The US Marine Corps is in the Department of the Navy.
(And some of us like to say, yeah, it’s the Men’s Department :D)
U.S. Army III Corps first saw action in WW II at Fort Jeanne d’Arc, near Metz. That fort was named after La Pucelle d’Orléans, a farmgirl born 6 January 1412 who appeared before King Charles VII at age 16 and made four prophecies which all came to pass. She was convicted of heresy by a pro-English court and burned at the stake 30 May 1431 (the only capital offense being the wearing of men’s clothing). She was posthumously acquitted 7 July 1456; and proclaimed a Saint of the Catholic Church 16 May 1920 by Pope Benedict XV.
In Henry VI, Part 1, Shakespeare refers to Joan of Arc throughout the play as “Pucelle”. He treats her as a witch who deserves to be burned at the stake.
Henry’s Hamburgers is a former American fast-food restaurant chain of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Only one franchise store remains today.
Hamburger Harry’s, on West 45th Street, was once a popular burger joint in the Broadway theatre district but is now gone.
Hamburger Harry’s is located near the cities of Tribeca, Peck Slip, Canal Street, Trinity, and Financial District.
Harry’s Bar in Venice, Italy, was a favorite hangout of Ernest Hemingway, Arturo Toscanini, Guglielmo Marconi, Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Truman Capote, Orson Welles, Baron Philippe de Rothschild, Princess Aspasia of Greece, Aristotle Onassis, Barbara Hutton, Peggy Guggenheim, and Woody Allen.
Venice Beach, CA is nicknamed Muscle Beach because of the outdoor weightlifting gym where muscle-heads go to be seen and show off their physiques.
Nevil Shute’s best-selling book was On the Beach (1957), a postapocalyptic tale set in his native Australia. It was made into a movie two years later.
Under his real name, Nevil Shute Norway was a premier aircraft design engineer, having served at a very young age as the chief engineer on the R100 airship project. He later co-founded and served as chief engineer of the aircraft manufacturer Airspeed, Ltd., as he discussed entertainingly in his autobiography, Slide Rule. The Airspeed Envoy design was chosen for the King’s Flight. Norway’s novel writing was merely a leisure-time hobby, although more lucrative than his regular job.
Norway has won more Winter Olympics medals than any other country, and lead all nations in winning each of the three medal categories.
This summer’s Football World Cup is scheduled to be held in Brazil, and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, but stadium construction for both events is running far behind, and there are rumors that the Olympics might have to be moved. There have also been several deaths of construction workers.
The first film featuring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers was Flying Down to Rio, in which they scandalized proper society by dancing with their foreheads touching. The film did observe the propriety of the 1930’s, however, by having the white and black dancers on the nightclub floor in the big Carioca number at different times. It was standard studio practice to have scenes with black performers be easily removed for showing in Jim-Crow-heavy areas.
France Flight 447 (abbreviated AF447) was a scheduled international flight from Galeão International Airport in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris, France. On 1 June 2009, the Airbus A330-203 airliner serving the flight crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, resulting in the deaths of all 216 passengers and 12 aircrew.
Charles de Gaulle led the Forces françaises libres during WW II. Two famous, albeit fictional, Free French soldiers were Richard Blaine and Louis Renault, who joined a garrison at Brazzaville shortly after the murder of German Major Heinrich Strasser.
Charles de Gaulle became persona non grata in Canada in 1967, after declaring “Vive le Québec libre !” from the balcony of the Montreal City Hall to a large crowd below.
CDG is the 3-letter IATA code for Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport. CDG is also known as Roissy Airport (or just Roissy in French). In 2013, CDG handled 62,052,917 passengers and 497,763 aircraft movements, making it the world’s eighth busiest airport and Europe’s second busiest airport (after London Heathrow) in passengers served.
Operation Yellow Ribbon was commenced by Canada to handle the diversion of civilian airline flights scheduled to land in US airports in response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. During the operation, departing flights, with the exception of police, military, and humanitarian flights were cancelled, marking the first time that Canadian airspace had been shut down.
The DEW Line, or Distant Early Warning, was a line of radar stations in the Arctic that was intended to detect fleets of Soviet bombers heading into Canadian airspace on their way to the US, in time for successful interception. It was backed up by the Mid-Canada Line and the southern Pine Tree Line.
After Casablanca? Sez who?
In play:
Andrei Gromyko served as Soviet foreign minister from 1957-85. He met with President John F. Kennedy in October 1962, unaware that JFK already knew of the Soviet Union’s secret deployment of nuclear-armed missiles to Cuba.