St. Louis Cardinals broadcaster Mike Shannon acquired the nickname “Moon Man” after his remark when a cameraman got a shot of the full moon rising over Busch Stadium. “Look at that beautiful moon! I wish you folks at home could see it.”
The Shannon-class lifeboat is the latest class of lifeboat currently being deployed to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution fleet to serve the shores of the British Isles. A total of 18 boats have been deployed beginning in 2014, with more expected in 2017-2018.
Actor Michael Shannon made his film debut opposite Bill Murray in Groundhog Day (1993) at age 19 as a wedding groom.
Shannon Ireland and Gander Newfoundland are towns that came into existence to serve the airline industry. The airports in the two localities are just under 2,000 miles apart, and enabled trans-Atlantic flights to make the non-stop flight. The airports were built first, then towns for the airport workers to live. Each now has a population around 10,000.
Gander, Newfoundland is a short, 4,300 mile drive from San Francisco. Map: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/San+Francisco,+CA/Gander,+NL,+Canada/@43.6266977,-88.5148822,3z/data=!4m8!4m7!1m2!1m1!1s0x80859a6d00690021:0x4a501367f076adff!1m2!1m1!1s0x4b76f2f3b657f0b9:0xa1489058bc89ec6!3e0
Gander International Airport, once a key important refuelling stop for transatlantic aircraft, is still a preferred emergency landing point for aircraft facing on-board medical or security issues. In 1934 Gander did not exist other than as trees and bog on a high plateau above Gander Lake. Only 20 years later, in 1954, it was the largest and probably busiest aerodrome in the world. Most of the streets in Gander are named after famous aviators, including Alcock and Brown, Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, Eddie Rickenbacker, Marc Garneau and Chuck Yeager.
Joseph Jean-Pierre Marc Garneau is a Canadian politician and the Minister of Transport in the Government of Canada. He is a retired military officer, former astronaut, and engineer; Garneau was the first Canadian in space taking part in three flights aboard NASA Space shuttles in 1984, 1996 and 2000.
MTA, the Maryland Transit Association, operates a commuter train system in the Baltimore and Washington DC area. With some equipment capable of reaching speeds of 125 MPH, it is purported to be the fastest commuter railroad in the USA. The train is called the Maryland Area Regional Commuter, or MARC.
Operation Yellow Ribbon was the name given to the influx of planes landing in Gander Newfoundland. The planes were coming from Europe, had little fuel left, and could not land in the closed USA airspace.
The story is the subject of the Broadway musical “Come From Away,” which follows the story of several passengers, Newfoundlanders, and flight crews in the days following 9/11. The show, which is currently running on Broadway at the Schoenfeld Theatre, received six nominations in the 2017 Tony Awards, including best musical.
“In a day of darkness, they gave the world a ray of light.”
In 1947, Newfouindanders were given three choices for their island’s future. To remain a British colony, to gain full sovereignty, or to join Canada. Sovereignty was a strong favorite, but Joseph Smallwood single-handedly persuaded a majority to opt for Canada, and he won and held the premiership of the Canadian province for twenty years, once winning the election by such a landslide that there was no seated opposition in the House.
Starting in the 1970s, “Newfie”, the slang term for Newfoundlander, was on the list of words restricted from licence plates in Alberta, together with others considered insults and ethnic slurs. However, in 2006, Alberta’s director of motor vehicles, after appeals from the public, allowed the use of the word. Government spokesman Eoin Kenny said that the perception of the term Newfie had changed over the years, and the word had become a “term of endearment”.
Alberta was named as a district of the Northwest Territories in 1905, after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria. Princess Louise was then the wife of John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne, Governor General of Canada.
The District of Alberta was created in 1882, along with three other districts: Arthabaska, Assiniboine and Saskatchewan. There was also the pre-existing District of Keewatin.
From 1824 to 2016, Mexico City was officially known as the “Distrito Federal”, abbreviated D.F., meaning Federal District. The former “Distrito Federal” is now officially called “Ciudad de México”, City of Mexico (or “CDMX”).
This was part of an administrative reform to devolve power from the federal government, allowing the city’s mayor to name senior officials including the police chief. The reform moves Mexico City – the area of nearly nine million people surrounded on three sides by the suburbs of Mexico State – closer towards becoming a state in its own right.
Unlike many other federations, Canada does not have a federal district. The capital, Ottawa, is simply a municipality under Ontario law. Many federal buildings are across the river in Gatineau, Quebec.
The lack of a federal district has never caused any problems.
The Framers of the United States Constitution, aware of the occasional flareups of mob rule in London and Paris that could not always be effectively quelled by their respective national governments, provided for a district under exclusive Federal control to serve as the new American capital. There have been recurring proposals for greater local control or even statehood for Washington, D.C., which have thus far come to naught. The current D.C. license plate reflects the controversy: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Washington%2C_D.C._license_plate.JPG
John J. Pershing was the only person in history to hold the rank of General of the Armies of the United States while serving on active duty. Only one other person has held that rank: George Washington. When Washington died, he was a lieutenant general. But as the centuries passed, this three-star rank did not seem commensurate with what he had accomplished. After all, Washington did more than defeat the British in battle. Along the way he established the framework for how American soldiers should organize themselves, how they should behave, and how they should relate to civilian leaders. Almost every big decision he made set a precedent. He was the father of the US military as well as the US itself.
In 1976 Washington was posthumously awarded this rank, the highest ever in the US military.
Unlike the US system, no Canadian Prime Minister has held the rank of General officer.
Justin Trudeau is the second youngest Canadian prime minister, after Joe Clark. He is also, as the eldest son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the first to be related to a previous holder of the post.
When Justin Trudeau was born, the Canadian press gave him the nickname “Justin Time”, calculating that he was born 9 months and 21 days after the marriage of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Margaret Sinclair
At first labeled as a Brontosaurus, but really it is an Apatosaurus, “Dino” the dinosaur was a 70-foot icon representing Sinclair Oil. Dino first appeared as a balloon in the 1963 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. In 2015, Dino returned to The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for the first time since 1976.