Coca Cola was purportedly invented by Confederate Colonel John Pemberton, who was wounded in the American Civil War and became addicted to morphine. He was trying to find a less-addicting substitute for the drug. Coca Cola was named for two of its chief ingredients in the original recipe, the kola nut and the coca leaf.
Club Cool is an attraction located at the Epcot theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida. It features free samples of many Coca-Cola soft drinks from around the world, including Fanta Pineapple from Greece, VegitaBeta from Japan (non-carbonated with apricot and passion fruit flavors) and Beverly from Italy, a bitter non-alcoholic apéritif. Visitors familiar with Beverly sometimes trick newcomers into drinking it, with cameras ready to catch their expressions of shock.
Italy, with 20 regions and 6 islands, is home to the most UNESCO World Heritage sites of any country – over 40.
English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a registered charity that manages the National Heritage Collection. This comprises over 400 of England’s historic buildings, monuments and sites spanning more than 5,000 years of history. Within its portfolio are Stonehenge, Dover Castle, Tintagel Castle and the best preserved parts of Hadrian’s Wall. English Heritage also manages the London Blue Plaques scheme, which links influential historical figures to particular buildings.
Singer and actress Julie London was born in Santa Rosa CA in 1926. She was married to Bobby Troupe, and together they co-starred in the 1970s TC series Emergency! which ran from 1972-1977.
The French word for London, England, is “Londres”, but the French word for London, Ontario, is “London”.
A common derogatory French word for English people, based on a staple food item, is << les rosbifs >>. A more specific term for English soldiers, originating in the Hundred Years War but still current, is << les goddams >>.
English author Susanna Clarke’s best-selling fantasy/alternative history novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, adapted as a miniseries by the BBC, is about the return of magic to Regency England after a hiatus of several centuries. It has been described as “Jane Austen meets Harry Potter.”
The “regency” period of English history takes its name from the fact that George III became too ill to rule and so his son, also named George, ruled in his place as “Prince Regent.” He served in that role from 1811 to 1820, when his father died, and so he became King George IV.
The New York State High School diploma is known as the Regents diploma, and its statewide exams are called the Regents exams. The Board of Regents has 17 officials elected by the state legislature to supervise all educational activities. One reference to the Regents exams appears in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman when Willy wants Bernard to help Biff to cheat. Bernard protests that they could be arrested for cheating on the Regents since it’s a state exam.
*Bernard *is a computer-animated television series produced by RG Animation Studios. The center of the show is a curious polar bear named Bernard, whose bumbling antics usually result in the bear being knocked unconscious or being severely injured by the end of each episode. Other characters include penguins Lloyd and Eva, Zack the lizard, Goliath the chihuahua, Sam the baby, Pilot the dog, Pokey the porcupine, and Santa Claus. A total of 60 episodes were produced from 2006 through 2012.
Bernard Woolley was the third main character in Yes, Minister, the voice of reason and common sense, caught between the naive but cunning Minister, Jim Hacker, and the utterly cynical Deputy Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby.
Woolley eventually rises to the top of the British civil service, becoming Sir Bernard Woolley, KGCB.
Thomas Paine, whose first pamphlet “Common Sense” was influential in bringing about the revolution in 1776, fell into infamy during his life. He blamed George Washington for conspiring to have him imprisoned in France. Paine went on to be recognized as an American hero, although at the time of his death in 1809, his obituary read “He had lived long, did some good, and much harm”. Only six mourners came to his funeral. He was commemorated on a 1969 postage stamp.
Professional mourners have been around since Biblical times, evidently. There are companies in UK and USA that will hire out mourners to make a funeral more crowded than it would normally be. It has been more common in Eastern cultures. In the nonfiction book, The Corpse Walker by Liao Yiwu, a Chinese man named Li likened his job to that of acting in a play, singing and wailing, often in coordination with colleagues. He said performances were sometimes applauded. That was in the mid-1900s. The demand for the profession diminished under communism.
Lithium (Li) is the lightest element in solid form. Three quarters of the world supply of Lithium is produced by Australia and Chile.
Should it just be “GCB”?: Bernard Woolley - Wikipedia
In play:
Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria, President of Chile, is the first woman to hold that estimable post. A socialist, she is now serving her second nonconsecutive term.
While the past three First Ladies have been the first three to hold advanced college degrees (Hillary Clinton, JD; Laura Bush, MLS; and Michelle Obama, JD) none of the wives and ex-wives of the current US President have any college degrees.
Martha Jefferson Randolph was the eldest child of Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States. Jefferson’s wife died shortly after the birth of their sixth child, and he never remarried. During Jefferson’s term as president, Martha sometimes lived with him at the White House, serving as his hostess and informal First Lady.
William Howard Taft was the first US President whose mother was a college graduate. His mother, Louisa Torrey of Boston, graduated in 1845 from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts (then known as Mount Holyoke Female Seminary), the first of the Seven Sisters women’s colleges, founded in 1837.
Among recent presidents, George W. Bush’s mother, Barbara Pierce Bush, attended Smith College in Massachusetts (another Seven Sisters school) but did not graduate. Barack Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, earned her PhD in Anthropology at University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Donald Trump’s mother, Mary Ann McLeod, was raised in a Scottish Gaelic-speaking household on the island of Tong in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. English was her second language, which she learned at Tong school where it was reported she was a star pupil. She attended school until the age of 13.
Melania Trump was born in Novo Mesto SVN (Slovenia), and she grew up in Sevnica SVN. Both are about 40 miles east of Ljubljana, the capital. Melania Trump was a model and thus never needed an advanced degree. She is the first naturalized U.S. citizen to become First Lady of the United States.