I was always disappointed that the transplanted Arizona Cardinals (a bird of rare occurrence in the state) were not instead called Phoenix Pyrrhuloxias, a common Arizona bird closely related to the Cardinal. Could have kept the same helmet logo, just changing colors.
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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.
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The office of Queen’s Counsel is believed to date to the reign of Elizabeth I, who appointed “lawyers learned in the law” to represent her interests in court. The first known Queen’s Counsel was Sir Francis Bacon, who apparently had been appointed Special Counsel to Her Majesty. After her death, Bacon obtained a patent from James I renewing his appointment as King’s Counsel. That patent became the precedent for all subsequent appointments of King’s Counsel (KC) or Queen’s Counsel (QC).
Queen Elizabeth II now holds the record of being the longest-reigning British monarch. Her coronation day was June 2, 1953, so, as of today, she has held the position for 64 years and 246 days. Other long-reigning monarchs include Queen Victoria for 63 years (1837-1901), and King George III for 59 years (1760-1820).
Queen Victoria was said to be proud of the fact that she was not descended from Henry VIII, whom she regarded as an autocratic tyrant, the polar opposite of a good 19th century constitutional monarch.
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British monarchs assume office the moment their predecessor dies. There is no inter-regnum. Elizabeth has been monarch since February 6, 1952, when her father died, so she is just three days short of 66 years as Queen.
Queen Victoria once complained that Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, the great Liberal statesman, “addresses me as if I were a public meeting.” On a personal level she liked his rival, the longtime Conservative leader Benjamin Disraeli, much more.
Super Bowl XXXII’s halftime performers were Boyz II Men, Smokey Robinson, Martha Reeves, The Temptations, Queen Latifah, and the Grambling State University Marching Band.
Smokey Bear is an American advertising mascot created by the Ad Council. The first campaign featuring Smokey appeared in 1944. Smokey was named for a New York City firefighter, “Smokey” Joe Martin, who suffered burns and blindness during a daring 1922 rescue.
‘Smokey The Bear’ first appeared in a 1952 song; the songwriters added the ‘The’ to keep the song’s rhythm. A 1955 Little Golden Book was titled ‘Smokey The Bear’, and the two names have both been in widespread use since then.
The eighth book in the Little Golden Booksseries, The Poky Little Puppy, is the top-selling children’s book of all time. Although the details have changed over the years, the Little Golden Books have maintained a distinctive appearance. A copy of The Poky Little Puppy bought today is essentially the same as one printed in 1942. The series grew rapidly, and by 1954 they were available throughout most of the world, except in the Soviet Union, where they were considered too capitalistic.
The South Saskatchewan Regiment was part of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division during WWII. It first saw action in the Dieppe Raid in 1942. The Regiment suffered 84 casualties in the short raid and numerous POWs.
The OC of the SSR, Lt Col Merritt, was wounded twice and captured. He was awarded the VC for his leadership on the beaches of Dieppe.
Following Dieppe, the SSR was part of the Canadian forces which landed in Normandy and fought in northern France and the Netherlands.
My uncle was a lieutenant in the Regiment and charged with the heart-breaking job of making up the casualty lists once the SSR returned after the raid. He never spoke of that part of his wartime experience.
On July 24, 2017, the Philadelphia Eagles signed Canadian rugby player Adam Zaruba to a 3-year contract. Zaruba was attempting to make the team as a tight end, but he was a victim of the final roster cut in early September of 2017.
Zaruba’s former team, the Eagles, won a football game this evening.
Canadian Football League championships are played outdoors, except when Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal win the contract to host the Grey Cup in their wussy domed stadiums.
The coldest Grey Cup I’ve attended was in Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, the northern-most city with a pro football league in North America.
We were in the nosebleed section, barely sheltered from the northern prairie wind. The Montreal Alouettes prevailed over the hometown Edmonton Eskimos.
Later that night, I was almost mugged by an Edmonton fan who took violent objection to a Saskatchewan fan flying an Als flag.
The boundary between Saskatchewan and Manitoba is not a straight line. The provinces are divided into agricultural sections, which are perfect squares, but meridians of longitude are not parallel, they converge as they proceed north. In order to accommodate both facts of geometry, the provincial border is jogged. At Flin Flon, Manitoba, the provincial border is an east-west line, where one of the sawteeth occurs.
And Tom Brady played on the losing team last night.
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Flin Flon, Manitoba shares with Tarzana, California, the distinction of being named after a character in a science fiction novel. Flin Flon is named after Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin, a character in the novel, The Sunless City by J. E. Preston Muddock. Tarzana is named after author Edgar Rice Burroughs’ fictional jungle hero, Tarzan.
Victoria, the ‘White Cat’ in Cats the Musical, is named after the character of the same name in T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, and named after T. S. Eliot’s favorite monarch, Queen Victoria.
The marsupial is a mammal that has the distinctive characteristic of the offspring being carried in a pouch by the mother during the early stages of life. Marsupials are native to the Americas and Australia. There are 334 species of marsupials; 70% are native to Australia. The only marsupial native to North America is a species of the opossum, more commonly called the possum.
Australia is the only English-speaking country to have made voting compulsory in federal and state elections. It results in a voter turnout of 95 per cent. The secret ballot box was pioneered in Victoria in 1856.
The naval ensign of Australia reverses the colors of the national flag. It entered use in 1967 after approval by the head of state, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
The flag patch on the right shoulder (not the left) of a US Army uniform is in the same orientation as a free-flying flag held by a marcher. US flags on the right side of airliners are also reversed, to appear in the same orientation as naval ensigns. Canadian and British flags do not permit the issue to arise due to their symmetry.
