Franklin D. Roosevelt, Democrat of New York, was inaugurated for his first term as President of the United States on March 4, 1933. Presidential inaugurations are now on Jan. 20 following an election.
Canadian Prime Ministers do not serve a set term. Once sworn in, they serve until they resign, are dismissed by the Governor General, or die. Two Prime Ministers have died in office. All the rest have resigned, either because of an election defeat or to retire. None have ever been dismissed, unlike Australia.
Before being officially named Melbourne, the town established in that part of Australia had several interim names — including Batmania, Bearbrass, Bareport, Bareheep, Barehurp and Bareberp. It was officially named Melbourne in 1837, after the then British Prime Minister William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, who resided in the village of Melbourne in Derbyshire. England.
*Batmania *was a comics fanzine published by Bill ‘Biljo’ White, produced for ‘Batmanians’ as the unofficial ‘fanzine for Batman fans.’ It was first published in July of 1964 and its motto was ‘For Batman, we accept nothing as impossible.’ The title was inspired by the Beatlemania that had swept the U.S. earlier in the year.
Besides being a unit of weight in west Asia, the batman was also a measure of land area in Uyghur, the area that could be sown with one batman of seed, or about 7.4 kilograms. The area of a vernacular batman would vary according to the crop being sown.
In traditional Thai weights, a baht is about 15 grams and can be subdivided into 4 saleung. There are 4 baht in a tamleung; 20 tamleung in a chang; and 50 chang in a hap. The hap is equivalent to a Chinese picul, which is the weight a man can carry with a shoulder pole. In 1859 you could buy one *picul *of Javanese coffee in Singapore for 8.50 Spanish dollars.
The Thai monetary unit baht was originally a silver coin weighing one baht.
The word “dollar” is derived from the German word “thal”, meaning a valley.
The town of Joachimstal (“valley of Joachim”) in Bohemia began minting high grade silver coins in the early 16th century. The coins were nicknamed “Joachimsthaler”, which eventually was shortened to “thaler”, with the “th” pronounced as “t”. From their to “dollar” was a short step, linguistically.
Dollar Lake CA is a lake in Southern California between Big Bear and Banning, and near Yucaipa. It is known for camping and hiking
The Quarter (25 cents) is derived from quota, or a day’s wages back in the…sorry, wrong game.
The Treason Act 1351 established England’s common law offence of treason. For high treason the penalty was death by hanging, drawing and quartering for a man, or drawing and burning for a woman. Male convicts were fastened to a hurdle, or wooden panel, and drawn by horse to the place of execution, where they were hanged (almost to the point of death), emasculated, disembowelled, beheaded, and quartered (chopped into four pieces). Their remains were often displayed in prominent places across the country, such as London Bridge.
Maxwell Anderson’s play Anne of the Thousand Days (later made into a film starring Genevieve Bujold) features several monologues by Anne Boleyn. In one of them she reflects on her coming beheading, and the fact that nobody will grieve for her, unlike Thomas More, whose beheading she caused, and whose devoted daughter Margaret More was said to have taken his head from Tower Bridge herself:
“climbing into the darkness above the bridge
and hunting among the stinking and bloody heads
of criminals, till she found her father’s head,
and pulling it from the spike,
holding on with one hand, crying, almost falling,
his beard matted and hard with blood.
Then she must clasp the horrible thing against her breast,
and climb down in the dark, holding by one hand,
slipping, near falling, unable to see for tears.”
According to one legend, Margaret, in a boat under Tower Bridge, wished that her father’s head would fall into her lap, which it promptly did. In reality, she probably paid the guard to retrieve it for her, which they were willing to do since More’s execution was viewed as unjust. The king’s council found out about it and called her before them for “stealing” the head. She admitted to it readily, but probably because of sympathy for her and More, the council decided not to charge her with anything.
While they were on Tower Bridge, the heads of More and Bishop Fisher drew crowds that clogged the bridge so badly traffic could not pass. People claimed the severed heads looked more lifelike every day, and birds would not peck at them. People were beginning to see it as a divine sign, and to call the two men saints.
The fisher, a member of the weasel family, is a small carnivorous mammal native to North America. It range covers much of the coniferous forests of Canada and the northern United States. Despite is name, the fisher is not known to eat fish.
The Vought OS2U Kingfisher was a WWII-era observation float plane that were included on the decks of some large battleships. According to Wiki, at least eight Kingfishers survive around the world: one each in Australia, New Zealand, Cuba, and Chile, and four in the US — in Mobile AL, at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, at NAS Pensacola, and on board the battleship North Carolina in Wilmington NC.
ETA image of the one on the USS North Carolina: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4e/USMC-101112-M-4752B-025.jpg/1920px-USMC-101112-M-4752B-025.jpg
The Fisher King is a character in Celtic mythology who eventually found his way into the Arthurian Cycle.
The Fisher King has been wounded in his “thigh” and is impotent. As a result he cannot fulfill his kingly functions of protecting his land, which is a wasteland. His mobility is limited and he spends his days fishing.
He is the guardian of a cauldron in the early Welsh versions, which eventually becomes the Holy Grail in the Arthurian tales.
Mercedes Ruehl won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Anne in the 1991 Arthurian-themed drama The Fisher King, and Robin Williams was nominated for Best Actor.
US Route 91 used to extend from (almost) border to border, from Long Beach CA to the USA-CAN border north of Sweet Grass MT — about 1,400 miles at its peak between 1947 and 1965.
Today, major parts of the original US-91 have been supplanted by I-15 and I-215 in California, and I-15 in NV, UT, ID, and MT.
Today’s US-91 is 172 miles long, between Brigham City UT and Idaho Falls ID.
Interstate 91 has its southern end in New Haven, CT. From there it runs 290 miles north, through Hartford CT, Springfield Massachusetts and then North through Vermont until it reaches the Canadian border and becomes Autoroute 55 in Quebec.
US-2 is the northernmost east–west U.S. Route in the country. It is the lowest primary-numbered east–west U.S. Route, whose numbers otherwise end in zero, and was so numbered to avoid a US-0. US-2 crosses I-91 at St Johnsbury VT. US-2 is 2,500 miles long and runs from Everett WA to Houlton ME. But the driving distance from Everett WA to Houlton ME is over 3,400 miles (gMap link). US-2 is split into a
western and eastern portions, from Everett WA to St. Ignace MI, and from Rouses Point NY to Houlton ME, respectively. (image)
According to Wikipedia, US Route 20 is the longest road in the United States. The total length of the highway is 3,365 miles. The highway’s eastern terminus is in Boston, Massachusetts, at Kenmore Square, where it meets State Route 2. Its western terminus is in Newport, Oregon, at an intersection with US 101, within a mile of the Pacific Ocean.
The longest North-South interstate highway in the United States is I-95, which runs from Miami, Florida to Houlton, Maine, a distance of 1,892.76 miles.