News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
Giant cabbage? Yes Miranda, cabbage can get bigger than you might think. Scott A. Robb presented one weighing 138.25 pounds at the Alaska State Fair in 2012.
The Hindenburg carried mail. When it burned in 1937 it was delivering 17,609 letters and such. Zeppelins were a major form of mail delivery for Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.
Aspirin is capitalized in Mexico, Canada, Germany and a lot of other places because it is a protected trademark of Bayer AG. Aspirin is lower case in the USA because it is sold generically here as the German pharmaceutical giant lost its trademark here in 1921.
No Anthony, the greatest POW escape was not The Great Escape orchestrated by the Brits at Stalag Luft III in Germany during World War II which was made into a wildly inaccurate yet entertaining movie. Only 76 were involved in that breakout. The greatest POW escape was the Cowra Breakout on Aug. 5, 1944 by Japanese prisoners being held in the remote Australian town of Cowra. That involved 1,104 POWs. All were recaptured except for the 231 killed.
Airliner lightning strikes are not shocking news. The average airliner get hits by a bolt about once a year.
Hat tip Air & Space magazine.
OK, all you residents of Chadds Ford, Pa., how do you say “burnt wine” in Dutch? Give up? It’s “brandewijn”. You spell it differently.
Dutch traders visited the Cognac region of France back in the 1500s to buy wine among other things. The wine was hard to preserve for the trip back so they distilled it. They then distilled it again. Burning it in other words. The name for the product was eventually shortened to just “brandy”.
Cognac is just brandy made in Cognac.
Hat tip Robert L.
Yes Anthony, Omaha was bombed during World War II. The Japanese did it on April 18, 1945. They used a hot air balloon. Nobody was hurt and no damage was done. It’s noteworthy, though, as that the Nebraska city is almost smack dab in the middle of the country about 1,300 miles from the Pacific and 1,100 miles from the Atlantic.
You want a white Christmas? Move to Syracuse, N.Y. It’s the snowiest city in the nation with an average fall of 123.8 inches.
Maybe you’d guess that but we betcha you would guess that Flagstaff, Az. is in second place with an average fall of 101.7 inches.
Snowiest city William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 12-25-19
Henry Cole William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 12-24-19
Henry Cole, a popular London museum director in the mid-19th century used to send short notes to his friends every Christmas. In 1843, he became extremely busy, so he asked John C. Horsely, an artist friend, to design a card saying “A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to You.” And so, Cole invented the Christmas Card.
Beyond The Pale? A palus was what the Romans called a sharpened piece of wood. They’d stick them around their camps to form a barrier against the bad guys.
Palus evolved to things like pole and pale. English troops called their protective barriers in unfriendly lands like Ireland and France and such pales.
When one went beyond the pale one went to places where order was not maintained and the unexpected was expected.
And now you know from whence comes the phrase.