On 9 November 1781, British General Cornwallis formally surrendered 8,000 British soldiers and seamen to a French and American force at Yorktown, Virginia, bringing the American Revolution to a close.
The United States Constitution was ratified eight years later in 1789, and a New Nation was born, conceived in Liberty. The US Constitution is the world’s oldest written constitution still in effect.
The flag in the painting is the 1st adopted flag of the United States of America as approved by the Continental Congress of 1777. It postdates the ones sewn by Betsy Ross and others, and predates the defeat of the British.
The irony that’s not taught in schools is that the Founding Fathers were British and The American Revolution was fought by the British against the British. TRUE.
That’s the first known recording of John Philip Sousa‘s “The Stars And Stripes Forever March.” It was recorded by Kendle’s First Regiment Band on 29 December 1901 and published by Victor Records [source]. Sousa wrote in his autobiography that he composed the march on Christmas Day, 1896, while crossing the Atlantic, after he learned of the death of his band’s manager.
In 1987, an Act of Congress declared the song to be the Official National March of the United States of America.
In 1944, and against the odds, General Dwight D. Eisenhower accepted the risk and subsequent bloodshed in order to prevent more of it. His leadership freed France from Nazi Germany occupation and was the beginning of the end of the war in Europe.
General Eisenhower was mocked by the left, portrayed as a dullard, stupid and ignorant. He wasn’t. Not by a long shot.
This telephone, radio, video, news link, photo transmitter/receiver, printer included a “Like” function to transmit audio applause. It was an all-in-one Victrola on steroids, a paleo Smart Phone that went up to 11.
Fun Facts To Know And Tell 2: It all has to do with electrons. Mammals need iron for energy. Octopi need copper for the same reason and their is blood greenish-blue rather than red.
Fun Facts To Know And Tell 3: WWII fighter pilot Jack C. Taylor (1922-2016) retired from the military in 1945 and started a successful car leasing business in 1948. He named it after one of the aircraft carriers he flew missions from – the USS Enterprise.
Octopus Hentai Fail. Girl got her cheek beak bit (and no, she wasn’t trying to eat it). [Update: Sources say she WAS trying to eat it.]
“Great Green Globs” as sung by Penn Gillette in 1994. It’s slightly different from what I remember:
Great big globs of greasy grimy gopher guts,
Dirty little birdy feet, mutilated monkey meat,
French fried eyeballs dipped in kerosene:
That’s what I had for lunch.
“All mixed up with all-purpose porpoise pus?” Nice addition. The differences are probably regional.
It’s an interesting arrangement that gives the Keaton Music Typewriter its distinctive look. In terms of engineering, thanks to a curved meter on the left that Keaton called the Scale Shift Handle and Scale Shift Indicator, it’s easy to control exactly where the notes and characters fall on the page. By moving the handle up or down a notch, the typewriter adjusts to print 1/24 inch in either direction. Moving one notch up or down will cause the character to fall one musical step either way.
It appears that the typed sheet music in the museum display (the 2nd image) is turned 90 degrees from the way the machine types, or perhaps it’s a different model.
[Images and text found here; Original Patent here; Video here.]
“THE NEW STYLE WORLD MAP IS MADE BY CUTTING CROSSES AT 6 EQUIDISTANT POINTS ON THE COVERING OF A SPHERE WHICH IS THEN LAID OUT FLAT.
THE BUTTERFLY MAP
SHOWS THE WORLD JUST ABOUT AS ONE SEES IT ON A GLOBE WITHOUT EXAGGERATION OR DISTORTION OR ERRORS OF DISTANCE, AREA, OR DIRECTION. LONG DISTANCE FLIGHTS ALL OVER THE WORLD CAN BE ACCURATELY COMPARED ON THIS MAP AS ON NO OTHER.”
Bernard Joseph Stanislaus Cahill (1866–1944), cartographer and Architect, was the inventor of the octahedral “Butterfly Map” (published 1909; patented 1913).
At the start of his professional career in 1896, Cahill participated in the Phoebe Hearst competition for the design of the U. C. Berkeley campus. He was elected an Associate Member of the A.I.A. in 1899. He wrote articles for the “California Architect and Building News” and later for “The Architect and Engineer.” An early advocate of city planning, Cahill helped to define the concept of a “civic center” with his 1904 design of the San Francisco Civic Center, which he felt was the basis for the plan adopted by the city in 1912. He continued to be involved in the plan for the city, and wrote letters to the editor and articles expressing his ideas on the proper plan.
A specialist in mausoleum design and mortuary architecture, Cahill designed the catacombs and columbarium for the Cypress Lawn Cemetery, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (San Francisco), Evergreen Memorial Cemetery Memorial Building (Oakland), the St. Mary’s Cemetery mausoleum (Sacramento), and the Diamond Head Memorial Park in Honolulu [more here].
About midway through the Cleveland Air Races in 1946 an event placed somewhat inconspicuously on the program was dutifully announced over the public address system. The man said that a Navy Flight Exhibition team in four Grumman Bearcat fighters would demonstrate Navy precision flying in formation. On the team were a Lieutenant Commander, a Lieutenant and two Lieutenants Junior Grade. They were all Naval Aviators with combat records.
[…]
Such a four-plane formation employed so skillfully in the last war [WWII] gave cause for its leader, out-numbered fifteen to one, to exclaim without hesitation,
“Red Leader to Carrier, I have 60 Zeros surrounded and am proceeding to attack!” All of his four planes got back and were accredited 17 “kills.”
This week in 1946 Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Chester W. Nimitz ordered the creation of a flight demonstration team. In 1949, the team took the name Blue Angels.
