The Republic and Canton of the Jura is the newest of the 26 Swiss cantons, located in the northwestern part of Switzerland. It was separated from the Canton of Bern, mostly on religious and language lines, in 1979.
The drink Pepsiwas first introduced as “Brad’s Drink” in New Bern, North Carolina, United States, in 1893 by Caleb Bradham, who made it at his drugstore where the drink was sold. It was renamed Pepsi-Cola in 1898 after the root of the word “dyspepsia” and the kola nuts used in the recipe.
Nicely put. Thank you, Bullitt.
In play:
A running gag in the popular British farce Charley’s Aunt is that this or that person or thing is from Brazil… “where the nuts come from!”
Closer to the truth than you think. Brazil, the country, is named that because it is literally where Brazil Nuts came from. It is illegal to cut down a Brazil nut tree in Brazil. The largest exporter of the world brazil nuts is Bolivia. One does not properly capitalize brazil nut, because it is not named after a country.
Carnaval, better known in English speaking countries as Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras, is a summer festival in Brazil and Argentina which are in the southern hemisphere. This year, Mardi Gras is on February 13 and Ash Wednesday is on February 14, St. Valentine’s day.
Most baseball bats are made from ash, with wood from New York state being preferred. But stands of ash are now threatened by the introduced emerald ash borer. Historically, earlier bats were made from hickory, but ash was found to combine lighter weight with the qualities of hickory. Recently, several players (indluding Barry Bonds) used maple bats.
NFL running back Barry Sanders never played in a Super Bowl. In the 10 seasons of his NFL career he rushed for 15,269 yards for one team, the Detroit Lions. He retired after the 1998 season and was inducted into Canton OH in 2004.
Lions formerly ranged as far north as the Danube, in Bulgaria and Serbia, and east nearly across India. Aristotle write that they were still in Greece in 500-BC. Now they can only be found south of the Sahara, except at a single reserve in Gujrat, India, where in a century their numbers have incrased from 20 to over 500. In the same century, their numbers in Africa have been cut from 200,000 to possibly as low as 20,000, a 90% reduction.
Ivan Tors first discovered Clarence at Africa USA, an affection training compound located in Soledad Canyon about 40 miles north of Los Angeles. Born cross-eyed, Clarence’s strange physical condition inspired Tors to create the1964 feature film Clarence the Cross Eye Lion and the success of the film led to the 1966 TV series Daktari.
The first Los Angeles-named team to make it to the Super Bowl was the 1979 Los Angeles Rams. They lost Super Bowl XIV to the Pittsburgh Steelers, 31-19. The next Los Angeles-named team in the Super Bowl was the 1983 Los Angeles Raiders. They won Super Bowl XVIII over the Washington Redskins, 38-9. They are the only Los Angeles-named teams to play in the Super Bowl.
Both Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber were born on March 22nd, making their astroljogical sign Aries the Ram.
The 1999 St. Louis Rams beat the Tennessee Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV, 23-16. The Rams’ high-powered offense, led by QB Kurt Warner, RB Marshall Faulk, and WRs Isaac Bruce, Terry Holt, Ricky Proehl, and Az-Zahir Hakim was known by the nickname “The Greatest Show on Turf“.
The Rams are the only team in the NFL named for a college team, NYC’s Fordham Rams. In 1936, a club from a new startup league, the AFL, and based out of Cleveland, named themselves the Rams to honor Fordham, whose outstanding player was Vince Lombardi. The Cleveland Rams joined the NFL the following season. The Rams moved to Los Angeles in 1946. The team relocated again in 1995 to St. Louis where in 1999 the NFL’s Rams won their first and only Vince Lombardi Trophy. They returned to LA in 2016 and are still the only NFL team named after a college one.
In 1948, the Los Angeles Rams were the first professional football franchise to put a logo on the helmet. A Rams player and graphic artist by the name of Fred Gehrke had the idea to paint the helmet blue and design the horns on either side of the helmet. It is rumored that Gehrke was paid to paint all 75 helmets at $1.00 each.
Having composed “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” on the guitar, Freddie Mercury played rhythm guitar while performing the song live, which was the first time he played guitar in concert with Queen.
Great trivia! This got me on a roll…
At least 10 of the 32 NFL teams got their names in part through a contest: the Falcons, Bills, Broncos, Jaguars, Chargers, Dolphins, Patriots, Raiders, Steelers, and the Seahawks. But the Raiders name was not the winning entry(!).
1901: The Arizona Cardinals got their name in 1901 from their chosen jersey color. In 1901, team owner Chris O’Brien purchased used and faded maroon jerseys from the University of Chicago and dubbed the color of his squad’s new outfits “cardinal red.” The Chicago Cardinals later adopted the cardinal bird as part of its logo (around 1947) and first featured a cardinal head on its helmets in 1960.
