HMS Thunder Child was a fictitious Royal Navy warship which took on a Martian tripod, and lost, in H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds. Many years later, Star Trek: The Next Generation featured a ship of the same name (although spelled Thunderchild) which was destroyed while fighting a Borg sphere.
The names of Santa’s original eight reindeer (sorry, Rudolph) were first published in the 1823 poem ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’ by Clement Clarke Moore. Two of the original names, Dunder and Blixem, are derived from the Dutch words meaning thunder and lightning. These two names have been ‘Germanized’ to Donner and Blitzen, which are the German words for the same weather phenomena.
Pope Clement VII was a well-respected member of the Catholic hierarchy when he was elected Pope, but he lacked the political skills to deal with the complex European situation: Luther and the Reformation; disputes between the Holy Roman Emperor and the King of France, which led to the sack of Rome by the French and the Emperor imprisoning Clement for ransom; and Henry VIII of England’s demand for an annulment of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon, the aunt of the Emperor.
The first Holy Roman Emperor was Charlemagne, and the last was Napoleon Bonaparte.
Francis II, Emperor of Austria until 1835, is usually considered to have been the last Holy Roman Emperor until he dissolved the Empire in 1806. It does not appear that Napoleon Bonaparte, for all his imperial ambitions, ever claimed the title.
While he was emperor, Napoleon emancipated the Jews in areas of Europe under his control, insisting that they be free to own property and worship freely. For this, the Russian Orthodox Church condemned him as the “Antichrist and the Enemy of God.” Napoleon did not out do this of pure benevolence; rather, he did this because he believed religious freedom would attract Jewish populations to the French-controlled territories.
Metropolitan Kirill was elected leader of the Russian Orthodox Church in January 2009. His appointment raised hopes that he can lead the Church towards reconciliation with the Roman Catholic Church, nearly a millennium after Christianity’s east-west schism. The split dates from 1054 when the Patriarch of Constantinople was excommunicated from the Catholic Church. The breach finally divided the Christian churches of East and West, which had long had political and theological differences.
Rudyard Kipling’s “The Ballad of East and West” is sometimes taken for a statement of imperialism and racism, especially the lines
Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment seat;
However, the lines immediately following affirm that character is more important than racial or ethnic origins:*
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth! *
Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), in 1907 at the age of 42, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize and its youngest recipient to date.
The first royal Christmas message, ghostwritten by Rudyard Kipling, was transmitted in 1932 by King George V over the new invention of radio, using the BBC’s Empire Service. Every Christmas since, the reigning monarch has repeated the tradition, except for 1969 when a documentary broadcast of the investiture of her son Charles as Prince of Wales made the message superfluous in QEII’s judgment.
Rudyard Kipling wrote Captains Courageous, Kim, The Just So Stories and The Jungle Book while living in his Dummerston, Vermont country home, Naulakha, which you can visit and stay in today. Kipling lived there for just three years, 1893-1896; among his many visitors during that time was his friend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The HMS King George V (41) was a WWII British battleship commissioned in 1941. In May 1941 she hunted, pursued, and damaged the German battleship Bismarck, and contributed to its sinking on 27 May. During the war she operated in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific, and she was present in Tokyo Harbor on 02 September 1945 for Japan’s surrender. She was mothballed in 1950, and as such she was the first large warship to be preserved in this fashion. Finally, in 1957, she was scrapped.
During her WWII career HMS King George V was supported by Captain Francis Cyril Flynn of HMS Emerald.
Eugene, Oregon is also noted for its natural environment, recreational opportunities), and focus on the arts. Eugene’s official slogan is “A Great City for the Arts and Outdoors”. It is also referred to as the “Emerald City” and as “Track Town, USA”. The Nike corporation had its beginnings in Eugene, and in 2021, the city will host the 18th Track and Field World Championships.
The Emerald City, the capital city of the fictional Land of Oz in L. Frank Baum’s Oz books, was first described in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was published in 1900. In the book, the walls are green, but the city itself is not. However, everyone in the Emerald City is made to wear green-tinted eyeglasses. This supposedly is an effort to protect their eyes from the “brightness and glory” of the city, but in effect makes everything appear green when it is, in fact, no more green than any other city. This is yet another “humbug” created by the Wizard.
The Munchkins and the Emerald City people were not the only people in the Land of Oz in Baum’s first book. The Winkies in the West were enslaved by the Wicked Witch, as were the flying monkeys. Dorothy and friends passed through the lands of the Quadlings and the Hammerheads on their way to the South to get help from the Good Witch there (Glinda, whose name was applied to her sister from the North in the film). The southern trip was omitted from the film entirely, as was the Golden Cap used to summon the monkeys, and the Silver Shoes were changed to Ruby Slippers to better show off the new color film technology.
Eugene OR USA is named for Eugene Franklin Skinner, an early American settler in Oregon and founder of the city. Eugene Skinner was born in Essex NY USA and as an adult in the mid-1840s traveled overland to California, and then north into Oregon into the Willamette River Valley. He built his first cabin high up on the hill known as Skinner Butte (gMap, Google Maps) along the Willamette River. Skinner operated a ferry service across the Willamette River, and after Oregon was organized as a US territory in 1849, Skinner became the local postmaster. Skinner died in 1864. He is buried in the Masonic Cemetery in Eugene, the “Emerald City”.
The current U.S. Postmaster General is Megan Brennan, appointed in February 2015. She is the first woman to hold the post and is, after the President, the highest-paid Federal employee.
Megan Brennan‘s salary as Postmaster General is $82,000, per a Google search, salary Megan Brennan - Google Search.
Donald Trump’s salary as President is $400,000, per a Google search, salary Donald Trump - Google Search.
I would debate that…https://www.federalpay.org/gs/2018 and https://www.federalpay.org/ses/2018
In play: Brennan Brown is an American film, television, and stage actor. He currently plays Robert Childan on Amazon’s Man in the High Castle, and also plays Dr. Samuel Abrams on NBC’s *Chicago Med. *
Walter Brennan is probably best known to most as “grandpa” on the TV show “The Real McCoys”. But he was also one of only three male actors to win three Oscars (all for best supporting actor). He won in 1936, 1938 and 1940 (Come and Get It, Kentucky, and The Westerner).