Patty LaBelle’s song “Lady Marmalade”, covered by Christina Aguilera, includes the memorable lyrics:
*Gitchi gitchi ya ya da da
Gitchi gitchi ya ya here
Mocha chocolata, ya ya
Creole Lady Marmalade
Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?
Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?*
The lake called Ojibwe Gichigami, on the U.S.-Canada border, is the Earth’s largest freshwater lake by area, but Lakes Baikal and Tanganyika are both larger by volume.
The US-Canada border was established, one segment at a time, by the Treaty of Paris, the Jay Treaty, the Rush-Bagot Treaty, the London Convention, the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, the Oregon Treaty, the Northwest Boundary Survey, the International Boundary Survey, the Anglo-Russian Convention, and the Hay-Herbert Treaty.
The boundary of a four-dimensional ball is a three-dimensional sphere. Perhaps the easiest way to visualize a three-dimensional sphere is to imagine two three-dimensional balls glued together across their entire surfaces.
Four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime is often pictured (image) in the form of a two-dimensional lightcone diagram, with the horizontal axes representing “space” (x) and the vertical axis “time” (ct). The walls of the cone are defined by the evolution of a flash of light passing from the past (lower cone) to the future (upper cone) through the present (origin). All of physical reality is contained within this cone; the region outside (“elsewhere”) is inaccessible because one would have to travel faster than light to reach it.
The five original members of the vocal group The Fifth Dimension were Billy Davis Jr., Florence LaRue, Marilyn McCoo, Lamonte McLemore, and Ronald Townson. They were together 1966-1975. The group has since had over 30 different members and is currently appearing as “The 5th Dimension featuring Florence LaRue”.
The Fifth Dimension’s hit song Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In from “Hair” was recorded in two cities, Los Angeles and Las Vegas, then mixed together in the studio, afterwards. The song peaked at number one for six weeks on the US Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart in the spring of 1969.
NM, Goofed
A** fifth** is a unit of volume formerly used for distilled beverages in the United States, equal to one fifth of a US liquid gallon, 4⁄5 quart, or 25 3⁄5 US fluid ounces. It has been superseded by the metric bottle size of 750 ml, which is the standard capacity of wine bottles world-wide and is approximately 1% smaller.
Members of the Episcopal Church, the American offshoot of the Church of England, are supposedly heavy drinkers. As one humorous axiom has it, “Where any four Episcopalians are gathered, there will be a fifth.”
One traditional Italian style of wine bottle is called a fiasco. Usually it has a round body and bottom, partially or completely covered with a close-fitting straw basket made of sala, a swamp weed, sun-dried and blanched with sulfur. The basket provides protection during transportation and handling, and also a flat base for the container.
The fiasco was long used for Chianti wine but its more common uses nowadays are as a souvenir for tourists or as a decorative item in restaurants and kitchens. It does not usually come in the fifth or 750 ml size; usual sizes for them are 1, 1.5 or 2 liter
Two of Europe’s smallest countries, San Marino and the Vatican, are entirely enclaved within the Italian borders.
The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta is a third sovereign state surrounded by Italy. It has two enclaves in Rome: Palazzo Magistrale (di Malta) and Villa del Priorato di Malta. The S.M.O.M. has embassies, permanent observer status at the U.N., and issues internationally-recognized postage stamps and passports. Although it has only three citizens, it has over 100,000 salaried or volunteer workers employed for its charitable work.
The smallest denomination of S.M.O.M. money still minted is the bronze 10-grani coin, nominally pegged to the value of €0.01 but worth more to collectors.
The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, or Knights Hospitaller, arose in the early 12th century as a group of individuals associated with an Amalfitan hospital in the Muristan district of Jerusalem, dedicated to John the Baptist. The Hospitallers were the smallest group ever to colonise parts of the Americas; at one point in the mid-17th century, they acquired four Caribbean islands, which they turned over to the French in the 1660s.
The Knights of Columbus is the world’s largest Catholic fraternal service organization.
Freemasons consists of fraternal organizations that trace their origins to the local fraternities of stonemasons, which from the end of the fourteenth century regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities and clients.
Clampers {E Clampus Vitus (ECV)} are a fraternal organization dedicated to the study and preservation of the heritage of the American West, especially the history of the Mother Lode and gold mining regions of the area. The fraternity is not sure if it is a “historical drinking society” or a “drinking historical society.”
Oddfellows is an international fraternity consisting of lodges first documented in 1730 in London that promotes philanthropy and the ethic of reciprocity and charity. Some grand lodges imply a Judeo-Christian affiliation.
Oberlin College, founded in Oberlin, Ohio in 1833 and named after an Alsatian pastor who was a noted peacemaker and humanitarian of his day, has never permitted its students to form or join fraternities or sororities.
During World War I, the British Kennel Club re-named the breed “German Shepherds” as “Alsatians”. The name was not changed back to “German Shepherds” until 1977.
During World War I, American sauerkraut manufacturers renamed their product “liberty cabbage”. Frankfurters took on the new names “liberty sausage” and one which caught on, “hot dogs”. Jokingly, “German measles” became “liberty measles” and dachshunds became “liberty pups”.
Libertyville is a name of a town, village, community, or city in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Missouri, and maybe in other places as well. Of these states, the largest Libertyville is a city in Iowa, whose 2010 population was 315.
The Illinois-Indiana–Iowa League was a minor league baseball organization that operated for the better part of 60 years, mostly in those three states. The league began play in 1901 and disbanded after the 1961 season. It was popularly known as the Three–I League and also sometimes jokingly as the Three-Eye League. The 1955 Keokuk Kernels are ranked #30 in the Top-100 All Time teams by MiLB.com. The Kernels finished with a 92-34 record and were led by Russ Nixon and Mudcat Grant.