Don’t ever call it a koala bear because it’s not a bear at all; it’s a marsupial. The word marsupial derives from the Latin marsupium, meaning “pouch,” a distinguishing feature of female marsupials as they have a tendency to carry their young in their pouches. In the case of the koala, the opening of the pouch has a sphincter to prevent the baby koala from falling out. As Eucalyptus leaves provide little in the way of energy, koalas sleep for 20 hours a day.
There are 334 species of marsupials. 70% of them are native to Australia, and the rest are found in the Americas. Just one, the opossum, is native to North America.
While the opossum is found in North America, a different marsupial species called the possum is native to Australia.
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (1939) is a collection of whimsical poems by T. S. Eliot about feline psychology and sociology, published by Faber and Faber. It is the basis for the musical Cats. The group Mungo Jerry, who charted with “In the Summertime”, got its name from one of the cats in one of Eliot’s poems.
Akira Kurosawa’s classic 1954 adventure Seven Samurai includes a line about “playing possum” to lead enemies into a trap. This is an anachronism, however, as opossums would have been unknown to the vast majority of Japanese people at the time of the story (the late 1500s).
Seven Keys was a game show of the 60s where people competed in what was basically chutes (snakes) and ladders. The winner was given a key, which opened one of seven cases holding prizes, including a grand prize. At the end of the show, you could use the key to see what it opened, or come back the next day to try again. Winning seven keys guaranteed you would get the big prize.
The Black Keys are an American indie / garage rock band. The band consists of guitarist / vocalist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney. The two of them both grew up in Akron, Ohio, and have known each other since childhood – they began playing together in high school, though they did not formally form a band together until 2001.
A piano’s black keys are all sharp and flat notes. However, most keys on a piano do not exactly correspond to just one note; the black keys generally designate two, such as the key that is both A sharp and B flat. Whole A# and Bb may sound indistinguishable to your ears, for reasons too complicated to explain in this thread, they are not the same note.
The Great Highland Bagpipes have a scale which does not match classical music scales.
The scale is nominally from low G to high A, with two notes C and F being sharps, although the sharp notation is omitted from the musical notations.
In addition, the tuning of the pipes has been creeping higher and sharper over the past century. The low A note is actually closer to a B flat in classical notation.
Overall, the scale is a variant of the Mixolydian mode rather than a scale defined by classical music
As a result, the pipes for not play well with other instruments, other than drums.
The playing of the bagpipes was banned in Scotland after the Jacobite uprising of 1745. They were classified as an instrument of war by the government. For centuries they have been used to play a call to arms, as in the well-known song “Danny Boy”:
“Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side”.
Glenn Cunningham (1909 – 1988) was a farm boy from Kansas who held the world record in the mile for a time in the mid-1930s. When he was 8, both his legs were badly burned in a schoolhouse fire, to the point where doctors were recommending a double amputation. That operation was never performed; two years after the accident, Cunningham finally was able to begin walking again. Thirteen years later, he competed in the 1932 Olympics, finishing fourth in the 1500 meter run.
Clan Cunningham is a Scottish clan. The traditional origins of the clan are placed in the 12th century. However, the first contemporary record of the clan chiefs is in the thirteenth century. On 18 December 2013, Sir John Christopher Foggo Montgomery Cunninghame, Baronet of Corsehill, was recognised by Lord Lyon as clan chief, after the chiefship had been vacant for over 200 years.
Speaking of milers. . .
Lee LaBadie, who went to my high school (a few years before me) was the Illinois high school state cross country champion and two-time Illinois high school mile runner-up. But, his real claim to fame came in 1971 at the Univ of IL when he became the first Big Ten undergraduate to run the mile in under four minutes (3:58.8).
He is currently the Men’s Distance and Cross Country Coach at the Univ of Akron
The Illinois State Police will celebrate the centennial of its establishment in 2022. Over 3,000 people work for the ISP now; its director is entitled to wear a four-star rank insignia. 66 troopers have been killed in the line of duty since it was founded.
The Blue Brothers famously drove a re-purposed 1977 Dodge Greenlight that served a previous life as an Illinois State Police squad car. 104 cars were destroyed during the making of the 1980 film. The record for most cars destroyed in a film is held by The Junkman(1982), in which 150 cars were destroyed.
An archipelago, Hawaii is the only American state not to have a statewide law enforcement agency such as state police or a highway patrol. Ironically, one of the most popular American TV shows about state police work, Hawaii Five-O, is set in the state.
Hawaii Five-O is one of the series that has appeared two times. This first time was from 1968 to 1980, with the new show (with new actors) debuting in 2010 and continuing into 2019.
During season two of the new series, McGarrett’s Chevrolet Silverado Crew Cab truck is shown with license plate number “F6-3958”, a nod to the original Hawaii Five-O where Jack Lord’s McGarrett had this plate number for his personal state issued car, first a 1968 Park Lane later a 1974 Marquis Brougham.
Simpsons’ creator Matt Groening stated that he had originally intended Comic Book Guy to be called Louis Lane and be “obsessed and tormented by” Lois Lane, but Groening was not present when the writers chose the name Jeff Albertson. The name was revealed in the February 6, 2005 episode, which aired on Super Bowl Sunday, “Homer and Ned’s Hail Mary Pass”, Comic Book Guy nonchalantly tells Ned Flanders: “My name is Jeff Albertson.”
In his second Inaugural Address on Jan. 20, 2005, President George W. Bush said, “We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom. Not because history runs on the wheels of inevitability; it is human choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as He wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul. When our Founders declared a new order of the ages; when soldiers died in wave upon wave for a union based on liberty; when citizens marched in peaceful outrage under the banner “Freedom Now” - they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled. History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty.”
Therese Okoumou, a 44-year-old woman who was arrested for climbing onto the Statue of Liberty on the Fourth of July, 2018, appeared in court for her arraignment on trespassing charges wearing a T-shirt that said “WHITE SUPREMENCY IS TERRORISM.”
As American historian David McCullough noted in the Ken Burns documentary The Statue of Liberty, not a word was said about immigration in all the speeches given at its dedication on October 28, 1886, including that of President Grover Cleveland.