There have been four Eddystone Light[house]s, off the Devon coast in southwestern England. The first and second were destroyed by storm and fire; the third was dismantled and the fourth, first lit in 1882, was built nearby. The foundations of the third remain in place.
Devon is a type of manufactured meat product sold in Australia and New Zealand. It is usually served in a sandwich, often with tomato sauce, and can also be fried in slices. It is usually composed of several types of pork, basic spices, and a binder. It is similar in appearance and taste to the bologna sausage and the cooked pork sausage known in Australia as Berliner.
The writer Robert Louis Stevenson came from a family of famous lighthouse builders. His grandfather, Robert Stevenson, built the Bell Rock lighthouse on the deadly Inchcape Rock in the North Sea, partly basing the design on the Eddystone Rock lighthouse in Devon. The masonry work on which the lighthouse rests was so well built that it has not been replaced or adapted in 200 years. The challenges faced in the building of the lighthouse have led to it being described as one of the “Seven Wonders of the Industrial World”.
Robert Louis Stevenson’s father and uncles wanted him to follow the family profession and disapproved of his literary interests. He wrote a poem on this in 1886:
Say not of me that weakly I declined
The labours of my sires, and fled the sea,
The towers we founded and the lamps we lit,
To play at home with paper like a child.
But rather say: In the afternoon of time
A strenuous family dusted from its hands
The sand of granite, and beholding far
Along the sounding coast its pyramids
And tall memorials catch the dying sun,
Smiled well content, and to this childish task
Around the fire addressed its evening hours.
New Zealand is about the size of the eastern seaboard of the US, stretching from roughly Georgia up to roughly New Jersey: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dejus/1337345117/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Australia is roughly the size of the continental USA: http://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/national-location-information/dimensions/australias-size-compared
Countries by size ranking:
4: USA
6: AUS
75: NZL
Because of the ninja: the Tasman Sea separates AUS from NZL.
Russia, with approximately 6.6 million square miles, is the largest country in the world, with almost 11% of the world’s landmass. If Antarctica were a country, it would rank second in size behind Russia, with approximately 5.4 million square miles. Canada and China rank second and third on the list of countries by size; Brazil is fifth.
The smallest country in the world is Vatican City, with a total of .17 square miles. The second smallest country is Monaco, with a total of .78 square miles.
Canada has the longest coastline of any country in the world – by far. It has more than triple the next country, Indonesia. In fact if you combine the coastlines of the next five countries with the longest coastlines, Indonesia (2nd most), Greenland, Russia, the Philippines, and Japan, the sum would still be less than Canada’s coastline.
A major league record unlikely to ever be broken is Owen Wilson’s 36 triples in one season, 1912. Nobody since the 1920s has hit even half that many, and they are more difficult to accomplish now in symmetrical stadiums with few idiosyncrasies. It is suspected that for that season, Wilson never stopped at second, being credited with one of his 19 doubles only if thrown out at third base.
New Mexico was made the 47th state of the United States of America in 1912. (47-star flags are difficult to come by, since Arizona made it 48 just a month later.)
Interestingly, New Mexico got its name independently of the naming of the nation-state of Mexico; it isn’t named after Mexico, but was named by Spanish explorers in the 16th century.
The Vatican City State and Monaco are both monarchies; the first elective, and the second hereditary. Both feature red in their coats of arms.
Both Vatican City and San Marino are enclaves in Italy. San Marino exists mainly by historical oversight during the peninsula’s period of reconsolidation, while Vatican City was created by the Lateran Treaties between Mussolini’s Fascist government and the RCC. It is the remainder of the once-powerful Papal States.
Of the 23 smallest countries in the world by area (according to Wikipedia, List of countries and dependencies by area - Wikipedia), 17 are island countries. Of these smallest that are non-island countries, the five smallest are in Europe. It’s not until you get to the 23rd smallest country that you find a non-European, non-island country: Bahrain.
From Smallest, toLarger
Vatican City
Monaco
Nauru
Tuvalu
San Marino
Liechtenstein
Marshall Islands
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Maldives
Malta
Grenada
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Barbados
Antigua and Barbuda
Seychelles
Palau
Andorra
Saint Lucia
Federated States of Micronesia
Singapore
Tonga
Dominica
Bahrain
The country of Andorra is the sixth-smallest nation in Europe, having an area of 181 square miles and a population of approximately 77,281. Its capital Andorra la Vella is the highest capital city in Europe, at an elevation of 3,356 feet above sea level.
Andoriansfirst appeared in the 1968 Star Trek: The Original Series episode “Journey to Babel”, written by D.C. Fontana, and have been seen or mentioned in episodes of subsequent series in the Star Trek franchise. Andorians have blue blood, blue skin, white hair, and antennae on the crown of the skull. By the time of the 2001 – 2005 TV series Star Trek: Enterprise, the antennae were depicted as protruding from the forehead, and capable of movement, used for gesturing and balancing.
Out of play: That is awesome timing.
Out of play: Kind of. When a state is admitted, the added star becomes official on the next July 4th and so this country has never has a 47 star flag because on July 4, 1912 two stars were added to the 16 already there.
In play:Also on Andoria were the Aenar. Albino, blind and telepathic they could interbreed with Andorians.
Lt. Cmdr. Data (Brent Spiner) said, in the 1991 *Star Trek: The Next Generation *episode “Data’s Day,” that Andorian marriages required four people, unless… but he was cut off before he could complete his sentence.
ETA: Data was never mentioned as having visited Germany.
Brent Spiner has played leading roles in two Broadway productions, Hubert in the comedy Life (x) 3 and John Adams in the musical 1776.
(I saw him in 1776 and he was very good; he got favorable professional reviews as well. It took me a little while to get used to his skin being pinkish-brown and not greenish-gray, though.)
Sweet light crude oil is petroleum with less than 0.42% sulfur. Petroleum containing higher levels of sulfur is called sour crude oil. Brent Crude oil is light and sweet because of its relatively low density and because of its low sulphur content. Brent Crude was originally produced from the Brent oilfield in the East Shetland Basin of the North Sea, about 110 miles northeast of Lerwick, Shetland Islands, Scotland.
Cantonese sweet and sour sauce is the direct ancestor of sauce of the same name in the West, and originally developed for sweet and sour pork. The late renowned chef from Hong Kong, Leung King, included the following as his sweet and sour source sauce recipe: white rice vinegar, salt, Chinese brown candy, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and dark soy sauce.
Soy sauce, a liquid condiment of Chinese origin, is believed to have first been created during the Western Han dynasty of Ancient China about 2200 years ago. It is made from a fermented paste of soybeans, roasted grain, brine, and a mold called Aspergillus oryzae. This mold is also used in the making of certain alcoholic beverages, including sake.
Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), widely used in Chinese cooking, was suspected of causing headaches, vague pains and possible allergic reactions all lumped under the heading of “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome”. However, the early studies that followed these claims had essential flaws, including that participants knew whether or not they were consuming MSG. Subsequent research has found that the vast majority of people, even those claiming a sensitivity to MSG, don’t have any reaction when they don’t know they are eating it.