The Red Mountain Trail near the small town of Johannesburg CA is a moderate hiking trail 4 miles long, out-and-back (8 miles total). It is about 25 miles south of Ridgecrest CA, and 100 miles east of Bakersfield CA.
Proto-rapper Gil Scott-Heron’s second most famous recording after “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” was “(What’s the Word?) Johannesburg”, a denunciation of apartheid.
Isaac Hayes’ song, Ike’s Rap 2 (YouTube) is one of the earliest songs described as rap, in the early 1970s. The word rap may be from a shortening of repartee.
Ninja’ed!
On July 17, 1974, Isaac Hayes, along with 3 other men, took over ownership of the American Basketball Association team the Memphis Tams. The prior owner was Charles O. Finley, the owner of the Oakland A’s baseball team. Hayes’s group renamed the team the Memphis Sounds. Despite making the 1975 ABA Playoffs, the team struggled financially. The ABA eventually took over the team, selling it to a group in Maryland that renamed the team the Baltimore Hustlers and then the Baltimore Claws before the club finally folded during preseason play for the 1975-1976 season.
The 1976 American Basketball Association-National Basketball Association merger brough several teams into the NBA, but not the Anaheim Amigos, Houston Mavericks, Kentucky Colonels, Minnesota Muskies, New Orleans Buccaneers, Oakland Americans, Pittsburgh Pipers, and the San Diego Conquistadors. All of those teams ended up folding.
You left out the Spirits of St. Louis, one of two teams, along with the Colonels, that were still functional when the merger occurred but were not accepted into the NBA. As part of the agreement to fold, the Spirits owners made a deal to get TV rights in perpetuity. When they were finally bought out with a $500 million lump sum, they had made $15 million a year for 35 years for doing nothing.
So according to Wiki… the Spirits of St. Louis played from 1974–1976. They formed from the former Carolina Cougars who played from 1969–1974 and who, in turn, formed from the Houston Mavericks who played from 1967–1969. That overall franchise did fold in 1976.
Charles Lindbergh named the airplane in which he crossed the Atlantic solo in 1927 the Spirit of St. Louis. The Ryan NYP plane is now on permanent display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
New France had three kings named Louis: Louis XIII, Louis XIV, and Louis XV, who ceded New France to Britain at the conclusion of the Seven Years’ War.
The Gateway arch of St. Louis is not a parabola, as many people think. The curve of the arch is a weighted catenary, which is a hyperbolic trigonometric function. It is not a polynomial.
So when St Louis boosters say it’s the world’s tallest arch, it’s hyperbole?
D&running! 
Exactly!
Ahem. From #39565…
Gateway is a 1977 science fiction novel by American writer Frederik Pohl. It won the 1978 Hugo Award for Best Novel, the 1978 Locus Award for Best Novel, the 1977 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and the 1978 John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel.
Hugo is a nickname for “Hugh”. Hugh Capet was the first Capetian king of the western Franks, and is now considered the founder of the Kingdom of France. His many - times - great grandson was tried and executed in 1793 as Citizen Louis Capet.
The currency of Liechtenstein since 1920 is the Liechtenstein franc, or frank.
Charlemagne’s huge realm eventually was split into three by his heirs: East Frankia, which became the early Kingdom of Germany, West Frankia, which became the Kingdom of France, and Middle Frankia, which fairly quickly distintegrated into small principalities and client states of the other two Franckias.
All of them took their names from the Germanic tribe of the Franks.
East Frankia lost the name but kept a Germanic language.
West Frankia kept the name but lost the Germanic language, adopting the Romance language which became French.
The Thai word farang, for White person, derives from “Frank”, as Western Europeans called themselves “Franks” for over a millennium after the Western Roman Empire fell.
A Hindu calendar based on the earth’s sidereal motion, named the Tamil calendar and used in southern India, in Tamil Nadu, has a month named Thai (தை). Thaipusam (தைப்பூசம்) is a festival celebrated by the Tamil community on the full moon in the Tamil month of Thai (January/February).
The pagan Celtic calendar put the equinoxes and solstices in the middle of the seasons. August 1st, considered the start of the autumn season is celebrated as Lughnasadh (pronounced loaf-mass), the start of the harvesting season. The autumn equinox is called Mabon.