The 8-mile long Confederation Bridge connects Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick and mainland Canada. It is a toll bridge and the toll for a car is over $40. Toll is collected in only one direction, when leaving PEI. The bridge opened in May 1997.
Lucy Maud Montgomery, best known for her Anne of Green Gables series of books, went on to publish 20 novels as well as 530 short stories, 500 poems, and 30 essays. Most of the novels were set in Prince Edward Island, and locations within Canada’s smallest province became a literary landmark and popular tourist site – namely Green Gables farm, the genesis of Prince Edward Island National Park.
The Anne of Green Gables stories are extremely popular among young Japanese women, and package tours from Japan often visit Prince Edward Island.
Annie Christmas or Keelboat Annie is a character in the folklore and tall tales of Louisiana, described as a 7 foot tall, supernaturally strong African-American woman keelboat captain. She has been described as a female counterpart of the John Henry character, another supernaturally strong African American folklore character. Like John Henry, the character may have been based on a real person. Stories of Annie Christmas have been included in several collections of folktales from the American South, and there is a song “Annie Christmas” immortalizing her in the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Jim Steinman musical Whistle Down The Wind.
While the legend of John Henry beating the steam drill in steel-drill driving and dying as a result of his exertions is well-known, the location that the contest took place is still disputed. The Big Bend tunnel in West Virginia, the Lewis tunnel in Virginia, and the Coosa tunnel in Alabama have all been advanced as the site of the purported contest.
Lewis Carroll wrote the first stanza to what would become “Jabberwocky” while in Croft on Tees, close to Darlington,a decade before the publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the sequel Through the Looking-Glass, Carr. It was printed in 1855 in Mischmasch, a periodical he wrote and illustrated for the amusement of his family. The piece was titled “Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry” and read:
Twas bryllyg, and ye slythy toves
Did gyre and gymble in ye wabe:
All mimsy were ye borogoves;
And ye mome raths outgrabe.
Carroll wrote the letter-combination ye throughout the poem instead of the word the, using the letter Y in place of the letter þ (Thorn) in combination with the superscript E, as in þe,[4] a common abbreviation for the word the in middle and early modern English, presumably to create a pseudo-archaic impression.
Darlington SC is home to the famous Darlington Raceway, which hosts the annual NASCAR Southern 500 race. From 1950 to 2003, and again since 2015, the race has been held on Labor Day weekend. The Southern 500 was largely considered one of the Crown Jewels of the NASCAR calendar, and has been nicknamed NASCAR’s “oldest superspeedway race.” For decades, the race has been considered by competitors and media as one of the more difficult and challenging races on the NASCAR schedule, owing much to the track’s unusual, asymmetrical egg-shape, rough pavement, and overall unforgiving nature. Darlington Raceway itself has a long and storied reputation as the “Track Too Tough to Tame.” The Southern 500 has a storied history, including Bill Elliott famously winning the Winston Million in 1985, and Jeff Gordon also winning Winston Million in 1997. It is also the site of Darrell Waltrip’s final career victory (1992).
There has only been one USS Darlington to serve in the U.S. Navy. A captured Confederate blockade runner acquired by the Navy in 1862 through sale by a prize court, she was then armed with a single cannon and assigned with her crew of 23 to, ironically enough, blockade duty.
“Darlington County” is a song written by Bruce Springsteen in 1984 and released on his album “Born in the USA”.
Budweiser a few years ago tried using a “born on date”. Beer codes can be confusing.
Molson Coors is the gold standard - a simple MMMDDYY format “best before/pull” date (JAN2717) which is usually very legible on the bottom of the can and multi-pack container if applicable.
Pilsner ™ is another Molson product. Because its label is predominantly kelly green, it has long been the beer of the Saskatchewan Roughriders.
Plus the bunnies, of course.
Pilsner is a pale lager that originated in the city of Plzeň in Bohemia, now the Czech Republic. It was first produced in 1842 by Bavarian brewer Josef Groll.
In a widely-distributed open letter written not long before he died, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin warned the party against entrusting the up-and-coming Josef Stalin with the leadership of the Soviet Union. Stalin nevertheless was able to take power after Lenin’s death, and was ultimately responsible for the deaths of many millions of people.
Stalin was very self-conscious about the way he looked, having a shorter left arm (due to an accident involving a horse carriage) and scars from smallpox. His official photographs would be routinely air-brushed. Harry Truman nicknamed him “the little squirt” due to his height, 5’4".
Harry Truman was an artillery officer in the army .
In 1944, the current vice president of the United States, Henry Wallace, was out of favor with many Democrats. Supreme Court Justice William Douglas was President Roosevelts’ preferred candidate, and Alben Barkley and James Byrnes were other strong contenders. Truman was a compromise selection who Roosevelt didn’t know well and did not involve in major presidential decisions, leaving Truman responsible for interacting with the Senate.
Harry Randall Truman became caretaker of the Mount St. Helens Lodge at the foot of Mount St. Helens beside Spirit Lake in 1926, when he was 30. Hr is presumed to have been killed in the 1980 eruption, when he was 84.
Spirit Lake is the properly translated Lakota name for Devils Lake, ND. Early explorers/settlers mistakenly translated the words.
During the volcanic eruption, Spirit Lake at Mount St. Helens in Washington had its contents temporarily displaced with a wave as much as 850 ft above lake level. The water was pushed onto the mountain slopes along its north shoreline.
George Washington loved the theater and saw plays whenever he could. When a Philadelphia theater owner learned that Washington might be late for the beginning of a particular performance, he said he would delay the curtain rising until Washington had arrived, but the President insisted he not keep the rest of the audience waiting.