Montreal steak seasoning is a blend of spices, typically including garlic, coriander, black pepper, cayenne pepper flakes, dill seed, and salt.
The seasoning mix was based on a dry-rub mix which was developed in kosher delis in Montreal to create “Montreal-style smoked meat,” a salted and cured cut of brisket similar to pastrami.
Worried that the expansionist Yankees might try to cut off Upper Canada from Lower Canada by seizing and blockading the St Lawrence between Kingston and Montreal, the British government built thé Rideau Canal, running north from Kingston to connect with the Ottawa River, which eventually empties into the St Lawrence near Montreal. The Rideau Canal this ensured communications between the Great Lakes and Montreal, even if the perfidious Yankees blockaded the St Lawrence.
The junction point between the Rideau and the Ottawa was originally called “Bytown” after the British Army engineer in charge of building the Canal, Col John By.
Nowadays we call it “Ottawa.”
The Canadian Museum of History (called the Museum of Civilization until 2013) is located in Ottawa, Canada and is the most visited museum in Canada.
In summer, it’s possible to take a water-taxi across the Ottawa from the Ottawa side to the Gatineau side, where the Canadian Museum of History is located.
Here’s Bujold, on the job: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SIZcDWKyw0
In play:
The Cleveland Museum of Art, which celebrated its centennial last year, is always free to the public other than for limited-ticketing events and special exhibits.
Actor Art Carney, who was best known for playing Ed Norton, opposite Jackie Gleason’s Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners, served in the U.S. Army during World War II. Carney was an infantryman during the Battle of Normandy, and suffered a leg wound (from shrapnel) which resulted in his right leg being 3/4" shorter than his left leg, causing a limp for the remainder of his life.
Joshua Norton, known as Emperor Norton, was a citizen of San Francisco, California, who proclaimed himself “Norton I, Emperor of the United States” in 1859. Norton had no formal political power; nevertheless, he was treated deferentially in San Francisco, and currency issued in his name was honored in the establishments that he frequented. Upwards of 10,000 people lined the streets of San Francisco to pay him homage at his funeral in 1880.
The head of state of a distant-future interstellar polity, the Interdependency, in the science fiction novels The Collapsing Empire and The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi is called the Emperox, a gender-neutral term which is, Scalzi said in a recent interview, pronounced with a silent “x.”
The title Emperor of India was used by British monarchs from 1876 to 1948, initially at Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli’s behest, beginning with the dissolution and nationalization of the East India Company, and ending with Indian independence. The first Delhi Durbar, constituting a coronation, was held for Queen Victoria on January 1, 1877.
Victoria, aka ‘White Cat’, is a principal role in Cats the Musical. She is named after the character of the same name in T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, where she is named after T. S. Eliot’s favorite monarch, Queen Victoria.
Andrew Lloyd Webber is the composer of Cats, as well as 12 other musicals that have been performed on Broadway. He began writing music as a youngster; at the age of nine he composed a suite of six pieces. At the age of 15, he first set music to Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s earliest recorded clavier compositions, K. 1–5, were recorded in the Nannerl Notenbuch by his father, Leopold Mozart. He was five years old, and perhaps only four. Leopold eventually gave up composing when he realized his young son was so much better at it.
William Lloyd Webber tried his hand at composing, but was never able to break into the field, H eventually became a college professor of music and a church organist. He told his sons Andrew & Julian “Only go into music is you feel there is nothing else you can do.”
Andrew and Julian (a well known cellist) did not listen to him. Fortunately.
As Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George introduced the “People’s Budget” expressly designed to re-order wealth, especially through land taxes and death duties.
The House of Lords defeated the budget, which led to the Parliament Act of 1911, which significantly curtailed the power of the Lords.
The People’s Budget was also the beginning of the end for the great houses, such as Downton Abbey.
Porn starlet Traci Lords, who made many of her films while under age, took her stage name from Tracy Lord, the society bride role played by Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story.
Katharine Hepburn only married once: when she was 21, she married Philadelphia socialite Ludlow Ogden Smith. At Hepburn’s request, Smith changed his name to S. Ogden Ludlow, as Hepburn felt that “Kate Smith” would have been too boring of a name for herself.
After the driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory, Utah, the track built by the Union Pacific Railroad between there and Ogden, Utah was transferred to the Central Pacific, making Ogden the transfer point. The stretch of the Transcontinental Railroad between Ogden and Cheyenne, Wyoming, which was built to support another UP railyard, crossed the Great Divide, and had extra locomotive assigned to it to handle the track grade and the thin air.
The title for steepest main-line rail track grade in the United States long rested with Norfolk Southern for its 4.7-percent grade south of Saluda, N.C. With the closing of the Saluda track in 2002, Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) 3.3-percent Raton Pass grade in New Mexico became the steepest main-line grade in North America.
The Duke of Norfolk is the premier duke in the Peerage of England. The dukedom was first established in 1397 when it was bestowed by King Richard II on Thomas Mowbray. The dukes have historically been Catholic, unlike most English dukes, who are members of the Church of England.
The British Monarch holds the title of the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. The authority is mostly ceremonial, although the Supreme Governor formally appoints high-ranking members of the church. This is done on the advice of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, who is in turn advised by church leaders.