1966: The Atlanta Falcons got their name from a local radio station contest to name the team. More than 500 names were submitted, including Peaches, Vibrants, Lancers, Confederates, Firebirds, and Thrashers. Schoolteacher Julia Elliott of nearby Griffin was declared the winner of the contest for the reason she provided. “The falcon is proud and dignified, with great courage and fight,” Elliott wrote. “It never drops its prey. It is deadly and has great sporting tradition.” Elliott won four season tickets for three years and a football autographed by the entire 1966 inaugural team.
1996: The Baltimore Ravens got their name as a reference to Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem. Poe died and is buried in Baltimore.
1960: The Buffalo Bills got their name as part of a fan contest in 1947 to rename Buffalo’s All-America Football Conference team — originally known as the Bisons. The Bills nickname came from a popular barbershop quartet’s name and also referenced frontiersman Buffalo Bill Cody and was selected over Bullets, Nickels, and Blue Devils.
1994: The Carolina Panthers got their name from the owning family. Team president Mark Richardson, the son of team owner Jerry Richardson, chose the Panthers nickname because “it’s a name our family thought signifies what we thought a team should be—powerful, sleek and strong.”
1922: The Chicago Bears got their name from the Chicago Cubs. In 1921, the Decatur Staleys moved to Chicago and kept their nickname, a nod to the team’s sponsor, the Staley Starch Company. When star player George Halas purchased the team the following year, he decided to change the nickname. Chicago played its home games at Wrigley Field, home of baseball’s Cubs, and Halas opted to stick with the ursine theme.
1968: The Cincinnati Bengals got their name from owner, general manager, and head coach Paul Brown, who nicknamed the 1968 AFL expansion franchise the Bengals in honor of the football team nicknamed the Bengals that played in the city from 1937-1942. According to Brown, the nickname “would provide a link with past professional football in Cincinnati.” Brown chose Bengals over the fans’ most popular suggestion, Buckeyes.
1945: The Cleveland Browns got their name from after — and history is a little hazy on this — its first coach and general manager, Paul Brown, or after boxer Joe Louis, who was nicknamed the “Brown Bomber.” Team owner Mickey McBride conducted a fan contest in 1945 and the most popular submission was Browns. According to one version of the story, Paul Brown vetoed the nickname and chose Panthers instead, but a local businessman informed the team that he owned the rights to the name Cleveland Panthers. Brown ultimately agreed to the use of his name and Browns stuck.
1960: The Dallas Cowboys got their name from general manager Tex Schramm and the Dallas Steers, a name that was going to be applied to the team. But Schramm decided that having a castrated bull as a mascot might subject the team to ridicule, so he decided to go with Rangers instead. But fearing that people would confuse the football team with the local minor league baseball team nicknamed the Rangers, Schramm finally changed the nickname to Cowboys shortly before the 1960 season began.
1960: The Denver Broncos got their name from a contest. A 25-word essay by Ward M. Vining was the winning entry among 162 fans (only 162?!) who responded. A Denver team by the same name played in the Midwest Baseball League in 1921.
1934: The Detroit Lions got their name similarly as did the Chicago Bears — from the local baseball team. Radio executive George A. Richards purchased and moved the Portsmouth Spartans to Detroit in 1934 and renamed the team the Lions. The nickname was likely derived from Detroit’s established baseball team, the Tigers, who won 101 games and the AL pennant that year. As the team explained it, “The lion is the monarch of the jungle, and we hope to be the monarch of the league.”
1919: The Green Bay Packers got their name from a can packing company workers (meat packing workers, packers). Team founder Earl “Curly” Lambeau’s employer, the Indian Packing Company, sponsored the team and provided equipment and access to the field. The Indian Packing Company became the Acme Packing Company and later folded, but the nickname stuck.
2000: The Houston Texans got their name from owner Bob McNair. Throughout history, Texans was a popular team name (e.g. — Dallas Texans: 1941 and 1945, 2 different hockey teams; 1952, 1960 (became the KC Chiefs), and 1990, different football teams; San Antonio Texans: 1995, a CFL football team; and more!). Houston owner Bob McNair chose Texans over Apollos and Stallions.
1953: The Indianapolis Colts got their name from Baltimore’s rich history of horse racing and breeding, which includes the annual “Preakness Stakes”, a premier thoroughbred horse racing event and second jewel of the famous “Triple Crown” championship series of the sport run at the historic Pimlico Race Course since 1873.
1991: The Jacksonville Jaguars got their name from a fan contest in 1991, 2 years before the city was officially awarded an expansion team and 4 years before the team would begin play. Other names considered included the Sharks and Stingrays. While Jaguars aren’t native to Jacksonville, the oldest living jaguar in North America was housed in the Jacksonville Zoo.
1963: The Kansas City Chiefs got their name from owner Lamar Hunt, who had moved the Dallas Rexans to KC. He changed the team’s name to the Chiefs after also considering Mules, Royals, and Stars.
1960: The Los Angeles Chargers got their name from a contest. Owner Barron Hilton promised a trip to Mexico City to the winner in 1960. Gerald Courtney submitted “Chargers” and Hilton reportedly liked the name so much that he didn’t open another letter.
