Sir Fergus McMaster was one of the three founders of the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services Limited, the airline company that became commonly known by its acronym, Qantas. McMaster was named as chairman of Qantas at the company’s establishment in 1920 and served in that capacity for all but three of the next 27 years until 1947, when Qantas was taken over by the Australian government.
Queensland is the only Australian state with a unicameral legislature.
Nebraska is the only American state with a unicameral legislature. Its capital, Lincoln, is named after the 16th President of the United States. Nebraska is also the only state to be featured as the one-word title of a Bruce Springsteen album.
The following are excerpts from Wikipedia on the topic of unicameral political bodies:
Approximately half of the world’s sovereign states are currently unicameral, including both the most populous (the People’s Republic of China) and the least populous (the Vatican City).
Many subnational entities have unicameral legislatures. These include the state of Nebraska and territories of Guam and the Virgin Islands in the United States, the Chinese Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau, the Australian state of Queensland as well as the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory, a majority of the provinces of Argentina, all of the provinces and territories in Canada, all of the German Bundesländer, all of the Regions of Italy, all of the Spanish Autonomous Communities, both the Autonomous Regions of Portugal, most of the States of India. and all of the Brazilian states.
In the United Kingdom, the devolved Scottish Parliament, National Assembly for Wales, London Assembly, and Northern Ireland Assembly are also unicameral.
While the Canadian provinces are all unicameral, the federal Parliament is bicameral. The Senate is appointed, but has almost all the powers of the elected Commons.
When Brian Mulroney was trying to get his GST tax enacted, the Liberal dominated Senate threatened to block it. Mulroney invoked a never-before used clause of the Constitution to appoint additional Senators to pass it. Unlike most powers, which are exercised by the GovGen, additional Senators can only be appointed by the Queen herself.
Despite the line, "First in peace, first in war, and last in the American League, the Washington Senators did have an extended stretch of success from 1924-33, when the team appeared in three World Series and was in the first division of the league every year but 1929. The success of the Yankees and Philadelphia Athletics obscured their play. The team fell into the second division in 1934 and stayed there most seasons.
The Ottawa Senators, founded in 1883 and 11-time winners of the Stanley Cup, played in the NHL from 1917 to 1934 before their small-market and Depression-induced failure (after 1 more year as the St. Louis Eagles). The Ottawa Senators name was reintroduced in 1992 for an expansion team that plays today.
The Minnesota Twins baseball team was established in 1961. They won World Series titles in 1987 and 1991. The team was originally founded as the Washington Senators in 1901, and then in 1905 they changed their name to the Washington Nationals, and although ‘Nationals’ appeared on the uniform for only two seasons, the team was known as the Senators and the Natiinals interchangeably for 60 years. The Senators won the World Series in 1924, and so the Senators/Twins franchise has three World Series championships, in 1924, 1987, and 1991.
The current Washington Nationals were formed in 2005 from the previous Montreal Expos team.
The last manager of the Washington Senators, and the first manager of the Texas Rangers after their move to Arlington in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, was Ted Williams. His head is now immersed in liquid nitrogen in a canister in Arizona, awaiting reanimation if some future generation ever develops the technology, or wants to.
Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy served as a Massachusetts State Senator continuously for 46 years, 292 days: the longest uninterrupted Senatorial reign in US history.
John McCain’s Senatorial reign started in January 1987, and lasted until his death in August 2018. Over 31 years.
McCain Foods was founded in 1957, in New Brunswick, Canada. The company specializes in potato products, and is now one of the world’s largest makers of frozen potatoes, claiming that one out of every three French fries in the world is a McCain fry.
Florenceville, New Brunswick, is on the Saint John River which empties into the Bay of Fundy at Saint John, New Brunswick. The Saint John River is the second longest North America River, of the rivers that lie between the Mississippi and St. Lawrence. It is 418 miles long, and only the Susquehanna, at 464 miles, is longer.
The Saint John River is so scenic, it is nicknamed “the Rhine of North America”. (gImages, https://goo.gl/cdc9Tq).
McCain Food was founded in Florenceville.
New Brunswick is home of the Hopewell Rocks, a natural rock formation on the Bay of Fundy consisting of towering islands of rock worn in at the base by the tides.
The Black Rock Desert of northwestern Nevada is about 175 miles northeast of Reno. It is named after the Black Rock Range and Black Rock Point (gMap, Google Maps) which are very clear and distinct landmarks that were useful to wagon train immigrants crossing the west (image, Black Rock Range - Wikipedia). A spring also aided the immigrants. It is part of the Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area.
John Fremont and his party, in 1843, were the first European people recorded to cross the desert.
The annual Burning Man Festival takes place at a temporary Black Rock City that is set up in the desert.
The 3 major network studios in New York City are nicknamed “Black Rock”. “Hard Rock”, and “30 Rock”.
Thirty Rockefeller Plaza is the address.
And, lastly,
John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) made the significant portion of his wealth in the oil industry. He founded Standard Oil in 1870, and at the turn of the century became the richest man in America. At his peak he controlled 90% of the oil in the US. In the 1911 Supreme Court ruling in Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, the court forced the dismantling of Standard Oil and it was broken up into 34 separate entities, including Esso/Exxon.
The name ESSO is an acronym for Eastern States Standard Oil. In most of the world, the Esso brand and the Mobil brand are the primary brand names of ExxonMobil, with the Exxon brand name still in use only in the United States alongside Mobil.
The village of Odell, Illinois is the site of the Historic Standard Oil Gasoline Station, and also other vintage service stations such as the Abandoned Old Mobil Station and the ruins of an Old Gas Station.
Odell IL is along Route 66.
gImages: https://goo.gl/rdGwJJ
Scott O’Dell was an award-winning novelist, best known for his young adult novel Island of the Blue Dolphins. He wrote historical fiction, including several children’s novels about historical California and Mexico. He died aged 91 in 1989. Of his early life, he says:
“Los Angeles was a frontier town when I was born there on May 23, 1898. It had more horses than automobiles (we went to town in a rubber-tired buggy with a red fringe on top), and there were more jack rabbits than people! The first sound I remember was a wildcat scratching on the roof of our house.”