched in support of her fourth studio album, Like a Prayer, and the soundtrack, I’m Breathless. The tour reached North America, Europe and Asia. It was a highly controversial tour, mainly for its juxtaposition of Catholic iconography and sexuality.
Although the word “Madonna” is used in English and Catholic culture to refer to representations of Mary, Mother of Jesus, the term in Orthodox Churches is “Theokotos”, meaning “Mother of God” or “God-bearer”. The term was decreed at the Council of Ephesus in 431.
The word Madonna comes from the medieval Italian ma donna, meaning “my lady”. In the “courtly love” tradition, the male lover who idealizes his beloved may refer to her with humility and respect (in medieval French or Provencal) as “mi dons”, meaning “my lord”.
Comment
Ouch. Sorry for your pain.
/Comment
Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle, the New York Police Department detective memorably played by Gene Hackman in The French Connection, got his nickname from an incident in which he flexed his muscles after forcibly arresting a narcotics suspect.
Gene Hackman won his Best Actor Oscar for playing that role.
Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and Robert Duvall were all struggling California-born actors and close friends, sharing apartments in various two-person combinations while living in New York City in the 1960s. The former roommates have since earned 19 Academy Award nominations for acting, with 5 wins.
Cary Grant and Randolph Scott were roommates, and there has long been speculation that they were lovers, but it was never proven. Grant married in 1932 at the orders of his studio, but was divorced 13 months later and moved back in with Scott. Fashion critic Mister Blackwell claims that he lived with them for several months, and that they were madly in love.
‘Great Scott’ is an interjection of surprise, amazement, or dismay. Although it is now considered dated, the term had some popularity due to the use by Dr. Emmett Brown in the movie “Back to the Future”.
Supreme Court Justice Emmett Hall was one of the fathers of Medicare in Canada. After Timmy Douglas brought it in in Saskatchewan, Prime Minister Diefenbaker (a Conservative from Saskatchewan) appointed Hall (another Conservative from Saskatchewan) to a Royal Commission to study healthcare.
To the surprise of many, Hall recommended the adoption of the Saskatchewan model on a national level, funded in part by the federal government.
The Liberal government of Mike Pearson implemented Hall’s proposals, establishing universal health care in Canada.
William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States until his death in 2005, often vacationed in the summer in a cabin he owned in Greensboro, Vermont. The people of the town prided themselves on leaving him alone and allowing him his privacy.
The state of Vermont is one of the few states that does not issue any permits or licenses to carry a concealed firearm. In Vermont, anyone who is legally allowed to possess a firearm may carry it concealed. According to handGunLaw.us.