1936: The Los Angeles Rams got their name from… well, gkster tells us how, as quoted above.
1965: The Miami Dolphins got their name from a contest. More than 600 fans suggested Dolphins, but Marjorie Swanson was declared the winner after correctly predicting a tie in the 1965 college football game between Miami and Notre Dame as part of a follow-up contest. Swanson, who won a lifetime season pass to Dolphins games, told reporters she consulted a Magic 8-Ball before predicting the score of the game. Miami owner Joe Robbie was fond of the winning nickname because, as he put it, “The dolphin is one of the fastest and smartest creatures in the sea.” And as for fast players, Eugene Morris played for the Dolphins and was so quick and fast that his nickname was Mercury Morris.
1960: The Minnesota Vikings got their name from Bert Rose, general manager when it joined the NFL in 1961, who recommended the nickname to the team’s Board of Directors because “it represented both an aggressive person with the will to win and the Nordic tradition in the northern Midwest.” The expansion franchise also became the first pro sports team to feature its home state, rather than a city, in the team name.
1960: The New England Patriots got their name from a contest.
1966: The New Orleans Saints got their name from team owner John Mecom, who said it was a nod to the city’s jazz heritage and taken from the popular song, “When the Saints Go Marching In.” The franchise was awarded by the NFL to New Orleans on All Saints Day, 01 November 1966.
1925: The New York Giants got their name from baseball, like the Bears and Lions. Team owner Tim Mara chose the name that way, which was a popular way to choose names, when baseball was the most popular sport in the country.
1963: The New York Jets got their name from owner Sonny Werblin, because the team was going to play at Shea Stadium,which is close to LaGuardia Airport. According to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the name was supposed to reflect the “modern approach of his team.”
1960: The Oakland Raiders got their name from a contest, but not(!) from the winning entry. Helen A. Davis, an Oakland policewoman, submitted the winning entry, Señors, and was rewarded with a trip to the Bahamas. The nickname, an allusion to the old Spanish settlers of northern California, was ridiculed in the weeks that followed, and fans also claimed that the contest was fixed (hmmm… maybe the Raider mystique started here?). Scotty Stirling, a sportswriter for the Oakland Tribune who would later become the team’s general manager, provided another reason to abandon the nickname. “That’s no good,” Stirling said. “We don’t have the accent mark for the n in our headline type.” Responding to the backlash, team GM Chet Soda and the team’s other investors decided to change the team’s nickname to Raiders, which was a finalist in the contest along with Lakers.
1933: The Philadelphia Eagles got their name from President FDR’s New Deal. The National Recovery Act, part of the New Deal, had the eagle as its symbol. The team owners bought the bankrupt Frankford Yellowjackets and were inspired by the Act.
1940: The Pittsburgh Steelers got their name from a contest.
The San Francisco 49ers got their name from the 1849 settlers who ventured to the San Francisco area during the gold rush.
1975: The Seattle Seahawks got their name from a contest. More than 20,000 submittals with 1,700 unique names including Skippers, Pioneers, Lumberjacks, and Seagulls were received. About 150 people suggested Seahawks.
1974: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers got their name from a panel of local sportswriters and representatives from the NFL expansion team, including owner Hugh F. Culverhouse, who chose Buccaneers from an original list of more than 400 names in 1975. The nickname, which was a popular choice among fans in a name-the-team contest, was a nod to the pirates who raided Florida’s coasts during the 17th century.
1998: The Tennessee Titans got their name from an advisory committee assembled by owner Bud Adams. After playing two seasons as the Tennessee Oilers, in 1997 and 1998, the Oilers became the Titans. Adams let it be known that the new name should reflect power, strength, leadership and other heroic qualities. Titans also served as a nod to Nashville’s nickname of “The Athens of the South” (for its large number of higher-learning institutions, Classical architecture, and its full-scale replica of the Parthenon).
1933: The Washington Redskins got their name from owner George Preston Marshall who changed the team name from the Boston Braves to the Boston Redskins.
A number of Major League Baseball teams have been named through a contest.
The Arizona Diamondbacks were named in such a contest from a list that included a bunch of desert animals, like coyotes and scorpions and, bizarrely, “Phoenix.” That’s right; they could have been called the Arizona Phoenix.
The Perfect Master speaks: Why do lions appear on coats of arms even though Europe didn’t have any? - The Straight Dope
The phoenix appeared on coats of arms of medieval families and as a royal heraldic badge of Queen Elizabeth I. No other English monarch used the phoenix badge and no European country has a phoenix on its coat of arms currently.
Lions, on the other hand, appear on many current European coats of arms.
Elizabeth I was the daughter of Henry VIII and his second wife Anne Boleyn, who was executed when Elizabeth was just two years old. Although Elizabeth I only mentioned her mother a couple of times during her lifetime, she wore a locket ring which contained a miniature of herself along with a miniature of her mother.