As part of attempts to settle Nova Scotia, King James I (VI of Scotland), created a special order of Nova Scotia baronets,
in hopes that they would encourage settlers in Nova Scotia, with the baronets as the feudal landlords. Some individuals still hold a baronetcy under James’ original grant.
James Dean worked as a “stunt tester” for the early-1950s game show Beat the Clock, testing the safety of the stunts that some of the studio audience members would later perform. However, he proved so agile at completing the stunts that his results couldn’t be used to set time limits for contestants to complete them. So he was reluctantly let go.
The clock at Hampton Court palace only has one hand, an hour hand. When it was built, minute hands were optional.
The first university music school in the USA to be named for a jazz musician was the University of Idaho’s school, which was renamed in 1987 to honor Lionel Hampton. A couple of years earlier, the university had renamed its annual jazz festival for Hampton after the vibraphonist and his band had begun appearing regularly at the event.
Not a university but a college, Marymount Manhattan College in New York City’s upper east side has NYC’s largest dance studio. MMC has an excellent dance program. MMC’s famous alumni includes Geraldine Ferraro.
The University of Regina, Saskatchewan, is one of the few universities to include bagpipes as an option in their fine arts music degree.
BASMOQ is a handy acronym mnemonic for Canada’s main provinces, left-to-right (west-to-east).
Chinese characters conform to a roughly square frame and are not usually linked to one another, so they can be written in any direction in a square grid. Traditionally, Chinese is written in vertical columns from top to bottom; the first column is on the right side of the page, and the text runs toward the left.
The Dominion Lands Survey, in use in Western Canada, used a square grid for each township, divided into 36 sections.
Within each township, sections 29 and 11 were to be used to fund the local schools.
Sections 8 and 3/4 of section 26 were allotted to the Hudson Bay Company, to satisfy Canada’s obligations under the transfer of the HBC territories to Canada.
The remaining odd numbered sections (16 in each township) were assigned to railways, mainly the CPR, as part of the contracts to build transcontinental railways.
The remaining even numbered sections (16 1/4) were reserved to the federal government, for distribution to settlers who homesteaded in the area.
The Point of Beginning, on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border near East Liverpool, Ohio, was the official starting point for all public lands surveys west of there.
The Red River Rebellion was triggered when the Dominion Land Surveyers began surveys that crossed existing land occupied by Métis farmers, who owned land by custom, measured in long narrow strips running back from rivers, instead of the DLS grid.
The Federation and its Klingon allies only won the Dominion War on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and even then only at great cost, when the Romulans were tricked into entering the war on the Federation’s side.
After the British burning of Washington during the War of 1812, a bill calling for the permanent removal of the capital to another city was only narrowly defeated in Congress.
That burning of Washington was during the Battle of Bladensburg and has been called “the greatest disgrace ever dealt to American arms.”
“Arms and the Man” is a play by George Bernard Shaw, a comedy which mocks the futility of war. The main character, Captain Bluntshli, is a Swiss mercenary in the Serbian army. He carries chocolate cream candies instead of bullets.
Shaw and his wife accepted an invitation to stay at Alexander Woollcott’s home. When the day of arrival came, Woollcott and party left in the car to pick them up, leaving behind Woollcott’s good friend and inveterate prankster Harpo Marx, because they thought he’d misbehave. So Harpo’s sunbathing in the nude beside the pool when he hears sounds of a car coming in, and a voice asking harshly where everybody is. It was, of course, the Shaws, who were unaware that Woollcott was coming to pick them up, and came on their own. They quickly found Harpo who had wrapped himself in a towel. Harpo introduced himself and G.B. said something on the order of “Oh, I enjoy your films. I am George Bernard Shaw, and this [and here he reached out and snatched away Harpo’s towel], this is Mrs. Shaw.” The tale is related in Harpo’s autobio Harpo Speaks, and he goes on to say that from the very first he’s had nothing to hide from George Bernard Shaw.
The telephone was called an Ameche for a time in the 1940s after Don Ameche played Alexander Graham Bell in the movie version, although the real Bell was a Scotsman.
Alan “The Horse” Ameche, a Heisman-winning fullback from the U. of Wisconsin, scored the winning touchdown in overtime in the 1958 NFL Championship Game, “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” for the Baltimore Colts against the New York Giants at Yankee Stadium.
The first umbrella factory in the US was established in Baltimore in 1828.
Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot was forced as a child to always carry an umbrella with him (by his mother) after his father died from pneumonia as a result of being drenched in a downpour. It was a habit he was to carry into adulthood, as “Gotham’s underworld gentleman” known as the Penguin.