The Septennial Act was passed by the British Parliament in 1716. It provided that the maximum term for Parliament was seven years, though in practise Parliaments were dissolved after five or six years during the 18th century, and averaging four or five years in the 19th century.
The Parliament Act 1911 reduced the maximum length to five years, while the Fixed Term Parliaments Act of 2011 repealed the Septennial Act entirely, just five years short of its 300th anniversary.
Oliver Cromwell dismissed the Rump Parliament, the remains of the Long Parliament after it was purged of those unwilling to hang King Charles I, saying “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately… Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”
A rump roast of beef is cut from the bottom round. When the bone is left in, it is called a standing rump roast. The round is the rear leg of the cow, and since it is a frequently used muscle, the meat from this area is lean but tough.
In a human, there are six muscles attached to the eyeball that allow the eyeball to move in various directions. Cows have only four muscles that control their eyes. They can look up, down, left, and right, but they can’t roll their eyes like a human can.
All cattle are descended from as few as 80 animals that were domesticated from wild ox in the Near East some 10,500 years ago, according to a new genetic study.
All Thoroughbred horses are descended from at least one of three stallions living in Britain in the 1700’s: The Godolphin Arabian (or Godolphin Barb), the Darley Arabian, and the Byerley Turk.
Secretariat hold for record for all three Triple Crown races: the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes.
Secretariat: my favorite race horse. And yes, he holds the track record (speed; time) for all three.
In play: In the 1973 Kentucky Derby, Secretariat ran each quarter mile faster than the previous, throughout the entire 1.25 miles. This means he was accelerating throughout the entire race.
An amazing feat.
After Secretariat won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes in record times, only four other horses were entered in the Belmont Stakes. With such few horses entered, plus the fact that Secretariat was expected to win, no ‘show’ (third place) bets were taken. Secretariat was a 1-10 favorite as the race started. In the previous two races, Secretariat had broken slowly from the gate and came from behind to win; in the Belmont, he broke first, left his one pursuer at the six furlong mark, and won the race by an astonishing 31 lengths.
An amazing horse.
An amazing horse, indeed.
Secretariat’s main rival during the 1973 Triple Crown season was a horse named Sham. Sham finished second in both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, and leading into the Belmont Sham’s owner, Sigmund Sommer, bragged about victory. But in the race, Sham challenged Secretariat early, and even led a bit in the first turn. Secretariat and Sham separated from the other three horses in the field, Twice a Prince, My Gallant, and Pvt. Smiles (Private Smiles). It looked like a match race between Secretariat and Sham, while the rest of the field faded.
Secretariat and Sham, Sham and Secretariat, together as they started down the back stretch. But then Secretariat pulled away from Sham, slowly at first, and then the separation grew with each of Secretariat’s strides. By the end of the back stretch Secretariat led by about 12 lengths. Sham continued to fade.
Secretariat moved like a “tremendous machine!”
Sham continued to fade, and he finished dead last in the race. Secretariat won by a record 31 lengths.
You Tube, 1973 Belmont Stakes: Secretariat - Belmont Stakes 1973 - YouTube
An amazing horse, indeed. I was a young 11-year old boy and that was my first Triple Crown that I watched on TV. A great introduction to the Triple Crown! I’ve watched them all since then – on TV mind you. Tickets are too rich for my liking.
In Canadian tax law, a “sham” is a term for a financial or business transaction arranged solely to try to reduce one’s taxes.
From the state of Kansas’s Department of Revenue’s drug tax stamp page are instructions requiring illegal drug dealers and possessors to buy drug tax stamps.
:eek:
In Unnatural Death by Sayers, elderly Miss Climpson insists on giving Lord Peter a receipt for the expense money he has given her. She writes out the recipt, adds a two penny stamp (helpfully provided by Inspector Parker), affixes it to the receipt and writes her name across it. The whole process was an early anti-fraud technique.
The two penny stamp was the world’s second official stamp ever issued, the first was the penny black.
Penny Chenery was the owner of Secretariat.
Schuyler “Sky” King, his niece Penny, and sometimes her brother Clipper, all lived on a ranch in Arizona, from which they flew their airplane, “Song Bird”. Originally it was a Cessna T-50, but was replaced by a new-model Cessna 310B when the airplane manufacturer took on a sponsorship role. Sky King notably never killed the bad guys, just handed them over to Sheriff Mitch.
The Cessna 172 Skyhawk is an American four-seat, single-engine, high wing, fixed-wing aircraft made by the Cessna Aircraft Company. First flown in 1955, more 172s have been built than any other aircraft.
ETA: over 44,000 have been built.
Clyde Cessna was a farmer in Kansas when he built and flew his own airplane in 1911. He later formed Cessna Aircraft in 1927, which was based in Wichita, Kansas. The company closed its doors in 1932 due to the Great Depression, but Cessna’s nephews, Dwayne and Dwight Wallace, bought the company and re-opened it in 1934.
In March 2014 Cessna ceased operations as a separate company and became a brand produced by Textron Aviation.
What is generally considered the first mass producer of general-aviation aircraft, Travel Air, was formed in Wichita, still the Detroit of aviation, in January 1925 by Clyde Cessna, Walter Beech, and Lloyd Stearman, each of whom went on to found famous manufacturers under their own names.
When Stearman Aircraft became the Wichita division of The Boeing Airplane Company in 1941, it began to build the B-29 Superfortress. Boeing Wichita produced 1,664 B-29’s during World War II.