Murray is a Scottish surname. It is derived from the name of the region named “Moray”, which is pronounced “Murray” in Scotland.
One notable Murray was General James Murray, who took over the command of the British Army after the death of General Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham. Murray was the first British civil governor of Quebec under the terms of the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Many of his ideas about how the British should govern Quebec, including respecting the laws, language and religion of the French-Canadians, were later incorporated in the Quebec Act of 1774.
Drones aren’t asexual; indeed, their sole purpose in life is reproduction and propagation of the species. It’s the worker bees (female) that generally aren’t involved in sexual activity.
In play: Entertainer Jan Murray, known (to me anyway) primarily for his frequent appearances on Hollywood Squares, was originally named Murray Janofsky. He was one of many Hollywood veterans of the Catskills “Borscht Belt” circuit.
The Earl Marshall is one of the great offices of state of the United Kingdom. It is a hereditary office, held by the Dukes of Norfolk. The Earl Marshall’s main responsibility nowadays is organising state funerals and coronations.
Ted Baxter, the stingy newscaster on the Mary Tyler Moore show, once went to a free medical clinic for poor folk, rather than pay a doctor’s bill. Murray caught him out when he saw Ted coming back into the studio dressed shabbily.
Part of the Confederate States of America were the Five Civilized Tribes. The Five Civilized Tribes were the five Native American nations—the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole—that were considered civilized by Anglo-European settlers during the colonial and early federal period because they adopted many of the colonists’ customs and had generally good relations with their neighbors.
Chickasha, Oklahoma (pronounced CHICK-a-SHAY) is located between Fort Sill in southwestern Oklahoma and Oklahoma City in the center of the state. The city is named for, and strongly connected to Native American heritage as Chickasha is the Choctaw word for Chickasaw.
The USS George HW Bush is the latest aircraft carrier in the Navy’s fleet. It was commissioned in January, 2009 and is the tenth and final carrier of the Nimitz class carriers. The next class of carriers will be the Gerald R. Ford class.
Most of I-880, which connects San Jose and Oakland, is known as the Nimitz Freeway. Admiral Chester Nimitz lived on the San Francisco Bay’s Yerba Buena Island during his retirement.
Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz died at his home on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay on February 20, 1966. He would have been 81 years old on the day of his funeral at Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, CA. He was the last surviving five-star admiral.
Chester Arthur got the nomination for vice-president because of his connections to the New York Republican machine, but on becoming President, pushed successfully for civil service reform to eliminate political patronage in the civil service and replace it with a merit-based system.
Arthur Ashe was born in Richmond, VA in 1943. Virginia is considered a southern state, and since Ashe was the first black player ever selected to the United States Davis Cup team and the only black man ever to win the singles title at Wimbledon, the US Open, and the Australian Open, his feats are even more impressive (to me, anyway).
The equestrian statue of Her Majesty on the grounds of the Saskatchewan Legislature shows her riding her favourite horse, Burmese, who was a gift from the RCMP to Her Majesty. For many years, she rode Burmese at the annual trooping of the Colours in London.
In the 2012 Olympics, Her Majesty’s parachuting double was daredevil Gary Connery. If the name seems familiar, that’s because Connery made history a few months ago for being the first skydiver to safely land without a parachute.
This past October, Felix Baumgartner broke several skydiving records when he jumped from a platform 24 miles above Earth’s service, wearing a pressurized suit and breaking the sound barrier as his speed reached more than 800 mph. One record he did not break was longest time for a skydive.