News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
The first automobile was built in 1769 by French Army Captain Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot. It was meant to be used for transporting cannons. It traveled at about 2 miles per hour. One of the reasons it failed to catch on was the fire in the boiler kept going out.
The melody for “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” is from the Civil War drinking song “Johnny Fill Up the Bowl.”
Anglii was the Roman name for the place we now know as Denmark, at least the southern part. The occupants did not like it there so they sailed west and found an island to live on. The part that is called England on that island gets its name from them.
Sadistic serial killer Ted Bundy was a Rockefeller Republican. He attended the 1968 GOP convention as a delegate for Nelson Rockefeller.
The large island of Madagascar is but 260 miles off the coast of Africa but was settled by east Asians. They came from Borneo in outrigger canoes about 350 years before the birth of Christ.
Today is the anniversary of VE Day but it is not the 72nd Anniversary of the unconditional surrender of Germany in World War II. That would have been yesterday as the surrender was signed 2:41 p.m., May 7.
Today is the 72 Anniversary of active operations by German forces which occurred 11:01 p.m., May 8.
Actually, one German army continued fighting in Prague, Czechoslovakia until May 11.
The character Dr. Strangelove did not appear in the book upon which the movie was based. The book, Red Alert, was not a black comedy but a serious thriller.
Russian fun — Do Russians ever have fun? Well, they don’t have a word for it.
Where is Frankenstein? Yes, it’s a where. It’s a town in Poland now known as Zabkowice Slaskie. It was established after the Mongol invasions in the 13th century. A plague in the 16th century killed about a third of its inhabitants.
