The German language was once the lingua franca of Central, Eastern and Northern Europe and remains the language with the most native speakers in Europe.
The steamship Great Eastern was the largest ship built in its era. It had a history bad luck; legend said that this was because a workman had been sealed up in the hull. It finally found success when it was used to lay the first successful transatlantic cable; it was the only ship of the time that could hold the entire length of cable.
The western terminus for the first transatlantic cable was Heart’s Content, Newfoundland. Heart’s Content is close to the towns of Heart’s Desire and Heart’s Delight.
Postage stamps issued by the Dominion of Newfoundland prior to its becoming a Canadian province in 1949 remain valid for postage if affixed to mail sent from anywhere in Canada.
In 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., creating NATO.
The first time the NATO guarantee of “an attack on one is an attack on all” was invoked was immediately after 9/11.
Huh. Does anyone actually do that anymore, or are the stamps more valuable as collectibles?
F-16 Falcon warplanes of the Vermont National Guard helped patrol the skies over Manhattan immediately after the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
With a population of 7855 by the 2010 census, Montpelier, Vermont is the smallest US state capital.
Vermont’s official state beverage is milk.
There are roughly 350 “squirts” from a cow in a gallon of milk.
The San Francisco Warriors originally played their home games in the Cow Palace after they moved to there from Philadelphia. It was also the home for two Republican National Conventions in 1956 and 1964.
The longest US political convention was the 1924 Democratic convention in New York – 17 days. The shortest was the 1872 Democratic convention in Baltimore – six hours.
The 1984 Democratic National Convention which nominated Walter Mondale of Minnesota and Geraldine Ferraro of New York was held in San Francisco, California. They were crushed that fall by the Reagan-Bush ticket.
Ronald Reagan signed into law the first bill legalizing abortion in the US, as governor of the state of California.
In 1938, Dr Alec Bourne openly challenged British abortion law by performing an abortion on a 14-year-old girl who had been raped by soldiers. Bourne performed the abortion, then turned himself in. Bourne was tried and found not guilty. He was the first to use the approach of deliberately breaking abortion laws in order to pave the way for other physicians to perform abortions they believed were in their patients’ best interests.
Henry Morgentaler was a Canadian physician who repeatedly challenged Canada’s abortion laws. In 1988, in R. v. Morgentaler, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the abortion offence found in the federal Criminal Code. Parliament has not re-enacted any legislation relating to abortion, which means that abortion is regulated solely as a medical procedure by the provinces, the same as any other medical procedure. Dr Morgentaler was appointed a member of the Order of Canada in 2008, and died last month, aged 90.
In being cast as Superman in the new Man of Steel, Henry Cavill becomes the third British actor to play the lead role in reboot of a successful screen adaptation of an American comic book series. Before him, Christian Bale was cast as Batman and Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man.
President James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other, simultaneously.
Barack Obama, the sixth post-WWII president to be left-handed, has read every Harry Potter book.
Long ago, left-handedness was thought to be evil. The Latin for left is sinister. The Latin for right is dexter, from which we get dexterity, generally regarded as a positive trait.