William Tecumseh Sherman (1820 - 1891) graduated from West Point in 1840. While there he roomed and became good friends with another important future Civil War General, George H. Thomas. When Sherman graduated as a 2nd Lieutenant, he became an artillery officer.
Today in Washington DC, the Sherman Memorial is located in Sherman Plaza, in President’s Park.
Oh that is so bizarre — I’m on an iPad and only hit the Post button once.
Oh that is so bizarre — I’m on an iPad and only hit the Post button once.
President’s Park is a National Park, located, naturally, in Washington, D.C. In fact, the White House is located within the confines of President’s Park. The Park consists of 82 acres and is home to a number of significant statues, memorials and structures.
One of these structures is Zero Milestone, which stands just south of the White House. Dedicated in 1923, it was intended to be the initial milestone from which all road distances in the United States should be measured. However, at present, only roads in the Washington, D.C. area have distances measured from it.
(Ninja’d!)
In play:
Our newest US National Park is the former White Sands National Monument. Trump signed the bill on 20 December.
CNN: White Sands National Monument designated as the newest US national park
By year established, we now have…
1872 Yellowstone
1890 Yosemite (CA SP 1864)
1890 Sequoia
1899 Mount Rainier
1902 Crater Lake
1903 Wind Cave
1906 Mesa Verde
1910 Glacier
1915 Rocky Mountain
1916 Lassen Volcanic (Cinder Cone NM & Lassen Peak NM 1907)
1916 Hawaii Volcanoes (originally Hawaii NP)
1916 Haleakala (originally part of Hawaii NP)
1917 Denali
1919 Grand Canyon (NM 1908)
1919 Zion (Mukuntuweap NM 1909)
1919 Acadia (Sieur de Monts NM 1916, renamed Acadia 1929)
1921 Hot Springs (Reservation 1832)
1926 Shenandoah (established 1935)
1928 Bryce Canyon (NM 1923)
1929 Grand Teton
1930 Carlsbad Caverns (1923)
1934 Everglades (established 1947)
1934 Great Smoky Mountains (established 1940)
1938 Olympic (Mt Olympus NM 1909)
1940 Kings Canyon
1940 Isle Royale
1941 Mammoth Cave
1944 Big Bend
1956 Virgin Islands
1962 Petrified Forest (NM 1906)
1964 Canyonlands
1966 Guadalupe Mountains (established 1972)
1968 North Cascades
1968 Redwood
1971 Capitol Reef (NM 1937)
1971 Voyageurs (established 1975)
1971 Arches (NM 1929)
1978 Theodore Roosevelt (National Memorial Park 1947)
1978 Badlands (NM 1929)
1980 Channel Islands (NM 1938)
1980 Biscayne (NM 1968)
1980 Katmai (NM 1918)
1980 Glacier Bay (NM 1925)
1980 Gates of the Artic (NM 1978)
1980 Kenai Fjords (NM 1978)
1980 Kobuk Valley (NM 1978)
1980 Lake Clark (NM 1978)
1980 Wrangell St. Elias (NM 1978)
1986 Great Basin (Lehman Caves NM 1922)
1988 National Park of American Samoa (established 1993)
1992 Dry Tortugas (Fort Jefferson NM 1935)
1994 Death Valley (NM 1933)
1994 Saguaro (NM 1933)
1994 Joshua Tree (NM 1936)
1999 Black Canyon of the Gunnison (NM 1933)
2000 Cuyahoga Valley (National Recreation Area 1974)
2003 Congaree (Congaree Swamp NM 1976)
2004 Great Sand Dunes (NM 1932)
2013 Pinnacles (NM 1908)
2018 Gateway Arch (Jefferson National Expansion Memorial 1935)
2019 Indiana Dunes (National Lakeshore 1966)
2019 White Sands (NM 1933)
When Prince Rainier succeeded to the throne of Monaco in 1949, gambling accounted for more than 95 per cent of the principality’s revenues. He decided to promote Monaco as a tax haven, commercial center, real-estate development opportunity, and international tourist attraction, and by the time of his death in 2005, gambling accounted for only approximately three per cent of the nation’s annual revenue.
When American actress Grace Kelly sailed to Monaco in 1956 to marry Prince Rainier, she did so aboard the steamship Constitution. The liner later was used for cruises around the Hawaiian Islands; I sailed there aboard her with my parents in 1987. She sank, alas, while under tow ten years later.
John Fitch developed the first practical steamship in 1791. Though it worked, he wasn’t able to make a profit and his company folded. Robert Fulton built his own steamship in 1807, the North River Steamboat (later renamed the Claremont) and was able to turn a profit.
Grace Kelly died in 1982 at the age of 52, from a car accident while she was driving and suffered a minor stroke. The strike caused her to lose control of her car, which fell off a steep road and down a mountainside. She survived the accident but folded (or, succumbed) to the injuries she sustained in it.
Ninja’ed!
In feudal Japan of the 12th through 16th centuries, ninja practices included espionage, deception, and surprise attacks. These covert methods of waging irregular warfare were deemed dishonorable and beneath the honor of the samurai.
Although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, the country still maintains a modern military force; its military budget is the world’s eighth-largest. In 2015, it ranked as the world’s fourth-most powerful military.
According to Business Insider this month, of the 25 most powerful militaries in the world Poland ranks 24th. And China at #3 out spends #2 Russia by 6x.
dup
According to one list, Jayson `Jay’ Gould (1836-1892) is the 24th richest man in all of human history. Gould made his fortune in the stock market, cornering stocks, bribing judges as necessary. He often teamed with ‘Diamond Jim’ Fisk, most famously when they (also allied with Daniel Drew) pried Erie Railroad away from Vanderbilt. Gould and Boss Tweed raced to be with Fisk when he lay dying from a gun murder. With his front-man dead, Gould was forced to sell Erie but he continued to trade RR stocks, increasing his fortune.
Gould’s credits include ‘Black Friday’ Sept. 24, 1869 after he’d bribed a relative of President U.S. Grant, hoping the government would help him corner the gold market.
James Buchanan Brady, also known as Diamond Jim Brady, was an American businessman, financier and philanthropist of the Gilded Age. He was a man of prodigious appetites. According to Wiki:
Charles Lewis Tiffany (1812-1902) was one of the richest Americans of his era. His investors were swindled in Philip Arnold’s 1872 diamond hoax, but in 1887 Tiffany acquired and sold some of the French crown jewels solidifying his reputation.
The city of Diamond Bar, California named after the “diamond over a bar” branding iron registered in 1918 by ranch owner Frederick E. Lewis. Rapper Snoop Dogg hails from Diamond Bar.
Snoopy, the dog in Charles Schulz’s comic strip Peanuts, served as inspiration for several items in the U.S. space program, including:
The “Communications Carrier Assembly,” or “communications cap” worn by astronauts as part of their spacesuits, is nicknamed a “Snoopy cap,” as, with its black “ears” and white middle, it resembles Snoopy’s colorings.
The lunar module for the Apollo 10 mission was named “Snoopy” (while the command module for that mission was named “Charlie Brown”).
NASA has a special honor, the “Silver Snoopy Award,” which is bestowed by NASA astronauts to non-astronaut NASA employees and contractors, in recognition of excellence.
