In 1988, Brian Mulroney became the second Conservative Prime Minister of Canada to win back to back majority governments.
The only other Conservative Prime Minister who achieved back-to-backs was John A Macdonald a century earlier.
Jeanette Anna MacDonald was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy. During the 1930s and 1940s she starred in 29 feature films, four of them nominated for Best Picture Oscars and also recorded extensively, earning three gold records.
Jeanette MacDonald was signed to play the role of the Mother Abbess in the film version of The Sound of Music, but due to heart trouble was too ill to perform when filming started in 1964; she died in January 1965, aged 61. The role went to Peggy Wood.
Jeanette MacDonald was the younger sister of character actress Blossom Rock, who was most famous as Grandmama on the 1960s TV series The Addams Family.
Cartoonist Charles Addams, who created The Addams family cartoons for The New Yorker in 1938, was distantly related to U.S. presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams, despite the different spellings of their last names, and was a cousin to noted social reformer Jane Addams.
The New Yorker started as a weekly in 1925; the magazine is now published 47 times annually, with five of these issues covering two-week spans. Despite its title, The New Yorker is read nationwide, with 53 percent of its circulation in the top 10 U.S. metropolitan areas.
The New Yorker has a weekly contest in which its readers - or anybody, really - can suggest captions to cartoons drawn by its regular contributing artists. Roger Ebert once won the contest.
A “Yorker” is a term in cricket for a ball which is bowled to hit the pitch close to the batter’s feet, making it difficult to hit. It is usually bowled by a fast bowler.
A British team is the only nation to win an Olympic cricket contest (in 1900 in Paris), becoming the only Olympic gold medalists in cricket, and therefore the current Olympic Champions.
Until Fiji defeated Britain in the rugby sevens gold medal game at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, the defending champions, having won in both 1920 (Antwerp) and 1924 (Paris), were the United States.
The country of Fiji was granted independence from the United Kingdom in 1970. Since then, the country’s politics have often been contentious, and it has experienced four military coups.
In Argentina, there were six coups d’état during the 20th century: in 1930, 1943, 1955, 1962, 1966 and 1976. Between 1930 and 1983 when the last dictatorship fell, the military ruled the country for 25 years. The 1976-1983 dictatorship was notorious for the “Dirty War”, and its tens of thousands of forced “disappearances” and deaths.
The Argentine military junta’s 1982 invasion of the British-held Falklands Islands (called “Las Malvinas” in Argentina) was widely popular with the Argentine public, but the islands’ subsequent recapture by the United Kingdom led to rioting and widespread disgust with the regime, and its eventual fall. Despite considerable political turmoil and economic difficulties since then, Argentina has remained under democratic governance.
The Rio de la Plata between Argentina and Uruguay is the widest river in the world, at about 140 miles at its mouth. Considering the river is only 180 miles long, it has the biggest ratio of width to length, too.
The country of Uruguay has had several major waves of immigration from Italy, starting in the middle of the 19th century. As a result, a significant number of Uruguayans (perhaps as much as 1/3 of the population) are of Italian descent.
Nearly 95% of Uruguay’s electricity comes from renewable energy. The dramatic shift, taking less than ten years and without government funding, lowered electricity costs and slashed the country’s carbon footprint. Most of the electricity comes from hydroelectric facilities and wind parks. Uruguay no longer imports electricity
The Energiewende(German for energy transition) is the planned transition by Germany to a low carbon, environmentally sound, reliable, and affordable energy supply. The new system will rely heavily on renewable energy (particularly wind, photovoltaics, and hydroelectricity), energy efficiency, and energy demand management. Most if not all existing coal-fired generation will need to be retired. The phase-out of Germany’s fleet of nuclear reactors, to be complete by 2022, is a key part of the program.
Carbon has dozens of allotropes — nanofoam, nanotubes, buckyballs, etc. — but the two most well known allotropes are graphite and diamond. The contrast between graphite and diamond is remarkable: Diamond is the hardest known mineral, abrasive, transparent, the best known conductor of heat, but an electric insulator. Graphite is one of the softest substances, a lubricant, opaque, an electric conductor, but used as a heat insulator.
Mildred Spiewak Dresselhaus, known as the “queen of carbon science”, was the first female Institute Professor and professor emerita of physics and electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dresselhaus won numerous awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, the Enrico Fermi Award and the Vannevar Bush Award. Dresselhaus was particularly noted for her work on graphite, graphite intercalation compounds, fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, spin-orbit coupling in semiconductors, and low-dimensional thermoelectrics. Her group made frequent use of electronic band structure, Raman scattering and the photophysics of carbon nanostructures. Her research helped develop technology based on thin graphite which allow electronics to be “everywhere,” including clothing and smartphones.
Enrico Fermi, born in Rome, Italy and later a naturalized U.S. citizen, is one of just sixteen people to have an element named after him.