The role of Victoria the white cat in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s CATS was originated in London by Fiola Hughes. She later starred with John Travolta in the musical film Staying Alive, a sequel to Saturday Night Fever, playing the role of Laura, an English dancer who is the romantic interest of Travolta’s character Tony Manero.
The two main cross-streets in Regina, Saskatchewan are Albert Street, running north-south, and Victoria Avenue, running east-west. The intersection of Vic and Al is one of the major downtown junctions.
The highest award in the British military is the Victoria Cross, for “gallantry in the face of the enemy”. It is available to civilians under military command but has not been awarded to one since 1879. The second-highest is the George Cross, awarded “for acts of the greatest heroism or for most conspicuous courage in circumstance of extreme danger” for acts not in the presence of the enemy, including for civilians.
Lance Sergeant Johnson Gideon Beharry, VC, is the only person awarded the Victoria Cross for gallantry during the 2004 Iraq War. Beharry, a Private at the time, was the first living recipient in over 30 years
“The Dragon and the George” is a 1976 fantasy novel by American writer Gordon R. Dickson. It’s protaganists are two Americans who find themselves trapped in a fantasy world, with Jim (one of the trapped characters) finding that his mind inhabits the body of a dragon named Gorbash.
The most salient difference between a dragon and a wyvern is the number of legs - a dragon has 4, a wyvern 2.
The red dragon of Wales is not represented on either the Union flag or the Royal Coat of Arms. England, Scotland and Northern Ireland are all represented on both.
The coat of arms of the city of Jena in Germany show the city’s patron saint, the Archangel St. Michael, killing a dragon.
The Carl Zeiss company, established in 1846 in Jena, has been a world leader in optics, even during the days that Jena was in East Germany, when the company’s operations in the DDR remained globally competitive.
William Mulholland initially worked for the the Los Angeles City Water Company in 1878 as essentially a ditch digger, and through self study and hard work he quickly worked his way up to become its superintendent by 1886. He is known for building the Los Angeles Aqueduct system to supply water for the fast-growing city. In 1900 the population of Los Angeles was slightly over 100,000. By 1910 it had become more than three times that number at 320,000, and by 1920 the figure reached 576,673. The Los Angeles Aqueduct, now over 400 miles long, was initially completed in 1913.
The Magdeburg Water Bridge (German: Kanalbrücke Magdeburg) is a large navigable aqueduct in central Germany, located near Magdeburg. It spans the river Elbe and directly connects the Mittellandkanal to the west and Elbe-Havel Canal to the east of the river.
The popular song “Low Bridge, Everybody Down” was written in 1905 by Thomas S. Allen after Erie Canal barge traffic was converted from mule power to engine power, raising the speed of traffic. Also known as “Fifteen Years on the Erie Canal”, the song memorializes the years from 1825 to 1880 when the mule barges made boomtowns out of Utica, Rome, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo, and transformed New York into the Empire State.
The Earl of Rochester, John Wilmot, was a hard-living young nobleman at the Restoration Court of Charles II. In addition to his debauched life-style (he put the “hell” into “rakehell”) Wilmot was a skilled poet. On one occasion, he combined both aspects of his personality by writing bawdy verses about the King, which resulted in his temporary exile from the Court when the verses went viral.
King Charles II had no legitimate children, but acknowledged a dozen by seven mistresses, including five by the notorious Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine, for whom the Dukedom of Cleveland was created. His other mistresses included Moll Davis, Nell Gwyn, Elizabeth Killigrew, Catherine Pegge, Lucy Walter and Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. The present Dukes of Buccleuch, Richmond, Grafton and St Albans descend from Charles in unbroken male line. Diana, Princess of Wales, was descended from two of Charles’s illegitimate sons, the Dukes of Grafton and Richmond. Diana’s son, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, second in line to the British throne, is likely to be the first British monarch descended from Charles II.
Sue Graton’s mysteries featuring detective Kinsey Millhone are set to hit “Z for Zero” in 2019. For those of you who are interested, the entire 26 alphabetically titled set is:
"A" Is for Alibi (1982)
"B" Is for Burglar (1985)
"C" Is for Corpse (1986)
"D" Is for Deadbeat (1987)
"E" Is for Evidence (1988)
"F" Is for Fugitive (1989)
"G" Is for Gumshoe (1990)
"H" Is for Homicide (1991)
"I" Is for Innocent (1992)
"J" Is for Judgment (1993)
"K" Is for Killer (1994)
"L" Is for Lawless (1995)
"M" Is for Malice (1996)
"N" Is for Noose (1998)
"O" Is for Outlaw (1999)
"P" Is for Peril (2001)
"Q" Is for Quarry (2002)
"R" Is for Ricochet (2004)
"S" Is for Silence (2005)
"T" Is for Trespass (2007)
"U" Is for Undertow (2009)
"V" Is for Vengeance (2011)
"W" Is for Wasted (2013)
"X" (2015)
"Y" Is for Yesterday (22 August 2017)
"Z" Is for Zero (2019)Directions in North Dakota
Just South of Grafton is Minto
With whiskey you want to dip into
Then you drive West to find Minot
Where most folks think highly of rye (not)
Comment:
Maybe there is a connection between the town of Grafton and the author named Sue.
An entire soap opera cast can be populated using names of North Dakota’s county seats combined with the county as a surname, This rich territory includes names like Carrington Foster, Steele Kidder, Bowbells Burke, Ashley McIntosh, Amidon Slope, Rugby Pierce, Grafton Walsh, Rolla Rolette, and dozens more.
Walsh University is a 4-year, private non-profit, coeducational, Roman Catholic university in North Canton, Ohio. It’s student body is approximately 2,500 students. It has satellite campuses in Akron and Castel Gandolfo, Italy.
Canton, Ohio, is one of the few US cities named after a city in China, (Pekin, Illinois) is another.) Bezaleel Wells, the surveyor who divided the land of the town, named it after Canton (a traditional name for Guangdong), China. The name was a memorial to a trader named John O’Donnell, whom Wells admired. O’Donnell had named his Maryland plantation after the Chinese city, as he had been the first person to transport goods from there to Baltimore. Canton China’s, modern name \s Guangzhou, which has a metro population of 44-million.
Dawn Wells and Tina Louise are the last surviving cast members from Gilligan’s Island.